The DirectX patch for 7th Guest can be found also at The Patches Scrolls: http://www.patches-scrolls.de/. You can get there similar patch for 11th Hour, which should solve your problem.

Thanks for the info, Jiri, the site is great and I didn't know of its existance. Too bad that the 11th Hour patch doesn't seem to be working properly: it makes the game able to run, but at any puzzle in the game it simply freezes, and drops out. Anyone having a similar problem? Any ideas? (I've got Win 2000.)

You are right, the same problem is under Windows XP. I haven´t tested this game with the patch in XP before (at least with the puzzles). I don´t know a solution, seems, that the game has similar problem as Clandestiny, another Trilobyte adventure game based on the same engine as The 11th Hour. Clandestiny also needs patch in order to run and then it crashes into the desktop when I start a puzzle or trying to save (it is possible to save in The 11th Hour though). Moreover, Clandestiny is for Windows only so there is no chance that DOSBox could help. I found this thread about Clandestiny where some player named Groooovie also complains about crashes but nobody could help:
http://pub44.ezboard.com/ftheseventhguestande … picID=282.topic

I had some success in accessing puzzles (chess, bookcase) in The 11th Hour by setting Windows 2000 compatibility mode (puzzles crashed with other modes) on the game executable - v32win.exe. But no guarantee that it will work for anybody else or that the game will run stable. It is ironic, Alice, for you have problems in Windows 2000.

Sorry for not writing earlier (damn exams...). Yes, Jiri, this is more than ironic, I bet you have XP, and apparently the compatibility mode 'emulates' Win2000 better than Win2000 itself. The game crashes for me if I simply start v32win.exe, and by starting it with APCOMPAT setting comp. mode to 95 or 98 it doesn't even run at all. It runs if I set the mode to NT, but crashes anyway (which is especially odd, since the patch is said to be for 95/98/NT), just as if I start it under Win2000 mode (under Win2000 -stupid, huh?).
Other than that, I don't know what the patch is good for anyway if the game freezes at any puzzle and the game is built on puzzles, that is what it's mainly about. (I also tested the chess and bookcase puzzles and the game crashes at both of them.) The patch at this moment is just as useful as finding the bedroom key to where the most attractive woman sleeps, sneaking in and realizing that you have no dick. Sorry. 🙁
Glad you can run it though...

Alice wrote:

The patch at this moment is just as useful as finding the bedroom key to where the most attractive woman sleeps, sneaking in and realizing that you have no dick.

You´ve chosen a peculiar comparison, if you are a woman. 😀 Hmm, but there is at least space for a platonic relationship, even a little chit chat (if she is not a notorious sleeper) about computer games etc. 😀 This case is probably more frustrating, I´ve never heard about someone who developed satisfactory platonic relationship with the game that refuses to work.

The patch is for 95/98/NT. It is unfortunately only beta version but I presume that it could work on these systems. Although Windows 2000 and XP have much in common with NT, they are different systems and creators of that patch could not test it on 2000/XP. If you desperately want to play the game, you could a) try dual boot system, but it is not easy to make and I would not recommend it for only one game (but you can find an info about dual booting on this board), b) try DOS boot diskette (but your file system must be FAT32 and you will need DOS drivers for CD, mouse and sound card), c) wait for the support in DOSBox (but The 11th Hour is a hardware demanding game and it will be probably slow if you do not have top notch computer and even in that case it still could be slow on present machines), d) read more about the game here and on other support boards and maybe some info will finally help you, e) test it with Virtual PC, but the game froze on start when I tried it (Clandestiny worked with stuttering sound), f) wait until somebody (a fan, an original developer?) make a patch for the modern machines (but in worst case scenario you can wait forever).

DOSBox will run 7th Guest now.

Yes, but Alice wants to play also The 11th Hour and this game froze on start in DOSBox 0.61 when I tried it.

You´ve chosen a peculiar comparison, if you are a woman. Hmm, but there is at least space for a platonic relationship, even a little chit chat (if she is not a notorious sleeper) about computer games etc. This case is probably more frustrating, I´ve never heard about someone who developed satisfactory platonic relationship with the game that refuses to work.

😁 😁 😉 😉

No, Jiri, thank God, I happen to be a guy, and as such the very idea of any Platonic relationship gives me the shivers... 😳

I know the obvious options, but wouldn't want to start partitioning if it's not very necessary, the last time I cleaned up my machine and partitioned my hard drive P.Magic crashed and I lost some 15GB's of data (and I can make a difference between a hairdryer and a computer), so a similar thing would be Stauf's first real revenge before the 11th hour came. Since I have 1 primary partition and that and all my logical hd's are formatted with NTFS, there's no chance for running the game under 98 or DOS, only if I start believing that the patch truly works under NT and I install NT, too, but that brings up the 1st problem again...
Why would the game run very slow under DosBox (provided that it'll ever run under it)?

Damn...the exam period's just over and I can't bring Stauf to his knees... I see no good solution as things are right now... 😢

Alice wrote:

I happen to be a guy.

I had a slight suspicion. 😀 But Alice is a typical woman's name, even in your country, isn´t it? You must have chosen it for a shocking value, as Alice Cooper, I presume. 😁

Alice wrote:

...wouldn't want to start partitioning if it's not very necessary.

I completely agree.

Alice wrote:

Why would the game run very slow under DosBox (provided that it'll ever run under it)?

The 7th Guest is the older game than The 11th Hour and while it is still playable, does not run particularly quickly in DOSBox on my computer with 2.5 GHz processor. It is much better to run it with the patch in Windows environment. The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour have 3D SVGA graphics and these kind of games are rather slow in DOSBox (at least on my computer).

It's all prerendered 3D, it's just playing a movie on an overlay.

Snover wrote:

It's all prerendered 3D, it's just playing a movie on an overlay.

It is true, but movement in the game was jerky when I tested it and changing cycles/frameskip did not help to achieve truly smooth performance.

Jiri wrote:

It is true, but movement in the game was jerky when I tested it and changing cycles/frameskip did not help to achieve truly smooth performance.

It`s working cool under DOSBox 0.61 with framerate 12500 or something, I`ve just tested it two days ago. In DOSBox 0.60 it WAS working choppy, also I had traces from mouse pointer running under this version. Now everything is great.