Anyone running this with Vista or XP?

[Dracher]

I found the Cd's for this game today and so I tried installing it onto my computer which is running vista. Sadly for some reason my characters are all "ghosts" along with every monster one the screen. You can barely see them (they are VERY transparent). I've tried messing with the game options but that doesn't help a thing and sadly no one ever plays this game anymore.

[rmemmett84]

Sadly I can offer no help but I will tell you that I have installed and played the game on both Windows 98 & Windows XP. Good luck.

[Dracher]

That's the sad part, I've tried using the Compatibility mode for both 98 and XP and I'm having the same problem. It sucks since I've never gotten the chance to finish the game even when I first bought it the first day it came out.

[Jaimas42]

I'm having the same ghost issues. I just reinstalled the game after 8 years. If anyone knows how to resolve would be appreciated. thanks

[Dracher]

Well ubisoft told me that it's due to the catalyst drivers with Radeon video cards.

[Mhordak]

I've installed the game on Vista running dual nVidia 8800 GTXs in SLi and had graphical issues as well. Doesn't sound like the same issue, but it was just as bad.... game was unplayable.

[TwoHandedSword]

For the record, I'm running this game under Vista Home Premium, so it is possible. I have a HP Pavilion with a NVIDIA GeForce 7350-LE card; the sound drivers are an issue, so I keep all game sounds turned off.

[BlueMage]

HI all... I'm new around here, but I'm having the same issue with ROMD on the new laptop. Had to get one since the last one died on me before I could finish things... I had gotten down to one of the big drow encounters, adn then the hard drive went bye-bye... Now, I have a HP Pavillion dv7 lappy, running Vista Home Premium 64-bit, with an AMD turion X2 CPU, 4Gb RAM, and an ATI HD 3200 chipset. I tried turning off the antialiasing, but that didn't help the ghosting issue. in fact, turning off the antialiasing resulted in BSODs whe I tried to run the program. On top of that some things just don't display... like NPCs, treasure chests and fountains... :-} kinda tough to figure out what to do if you can't see things. Is there a patch for the game that improves the compatability with ATI-based chipsets? or is there another area I need to look into that might yield better results? i have also tried the compatability mode for the ROMD executable, adn it didn't seem to help, either... just wondering... Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

[Ulfang]

I've always had a problem installing the game again nevermind having problems IN the game. From what I recall there was a problem if you didn't install in the default folder on your C drive whereas I install all my games on my D drive. If I recall there was a patch that fixed this. Pity though. I Would love to play the game again.

[Zkythen]

I'm having the same problems. Specifically, there are a few oddities I'd like to point out..

First, it's apparently it's not the ATI catalyst drivers, considering some people are running nVidia cards and having the same problem.

Second, items that seem to be missing are stationary interactable items. Perhaps we are missing a graphic layer?

Third, no shadows work at any shadow level.

Fourth, if you mess with the character occlusion, the lowest option makes all characters invisible, the second gives you a sort of stick figure, and the third makes them ghost-like and translucent.

Now, to save you the internet search on what occlusion does: it removes things you cannot see before shading. This saves on cpu and gpu cycles by cutting down on the amount of shading your computer needs to process. However, in RoMD, it seems that character occlusion seems to be working in reverse, and at lower levels attempting to show the viewer objects that are behind the character. I don't know what it would do when working properly, but it seems that the occlusion process may be the problem.

Can anyone with a WORKING RoMD shed some light on the issue? Here are some screenshots from the very first map, using one character to illustrate the problem...

This shows (or lack thereof) the character standing next to whatever object should be there with the occlusion on the first setting, furthest left.
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl1.jpg

This shows the character with occlusion on the default setting, in the middle. If you look carefully you can just make out the stick figure "Skeleton".
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl2.jpg

And this shows the character with occlusion on the third setting, on the right.
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl3.jpg

I'm going to mess with my hardware graphic settings and post my findings later. As it is, I'm using Windows XP (full updates) using a Sapphire ATI Radeon 4770, catalyst version 9.6.

[Zkythen]

I messed with my catalyst settings, and nothing seemed to do anything. I could not re-create the bsod mentioned by BlueMage. I did have a thought though. I've played a few games that experience graphic errors as the gpu stretches the picture when playing on a wide screen. So I downloaded a cool program I've used in the past called DXWnd and tried playing in window mode. No change, except now everything is smaller and the things that do appear are more difficult to see. So that was a bust (though I do recommend everyone grab DXWnd for later use. It's freeware!).

Any other ideas?

[Zkythen]

EUREKA! Sorry for the double(triple) post, but I figured it out! I can't tell you why this works, but it does. You simply have to disable direct draw acceleration. Now you're probably thinking "simply my butt", so here is the quick and easy guide to doing so in Windows XP! (sorry I don't have vista on here right now).

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT CHANGE ANY SETTINGS OTHER THAN THOSE MENTIONED HERE. IT MAY CAUSE YOUR COMPUTER TO IMPLODE AND CREATE A MASSIVE SINGULARITY THAT CRUSHES THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM IN A MATTER OF SECONDS.

Also: you WILL need to re-enable direct draw when playing anything other than PoR: RoMD.

click START>RUN.

In the dialog box that pops up, enter the word "DXDIAG" (minus quotes) and press OK.

A rather complicated looking window will pop up with a crudload of information you really don't need to know.

At the top there will be tabs. Select Display.

There are four areas on this page: Device, Drivers, DirectX Features, and Notes. Within the DirectX Features, press the Disable button next to Direct Draw Acceleration. This will prompt you to confirm, so answer yes yes stfu. This will disable the other two options as well, so don't panic.

Now Exit.

DON'T FORGET TO RE-ENABLE DIRECT DRAW ACCELERATION BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO PLAY ANY OTHER GAMES!

Hope this helps anyone still interested in this thread!

[XebaX]

Many, Many thanks, Zkythen, your solution about disable Direct draw worked perfectly for me, because my game jumped to the desktop before start, now, with your helpful post, this issue is only a bad memory.

Many Thanks Again.

Myth Drannor, Here I come!

Salu2

From Hell...

[Gokyabgu]

Last night I tried Por2 1,4 with speed mod on my Athlon 2500+,1 gb DDR, 128 mb geforce 6600gt, xp sp2. Have no problems with it. Works like a charm.

I also try it on my laptop: Core to Duo 2,00 ghz, 2 gb DDR2, 256 mb geforce 8600gs, vista. There is an annoying clipping problem. 3d textures like boxes or chests are flickering when I scroll the screen. Character graphics looks well though. Since there is no option in dxdiag page to close the directdraw acceleration on Vista, I can not do that. And also graphic card's driver don't allow me to close acceleration manually. So, I stuck with this graphics on Vista. It can still pretty playable, but also annoying.

This weekend, my new PC will arrive. I also will try Por2 on it and write the results here. It has Core to Duo 2,95 ghz, 4 gb DDR2, 1 gb geforce gts250 and both XP and Vista on it. So, I will see whether the issue is related with Vista or modern graphics cards. But, I suspect Vista is the real problem here.

[Gokyabgu]

As my new system arrived last weekend, I can definitely say the problem stems from the new graphic cards. It's not a Vista compability issue.