Win2K problems (MOO2)

[catullus]

Started a new Moo2 game again, after pause of a year or so. Mouse problem is still there, but I can live with that.

Worse is, I sometimes get kicked out the program completely, no warnings, just a quick change from colony managment to desktop. Bummer. Seems to happen more in the later stages of the game, so it might be a memory managment thingy?

And I get some extraordinary color problems from time to time. Quite often, in fact. Every other round or so. Suddenly (usually in colony managment?) lots of stuff disappears, screen goes mainly black. Menu items are visible, but that's about it. Saving the game is OK (restarting is needed), but even quitting can be difficult, since I have to guess where the "yes" button is when asked if I'm sure I wanna quit...

Since last time I played, I have probably given my laptop more beatings than it could take, new video card drivers, new DirectX versions, every patch recommended by MS, so I guess I somehow frigged it up.

Anyone seen anything like it? Anyone found a cure?
I'll test my luck by reinstalling the game one of these days. If that doesn't work, I guess I have to search for old video card drivers or somefink.

(custom-made laptop, Pentium 650MHz SpeedStep, 8MB Savage MX video)

C.

[Werwurm]

I'm having exactly the same problems on an Athlon 1200 / 256 Ram, Hercules XT 400 (Kyro 2), Soundblaster 1024 and.. yap, you guessed right - Windows 2000.

There's only one thing i can tell you: Reinstalling the game will help you just as much, as upgrading drivers or turning off hardware acceleration. Not at all.

Oh well.. looks like i'll have to go back to Win 98 :-/
(At least that way i would get rid of another neat problem.. not being able to connect to the web without Winamp running, that is :P )

[astroboy808]

moo2 issues

Same trouble here, on a winxp laptop aswell. Augh, not being able to play moo2 makes the wait for moo3 even longer!

[Werwurm]

Actually it *is* possible to play MoO 2 on a Win 2k system without any problems / crashes.
Sadly, i don't know what did the trick.. i installed ServicePack 2 (which is available for free at microsoft.com), MS Visual C++ 6.0 (which changes some windows-settings, too) and nothing else of importance, as far as i remember. So after installing one of the programs mentioned above, your moo2 will hopefully run fine.
Good luck

PS: The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You've crushed all your enemies beneath your heel, blabla..

[catullus]

So I'm might not be wrong in remembering I once had it functioning correctly? Anyway, I've tried all the drivers I've found for my card, and tuned card and DX properties in every possible way. And tried the apcompat tool (didn't understand a bit, of course).
My suspicion is that DX 8.1 is buggy. No way to downgrade, of course.
Morale: Never change a working config for any other reason than security.

C.

[vmxa1]

What did you have before 8.1? If it was 7 or 6 I would agree. I think the bug came in 8.0. I have had problems at times with 8.0 and now 8.1. Games that worked fine in 6 or 7.

[Werwurm]

Hehe, i found it..
Try installing MS Direct X Developer's Kit 8.1, which changes some of your direct x files from retail to debug version. These changes can be undone afterwards quite simply via the start menu, so you can switch between versions in less than 3 minutes.
Have Fun

Addition:
Some games may run slower using the debug direct x files and some others (Morrowind, for example) won't run at all, so please don't sue me

[Paul Go Gain]

I had a similar problem, it crashed when I moved the mouse across the right border of the screen. I got several problems like this with different applications under XP. I finally set up an additional Win98 partition. It's annoying, but for some of my software it's the only way to get on the screen again.
Partition Magic 5 (I got it from a magazin CD) was helpful

[moomin]

My Moo2 is very stable under 2000, unless I happen to have ":"s in my ship design names... then it's crash galore city. Go figure.