I want to play on Win9x and Win2k with Matrox G450/550 on D3D...so no winXP and up.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2023-11-04, 10:34:

I want to play on Win9x and Win2k with Matrox G450/550 on D3D...so no winXP and up.

I'll look into it when I get some free minutes. I think it might be doable.

Icewind Dale - success
Icewind Dale 2 - success
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - success
Soul Reaver 2 - success
Legacy of Kain: Defiance - success
Stronghold HD - success
Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption - success
Unreal Tournament GOTY - success
Divine Divinity - FAILURE, requires MS Visual C++ 2015 Runtime which is not available on Windows 98.
Quake I Enhanced - FAILURE, 64-bit executable

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-04, 07:52:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-11-04, 07:46:

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-04, 05:58:

Thief 2 - Failure. Same as Thief Gold

The first two Thief games come with fan-made patches integrated on GOG and Steam. These were meant to fix some compatibility issues on modern systems and likely won't work correctly on period-correct hardware.

For all the good that GOG does, I really wish they would make these fan-made patches and other unofficial fixes into an optional download, separate from the main game. Or at least give people the means to opt-out of those at install time.

Yeah. I wish they at least added an original (minus DRM) download option. Maybe we can petition them to do it, on behalf of the retrocomputing community?

I don't know what gog uses since i dont have the gog version but both tfix and t2fix use newdark which isn't compatible with 9x but both unofficial patches provide the original executables so likely those can just be copied over.

I can't seem to run 2 GOG games others have had success with; Deus Ex GOTY and Undying.

The rig; P4-2.8/Asus P4s533vm/W98se/V5 (AmigaMerlin29)/Vortex2/512 ram/DX9.0c

Deus locks up at the first pier scene, and Undying CTDs shortly after arriving in the courtyard. I've tried all sorts of game/3dfx setting combos and always the same result. Tried 3dfx reference drivers too. Deleted the usual GOG/wrapper files as with other successful transplants. OTOH Unreal Gold (non-GOG) and the Undying demo run fine.

My CDs are out in storage so I can't test OG game installs yet. Gut tells me it's something simple - any suggestions?

tincup wrote on 2023-11-21, 19:22:

I can't seem to run 2 GOG games others have had success with; Deus Ex GOTY and Undying. […]
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I can't seem to run 2 GOG games others have had success with; Deus Ex GOTY and Undying.

The rig; P4-2.8/Asus P4s533vm/W98se/V5 (AmigaMerlin29)/Vortex2/512 ram/DX9.0c

Deus locks up at the first pier scene, and Undying CTDs shortly after arriving in the courtyard. I've tried all sorts of game/3dfx setting combos and always the same result. Tried 3dfx reference drivers too. Deleted the usual GOG/wrapper files as with other successful transplants. OTOH Unreal Gold (non-GOG) and the Undying demo run fine.

My CDs are out in storage so I can't test OG game installs yet. Gut tells me it's something simple - any suggestions?

I don't have any Voodoo cards to test these games, but I can confirm DeusEx GOTY from GOG performs admirably on my system - Athlon XP 1700+/FIC AN11/256Mb DDR 266/Windows 98 SE/nVidia GeForce FX 5500 256Mb/SoundBlaster Audigy 2/DX 9.0.

I have also installed a few updates to the system -
MSIE 6
MSMP 9
K-Lite Codec Pack
MS Installer 2.0
MS VS Redist up to 2005
Every version of DX from 7 to 9 was installed sequentially
.NET Framework 2.0

I also have KernelEx that I use to install the games directly on 98SE instead of installing it on an XP PC and copying the files over.

My system is pretty fresh with minimal extras. I transfer GOG installs by thumb drive (IOgear card/NEC USB2 drivers) which works well for these smallish games. I'm thinking the V5 may be the issue - probably a setting I haven't uncovered yet. But I also have a V3500 on hand to test a supported device. See if I can narrow down the conflict. And I'll try onboard audio, the Aureal Vortex2 may be contributing. But I'm limited with equipment options at the moment as most of my gear is in storage. This is the first nuts/bolts build I've done in about 4 years!

tincup wrote on 2023-11-23, 18:08:

My system is pretty fresh with minimal extras. I transfer GOG installs by thumb drive (IOgear card/NEC USB2 drivers) which works well for these smallish games. I'm thinking the V5 may be the issue - probably a setting I haven't uncovered yet. But I also have a V3500 on hand to test a supported device. See if I can narrow down the conflict. And I'll try onboard audio, the Aureal Vortex2 may be contributing. But I'm limited with equipment options at the moment as most of my gear is in storage. This is the first nuts/bolts build I've done in about 4 years!

heh I assumed GOG installer files were just self extracting EXEs which you could open with 7zip

Quake I Enhanced - FAILURE, 64-bit executable

Quake I Enhanced won't work even in Windows 7, because it requires Xinput 1.4.

No dice with the V3500/ref drivers for either game. Same lockup/CDT pattern as the V5. All other 30+ games run sharp as tacks - even Call Of Duty 1 which can be a bear and a notorious resource hog like Falcon 4.0. Guessing it's something about the current setup that's just not right for these two. But until I retreive hardware from the unit I'm limited in what I can test. The only non-exotic thing I can try now is onboard Asus audio.

Oh, and another quicky GOG transplant that doesn't run is Enemy Engaged Comache v Hokum. Black screen right after starting game. Odd since it's younger brother Apache v Havok runs smooth.

...well happy Thanksgiving all...

tincup wrote on 2023-11-24, 01:34:

No dice with the V3500/ref drivers for either game. Same lockup/CDT pattern as the V5. All other 30+ games run sharp as tacks - even Call Of Duty 1 which can be a bear and a notorious resource hog like Falcon 4.0. Guessing it's something about the current setup that's just not right for these two. But until I retreive hardware from the unit I'm limited in what I can test. The only non-exotic thing I can try now is onboard Asus audio.

Oh, and another quicky GOG transplant that doesn't run is Enemy Engaged Comache v Hokum. Black screen right after starting game. Odd since it's younger brother Apache v Havok runs smooth.

...well happy Thanksgiving all...

seems pointless to dwell on games that dont work natively. better off looking at reviews I miss gog remixes or something involving a list from red to green games that work natively curated by users

tincup wrote on 2023-11-24, 01:34:

No dice with the V3500/ref drivers for either game. Same lockup/CDT pattern as the V5. All other 30+ games run sharp as tacks - even Call Of Duty 1 which can be a bear and a notorious resource hog like Falcon 4.0. Guessing it's something about the current setup that's just not right for these two. But until I retreive hardware from the unit I'm limited in what I can test. The only non-exotic thing I can try now is onboard Asus audio.

Oh, and another quicky GOG transplant that doesn't run is Enemy Engaged Comache v Hokum. Black screen right after starting game. Odd since it's younger brother Apache v Havok runs smooth.

...well happy Thanksgiving all...

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with the game.

Another suggestion: I think the GOG version comes with the nglide wrapper. There's a topic on removing that too.

Getting stubborn GOG.com games running natively. [e.g. Descent 3, Thief]

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-24, 17:34:

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with t […]
Show full quote

tincup wrote on 2023-11-24, 01:34:

No dice with the V3500/ref drivers for either game. Same lockup/CDT pattern as the V5. All other 30+ games run sharp as tacks - even Call Of Duty 1 which can be a bear and a notorious resource hog like Falcon 4.0. Guessing it's something about the current setup that's just not right for these two. But until I retreive hardware from the unit I'm limited in what I can test. The only non-exotic thing I can try now is onboard Asus audio.

Oh, and another quicky GOG transplant that doesn't run is Enemy Engaged Comache v Hokum. Black screen right after starting game. Odd since it's younger brother Apache v Havok runs smooth.

...well happy Thanksgiving all...

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with the game.

Another suggestion: I think the GOG version comes with the nglide wrapper. There's a topic on removing that too.

Getting stubborn GOG.com games running natively. [e.g. Descent 3, Thief]

i sure as something thought those games came with software renderers?

twiz11 wrote on 2023-11-24, 19:52:

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-24, 17:34:

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with t […]
Show full quote

tincup wrote on 2023-11-24, 01:34:

No dice with the V3500/ref drivers for either game. Same lockup/CDT pattern as the V5. All other 30+ games run sharp as tacks - even Call Of Duty 1 which can be a bear and a notorious resource hog like Falcon 4.0. Guessing it's something about the current setup that's just not right for these two. But until I retreive hardware from the unit I'm limited in what I can test. The only non-exotic thing I can try now is onboard Asus audio.

Oh, and another quicky GOG transplant that doesn't run is Enemy Engaged Comache v Hokum. Black screen right after starting game. Odd since it's younger brother Apache v Havok runs smooth.

...well happy Thanksgiving all...

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with the game.

Another suggestion: I think the GOG version comes with the nglide wrapper. There's a topic on removing that too.

Getting stubborn GOG.com games running natively. [e.g. Descent 3, Thief]

i sure as something thought those games came with software renderers?

I'm pretty sure it's not a software renderer.

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-24, 17:34:

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with the game.

Not a bad idea. When I get "bench time" I'll give it a shot. But I agree - some games do insist on an install even if the registry entries or file drops aren't obvious. OTOH I've approached this excerise in the spirt the OP started the thread; simple no-fuss GOG transplants.

...and yet I remain curious why I had issues with a supported W98se/V3 combo.

UPDATE: installed the GOG setup.exes with KernelEX. Same lockup/CTD pattern. I think GOG may have modified one or more of the internal files in some way. The original game demos run great suggesting there should be no conflict. Putting these down for now until I retrieve my boxed copies from storage for a final test.

twiz11 wrote on 2023-11-24, 16:42:

seems pointless to dwell on games that dont work natively.

Haha... futile perhaps but not pointless. Both games are native W98 with Glide support. People have GOG transplants running per the OP's list. That's my holiday puzzle.

tincup wrote on 2023-11-24, 21:18:

Not a bad idea. When I get "bench time" I'll give it a shot. But I agree - some games do insist on an install even if the regist […]
Show full quote

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-24, 17:34:

Can I ask you to try the KernelEx install method? Maybe it puts something in the registry or other folders that messes up with the game.

Not a bad idea. When I get "bench time" I'll give it a shot. But I agree - some games do insist on an install even if the registry entries or file drops aren't obvious. OTOH I've approached this excerise in the spirt the OP started the thread; simple no-fuss GOG transplants.

...and yet I remain curious why I had issues with a supported W98se/V3 combo.

UPDATE: installed the GOG setup.exes with KernelEX. Same lockup/CTD pattern. I think GOG may have modified one or more of the internal files in some way. The original game demos run great suggesting there should be no conflict. Putting these down for now until I retrieve my boxed copies from storage for a final test.

Did you try removing the nglide wrapper files?

I really wish GOG shipped original versions of the games, minus DRM.

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-26, 08:55:

Did you try removing the nglide wrapper files?

Yep, you bet. GOG games error out on voodoo card builds with glide wrappers left in.

Also to note is the GOG version of Unreal Gold has the same issues on this build too, but an original CD install is fine - as expected. So I'm hopefull Undying and Deus Ex Gold, both Ureal engine games, will too when I retreive the game CDs. But I'd love to know if there's some sort of quick fix/game ini edit to get GOG versions running and stable. The OP purpose of this thread in the first place.

tincup wrote on 2023-11-26, 19:12:

songoffall wrote on 2023-11-26, 08:55:

Did you try removing the nglide wrapper files?

Yep, you bet. GOG games error out on voodoo card builds with glide wrappers left in.

Also to note is the GOG version of Unreal Gold has the same issues on this build too, but an original CD install is fine - as expected. So I'm hopefull Undying and Deus Ex Gold, both Ureal engine games, will too when I retreive the game CDs. But I'd love to know if there's some sort of quick fix/game ini edit to get GOG versions running and stable. The OP purpose of this thread in the first place.

I understand. Would it be realistic to petition GOG itself on behalf of the retro gaming community to do something about it? I do believe it wouldn't take them too much effort.

So after I had more time to test this stuff with several computers, I have to suggest you take every "confirmed to work with 98" game with a grain of salt.

I tested the same games on two different hardware configurations and got extremely varying results.

PC1
Socket A
FIC AN11 (VIA KT266A) motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 1400+
GeForce FX 5500 256Mb
256Mb DDR DRAM
60Gb Maxtor HDD
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card

PC2
Slot 1
Compaq Deskpro 2000 (Intel 440LX)
Pentium 2 300MHz Descutes
Matrox Millennium II 4Mb
394Mb ECC SDRAM
40 Gb Seagate HDD capped at 32Gb
ESS AudioDrive ES 1869 Sound Card

Software: Windows 98SE, usb, Internet Explorer 6 SP1, WMP9, Unicows, DirectX 8.1, MS Installer, MS Visual C++ 2005 Runtime, .NET Framework 2.0, KernelEx

So. Windows games had a lot of compatibility with PC1. All the successes I posted here were actually tested on PC1. None of those games worked on PC2. Even Fallout 1 would freeze when playing the intro video. Strangely enough, this is something that would also happen to Neverhood on both systems - the intro video's sound getting stuck and playing a portion of it in an endless loop, even though the game itself worked. I would also advise AGAINST disabling virtual memory even if you have more than enough RAM on your system.

As for DOS games, after some tinkering with Audigy2 drivers both worked reasonably well, except P2 had much better FM sound implementation - I might be in minority here, but ESS AudioDrive 186x cards seem to be superior to SB16 in most scenarios - no hanging note bugs, no noise, good FM, wave blaster, Midi port, only very rare compatibility issues.

Need to investigate further.