Weird video bug in Moo2 with Win 2000 Pro HELP!!

[heretk]

This game worked great for me under WIndows 98SE, however, when I installed Windows 2000 Professional, I got a weird video bug.

It seems relatively random but always happens early in the game. What happens is that the background of the interface goes black, as do many of the option buttons. When I move the mouse around, the pointer erases whatever it passes over. I have to restarts at this point to get it looking normal again.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Like I said it used to work great, until I upgraded operating systems. I have read in the forum that people are running it on XP, so it must work with Win 2K. I have reinstalled MOO2 countless times, and tried running it with and without the latest patch.

I am seriously going through MOO withdrawal here. HELP!

My specs:
Win 2000 Pro service pack 3
256 MB RAM
PIII 550MHz
ATI Radeon 7500 64 MB

[vmxa1]

Big difference in Win2000 and XP. Direct X is part of the package in XP. I have run across more people with problems in game on Win2K than any othr windows opsys.
For gamers, I would not go from Win98Se to anything other than XP, too many issues with too many games.
For business uses, why drop an obsolete OS on a box at this point, use XP instead. IOW I can not see any reason to go to W2K, even if it free.
Good Luck.

[catullus]

Yes.
You are scr*wed. Too bad, really. W2K (at least with DirectX 8) and MOO2 don't mix. Me too found out the hard way.

C.
Happy to have installed XP

[heretk]

Will upgrading to Direct X 8.1 help?

[vmxa1]

It can't hurt, but I would think it should not matter as Moo2 uses something like direct x 2.

[heretk]

Well, it did make a difference. Though it seems I just traded one set of problems for another. After updating to DirectX 8.1, the bugs I mentioned stopped. Only to be replaced by all planets and defenses being invisible on the tactical screen, plus the occassional random crash to desktop. Sigh.

Guess I will just hold out for Moo3.

[heretk]

I found a way around this little problem. I just rebuilt my computer to a dual-boot system: Win2K and Win98SE. (sigh of relief) Now I can keep my MOO fixes steady until the new one comes out.

[vmxa1]

There ya go. Even after Moo3, I will still be firing up Moo and moo2 from time to time. I can only hope Moo3 will be the same.

[Zyrax]

Im also experiencing these 'blackouts' in w2k as well as ALOT or random crashes =(

[heretk]

Yeah. I wrestled with it for a while. If there is a way to get MOO2 to work with Win2K, I don't know of it. Think it has something to do with the underlying NT kernel, which is notorious for not liking games (or anything else for that matter. It is much more unstable than 98SE). The dual boot solution mentioned earlier here is the only way to go.

All I can say is that MOO3 damn well better work with Win2K.

[karlmarx9001]

Alternatively, just play with the windows 98 compatibility layer.

[Zyrax]

Exactly how do I invoke the compability layer in w2k?

nevermind that, noticed the thread about it just now =)

[heretk]

Will you post the link to that thread? I am unfamiliar with the compatability layer.

Thanks.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by heretk
Yeah. I wrestled with it for a while. If there is a way to get MOO2 to work with Win2K, I don't know of it. Think it has something to do with the underlying NT kernel, which is notorious for not liking games (or anything else for that matter. It is much more unstable than 98SE). The dual boot solution mentioned earlier here is the only way to go.

All I can say is that MOO3 damn well better work with Win2K.

Why is that, it is an obsolete OS. In fact it is not even a popular platform for gaming. I would suspect most companies would not spent time testing in it. Just Win98 and XP.