PC games you want to play... but can't

[Arehexes]

Magika

 

[zombieeater6000]

i would love to play fallout 3 and fallout new vegas on pc so i could go overboard with mods but my PC sucks at the moment

 

[-Dragmire-]

Spoiler: snip

Fatal Error!(this is the name of the window that opens after the program starts - finishes loading(visuals/audio load fine for loading screen) - and crashes)

An unexpected error has occured! Pressing 'Send Report will send us helpful debugging information that may help us resolve this issue in the future.

You can also contact us directly at [email protected].

Exception: Integer Divide by Zero (code 0xc0000094) at address 02785BF7 in thread FC4
Module: CMGxSrv.dll
Logical Address: 0001:00004BF7

Product: PlantsVsZombies
Version: 1.2.0.1096
Time Loaded: 00:00:06
Fullscreen: No
Primary ThreadId: FC4
Times Played: 0
Build Num: 0
Build Date:


Never could figure out the problem, the only significant difference between the system that worked and the system that didn't was the 32 vs 64 bit OS.

Seems to be related to the Soundcard you are using, e.g. "CMGxSrv.dll" is a ASUS Xonar specific library, people seem to have (had) trouble with it regarding other games like Bioshock or Fallout 3 etc. too.
Either try updating your drivers [http://support.asus.com/download/ModelList.aspx?SLanguage=en&keyword=xonar&type=1] or if you really want to play do what this guy recommends:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357247&page=4

Let me guess, you have an Asus Xonar? I had a similar problem (see my post above) and it was cause of my Xonar DX. I took out my Xonar DX and switched to the onboard sound and the game worked fine.

Also, if you google CmGxSrv.DLL, all the posts are related to the Xonar.

Device Manager lists my sound card as an HDA XPLOSION 7.1
I do know my motherboard is Asus though.

 

[Antari]

The only game I haven't been able to get to run without a dedicated system for it is Birth of the Federation. It was for Windows 95 ... the black sheep of the family.

 

[feauxx]

the 7th guest
shuffle puck cafe
prince of persia
wolfenstein 3D

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

Well I thought for the longest time that Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate (1998) wouldn't work on any operating systems besides 98 and 95, having tried it on a Vista laptop and an XP desktop (assuming nothing works on ME), but I recently tried it again on my new laptop (with Vista, soon to be upgraded to Win 7, so this may become true again) and it works in 95 compatibility mode, no issues. Was very very happy.

I know I won't be able to play Stars! (1996) when I upgrade to Windows 7. I may see if I can get it to run on Wine in Ubuntu ^_^

Other than that, no crippling compatibility issues with any of my other games however old.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Spoiler: snip

BOOOM I bring you gifts
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/dungeon_keeper
gog just got dungeon keeper and if its on gog then its been remastered to work on modern operating systems

there isnt really a game that I cant play on my pc... I guess toon struck since it was an early win 95 game and its hard to get those to work on a modern os, unfortinatly dosbox doesn't make those work, I keep hoping gog will get it

thanks for the info, I'll definitely get it. It just sucks having to buy it again even though I own the cd version, it's like paying for a patch.

well if its for dos then you can dl dosbox and play it, but if its win 95 then your kinda stuck needing the gog version since win 95 doesnt like new os's at all

yeah, unfortunately I got the Gold Edition(EA Classics) win 95-2000 only.

Dungeon Keeper 2 fares slightly better(can start and kind of work) but has major audio and video bugs that may or may not lead to a BSoD. So I've stopped trying to play it.

have you tried playing it in compatibility mode? vista should be able to do dungeon keeper in windows 200 compatibility mode, just right click the icon for the executable and select properties, there should be a compatibility tab

It's been a while but I recall it loading but a persistent bug made it unplayable. I don't know how to describe it other that random colored pixel syndrome, like an old nes game when you forgot to blow the dust from the cartridge.

ahh, that sounds like a driver incompatibility or even a bad vid card (altho if thats the only game it does it in then its probably not a bad card, unless it gets worse) well I guess that gog is your best option altho the version they have is the dos one I think so there would be some slight differences from the one you have

I have an EVGA GTX260 with updated drivers, didn't work with my old GTX8800 either.
My sound card is a HDA XPLOSION 7.1 with updated drivers

new drivers might not be compatible but the old ones crashed randomly so I can't bring them back.

well as I said, windows 9x games are hard to get working on modern systems compatibility helps but for the most part the only way to run them is with a win 9x system or hoping someone like gog actually pokes tho the code to make them work

Thanks for the help anyway. $6 isn't too much to enjoy dungeon keeper again on gog

 

[Vibhor]

I'd love to play Noctis IV on fullscreen in vista but god damn, the game just doesn't like it.

 

[sluggyfreelancer]

HAHA, I can play any and all PC games, I'm American. DNF aside and the Aussies and Euros are sorting out that turd.

I don't get how being American affects anything...

I don't even know why I'm in this thread, I don't have a gaming PC/laptop.

I want Age of Empires II again.

 

[Worgen]

Spoiler: snip

BOOOM I bring you gifts
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/dungeon_keeper
gog just got dungeon keeper and if its on gog then its been remastered to work on modern operating systems

there isnt really a game that I cant play on my pc... I guess toon struck since it was an early win 95 game and its hard to get those to work on a modern os, unfortinatly dosbox doesn't make those work, I keep hoping gog will get it

thanks for the info, I'll definitely get it. It just sucks having to buy it again even though I own the cd version, it's like paying for a patch.

well if its for dos then you can dl dosbox and play it, but if its win 95 then your kinda stuck needing the gog version since win 95 doesnt like new os's at all

yeah, unfortunately I got the Gold Edition(EA Classics) win 95-2000 only.

Dungeon Keeper 2 fares slightly better(can start and kind of work) but has major audio and video bugs that may or may not lead to a BSoD. So I've stopped trying to play it.

have you tried playing it in compatibility mode? vista should be able to do dungeon keeper in windows 200 compatibility mode, just right click the icon for the executable and select properties, there should be a compatibility tab

It's been a while but I recall it loading but a persistent bug made it unplayable. I don't know how to describe it other that random colored pixel syndrome, like an old nes game when you forgot to blow the dust from the cartridge.

ahh, that sounds like a driver incompatibility or even a bad vid card (altho if thats the only game it does it in then its probably not a bad card, unless it gets worse) well I guess that gog is your best option altho the version they have is the dos one I think so there would be some slight differences from the one you have

I have an EVGA GTX260 with updated drivers, didn't work with my old GTX8800 either.
My sound card is a HDA XPLOSION 7.1 with updated drivers

new drivers might not be compatible but the old ones crashed randomly so I can't bring them back.

well as I said, windows 9x games are hard to get working on modern systems compatibility helps but for the most part the only way to run them is with a win 9x system or hoping someone like gog actually pokes tho the code to make them work

Thanks for the help anyway. $6 isn't too much to enjoy dungeon keeper again on gog

yeah, Im damn tempted to get it also, I used to really enjoy it

 

[Proarcher]

There are two games I miss dearly that sadly, no longer work because of the new OS these days.
1. "The Neverhood" (a fun, beautiful, clever and hilarious claymation point and click adventure game)
and 2. "Populous: The Beginning" (my favourite RTS of all time. One half god game, the other RTS - with revolutionary graphics and terrain manipulation for it's time (1998). It's actually a large part of the inspiration for the upcoming 'From Dust' game in development.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

greeked [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Wing_Alliance].

Hopefully GOG or Steam will provide a fix.

Better yet, a remake, along with TIE-Fighter.

238U.

 

[the spud]

I'm sort of a noob when it comes to pc gaming, so i'll need you guy's help, and this seems as relevant a time as any. Will my dell latitude d620, running with windows XP, be able to run starcraft, halflife, and deus ex (the originals)? I know it can run amnesia, if that helps.

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/

I use that site whenever I'm curious as to whether i need an upgrade or not.

On a side note; if you're running a laptop there's a good chance that all your hardware's been under-clocked to prevent overheating, given that they can't fit a heat sink in them.

Thanks for the help.
On a side note, my laptop does get REALLY hot after an hour or two of use. So hot I literally can't keep may hand on the bottom.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

Minecraft

 

[onewheeled]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

I bought that and Shadow of Chernobyl for $10 on a Steam sale on Halloween last year, and am currently playing through SoC for the second time (actually, I never beat it at all... I got to the part with the helicopter in Chernobyl and stopped playing for like five months, so decided to start over). But my graphics card, a Radeon HD 3600, isn't good enough to play CoP at all. It looks like crap and runs like a PowerPoint presentation on the lowest settings, which is strange because my computer ran the Crysis demo flawlessly on medium settings, if I remember correctly.

 

[Wintermoot]

Bioshock/Bioshock 2
currently my PC is pretty much shit.
also S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
for the same reason.

 

[Wintermoot]

As Technology advances, games we were once/still fond of cannot remain with us.

What games did you love that will no longer play on your newer systems?

For me: The Dungeon Keeper Series, no compatibility mode will work on my 64bit Vista system


*STILL can't play Plants vs Zombies either....

have you tried DOSbox?
it,s a great emulator and doesn't require DOS experience.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Spoiler: snip

Device Manager lists my sound card as an HDA XPLOSION 7.1
I do know my motherboard is Asus though.

It definitely sounds like a sounds card problem, try "disabling" it with rightclick from your Device Manager and see if the game launches that way, you will have no sound but will probably see if it is the device causing it, can always "Enable" it again.

Regarding Dungeon Keeper 1 (if you don't want to buy it on GoG), it is a bit more complicated (you will need the Microsoft's ACT [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=24da89e9-b581-47b0-b45e-492dd6da2971]), fortunately here is a YouTube video explaining step by step what to do to get it to start:

There are two games I miss dearly that sadly, no longer work because of the new OS these days.
1. "The Neverhood" (a fun, beautiful, clever and hilarious claymation point and click adventure game)
and 2. "Populous: The Beginning" (my favourite RTS of all time. One half god game, the other RTS - with revolutionary graphics and terrain manipulation for it's time (1998). It's actually a large part of the inspiration for the upcoming 'From Dust' game in development.

You didn't say what your problems were with the games so I'll have to take a guess I got Neverhood here so I installed it and tried, only issue I see on Win7 x64 is Colors are garbled. There's an easy fix for that here: http://www.mediafire.com/?z3lljjnzmij

This fix is a bit of a workaround. The Team 17 game Worms Armageddon has the EXACT same issue on newer systems (Vista/Win7) with distorted colors and the like. It has something to do with the OS "stealing" the color pallet from the game. I'm not quite sure about all the technicalities, but either way a very cleaver person developed this launcher to use in conjunction with WA to fix the issue. On a whim I decided to see if it would work with the Neverhood, one of my all-time favorite games, and amazingly it did. So to keep this game alive, please pass this around to all the Neverhood die-hard followers. I take absolutely no credit for the creation of the launcher, if you created this launcher all of us thank you very much. So follow the directions below to get The Neverhood to work on newer Windows OSes:

1) Extract "WAVistaWin7.exe" to the Neverhood installation directory.
2) Rename "nhc.exe" to "wa.exe" (The WA launcher looks for the Worms executable by default)
3) Right-Click on your new "wa.exe" and go to properties.
4) Click on the compatibility tab.
5) Make sure its running in Windows 95 compatibilty mode.
6) Check the "Run in 256 colors" box.
7) Press okay and close out the properties dialog.
8) Now all you need to do is run the "WAVistaWin7.exe" launcher instead of the original "nhc.exe" and all should be well!

Hope this solves everyone's problems =)

Game works fine after that

Regarding Populous 3 I found this (translated from German):

1. Install complete version of Populous 3
2. Apply official Patch 1.01
Download: http://webgnom.com/populous-3-the-beginning-patch-1-01
3. Apply unofficial Patch 1.03
Download: http://webgnom.com/populous-3-the-beginning-patch-1-03

Game should work now.
There also seems to be a Tool called "popres", with which you can change the resolution from the basic 640x480 or 800x600: http://webgnom.com/populous-3-the-beginning-aufloesung-aendern-tool

It definitely sounds like a sounds card problem, try "disabling" it with rightclick from your Device Manager and see if the game launches that way, you will have no sound but will probably see if it is the device causing it, can always "Enable" it again.

I am literally shocked, this worked perfectly! Thank you.
I'm missing the necessary cables to connect my surround sound to my PC without my sound card because I'm using digital coaxial cable but it's wonderful to know where the problem is.