Can't give a detailed report but no luck here with Superbike 2001 on W7-64bit [freezes at the main menu loading screen] which I just tested, and Racing Simulation 3. But I also have them parked on the trusty old XP 'bridge retro' box so that at the first sign of trouble I can bail to a less modern modern rig... sorry I can't offer much help other than to confirm the issue...

Some general ideas:

Try both dgVoodoo's D3D components and WineD3D 1.1.14 (http://nongnu.askapache.com/wined3d/1.1.14/wined3d.exe MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT INSTALL IT, JUST EXTRACT THE DLL FILES FROM THE INSTALLER USING 7ZIP).

DXWnd may also work too, but I'm not familiar with getting it to work. I've heard about a lot of success with it though.

Superbike 2001 you need to set your desktop to 16bit colour

Run Memtest....

and you can try to underclock the FSB of the Mainboard.
And underclock the Speed of Memory.

Both memory sticks can be faulty, run memtest.

Make sure the bios is set to factory defaults (those jumpers can be confusing, use the actual bios setup utility to do it).

I have tried dgVoodoo and that crashed (NFS2HP at least), but will try the other options above.

Can anyone else with a Win7 64bit or Win8.1 64bit with a set up similar to mine try the NFS Hot Pursuit 2 demo (which crashes the same way for me)? See what happens? http://www.gamershell.com/download_110.shtml

Davros wrote:

Superbike 2001 you need to set your desktop to 16bit colour

One of the old tricks... I'll re-install and give it another shot. SBK-2001 is a fine simulation.

A few other 'tricks' are coming back to me now:

Reduce Direct X acceleration and/or Audio hardware acceleration a notch or two
Turn AA and/or AF off
Reduce CPU affinity to 1 core after initially starting game
Disable SLI or CrossFre

The ability to reduce acceleration levels in DirectX isn't really there in DirectX11+ 😒

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

Could it be some part of my motherboard causing the crash?

Maybe? I once had a faulty PC Chips board (bad caps) that would crash unpredictably, and it could even run memtest for days on end. I even managed to destabilize a system once just by using a bad PSU.

Are you using some kind of joypad, or some kind of fancy mouse or keyboard? (That's what DINPUT.dll crashes bring to mind.)

I only had USB mouse connected, keyboard is old style connector. Even disconnecting mouse didn't help.

It's odd that NFSHP2 and SSC both sometimes let me into the game menu menus, but very very rarely.

SuperBike 2001 update: no luck W7 @ 16-bit color either. Still hangs loading main menu.

SpeedySPCFan wrote:

Some general ideas:

Try both dgVoodoo's D3D components and WineD3D 1.1.14 (http://nongnu.askapache.com/wined3d/1.1.14/wined3d.exe MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT INSTALL IT, JUST EXTRACT THE DLL FILES FROM THE INSTALLER USING 7ZIP).

DXWnd may also work too, but I'm not familiar with getting it to work. I've heard about a lot of success with it though.

Tried dgVoodoo again, crashes as well. Tried the dlls from WineD3D, the game swaps to low res, but then the blue loading spiral goes on forever.

Not sure DXWnd will help, as I tried it with the Limit System Resources (or whatever the option is called to limit RAM etc) and it too didn't work!

I also tried swapping back to Intel graphics and running solely on my old 1024x768 LCD screen (instead of fancy ROG Swift, in case it's high number of resolutions/refresh rates were causing an issue... again it still crashed!

Using Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2, here's the errors I see in Event Viewer, in order, when the game crashes:

Error - Application Error - Event ID 1000 - Task Category (100):

1Faulting application name: NFSHP2.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x3ddd5a2c
2Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.3.9600.17668, time stamp: 0x54c846bb
3Exception code: 0xc0000005
4Fault offset: 0x00041a78
5Faulting process ID: 0x62c
6Faulting application start time: 0x01d065029e6d73f3
7Faulting application path: D:\Games\nfs6\NFSHP2.exe
8Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
9Report ID: e40c85a5-d0f5-11e4-832f-7824af8a9e0a
10Faulting package full name: 
11Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Information - Windows Error Reporting - Event ID 1001 - Task Category None:

1Fault bucket 73934883335, type 1
2Event Name: APPCRASH
3Response: Not available
4Cab Id: 0
5
6Problem signature:
7P1: NFSHP2.exe
8P2: 0.0.0.0
9P3: 3ddd5a2c
10P4: ntdll.dll
11P5: 6.3.9600.17668
12P6: 54c846bb
13P7: c0000005
14P8: 00041a78
15P9: 
16P10: 
17
18Attached files:
19d:\Windows\TEMP\WER7E5F.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
20
21These files may be available here:
22C:\Users\VirtuaIceMan\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_NFSHP2.exe_a797fb54904ab8bb7f24c27609ac41b5f2abf9_a523d4f4_16e18208
23
24Analysis symbol: 
25Rechecking for solution: 0
26Report ID: e40c85a5-d0f5-11e4-832f-7824af8a9e0a
27Report Status: 1
28Hashed bucket: ec50353d77762f0e8ccb2b68fd4293e4

1/3: Error - no source/Event ID/Task Category:

1The description for Event ID 0 from source   cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.
2
3If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.
4
5The following information was included with the event: 
6
73

2/3: Error - no source/Event ID/Task Category:

1The description for Event ID 0 from source   cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.
2
3If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.
4
5The following information was included with the event: 
6
76

3/3: Error - no source/Event ID/Task Category:

1The description for Event ID 0 from source   cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.
2
3If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.
4
5The following information was included with the event: 
6
77

And that's it!

The full error, which it saved to: C:\Users\VirtuaIceMan\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_NFSHP2.exe_a797fb54904ab8bb7f24c27609ac41b5f2abf9_a523d4f4_16e18208 looks like this:

1Version=1
2EventType=APPCRASH
3EventTime=130715451249827337
4ReportType=2
5Consent=1
6UploadTime=130715451253538352
7ReportIdentifier=e40c85a6-d0f5-11e4-832f-7824af8a9e0a
8IntegratorReportIdentifier=e40c85a5-d0f5-11e4-832f-7824af8a9e0a
9WOW64=1
10NsAppName=NFSHP2.exe
11Response.BucketId=ec50353d77762f0e8ccb2b68fd4293e4
12Response.BucketTable=1
13Response.LegacyBucketId=73934883335
14Response.type=4
15Sig[0].Name=Application Name
16Sig[0].Value=NFSHP2.exe
17Sig[1].Name=Application Version
18Sig[1].Value=0.0.0.0
19Sig[2].Name=Application Timestamp
20Sig[2].Value=3ddd5a2c
21Sig[3].Name=Fault Module Name
22Sig[3].Value=ntdll.dll
23Sig[4].Name=Fault Module Version
24Sig[4].Value=6.3.9600.17668
25Sig[5].Name=Fault Module Timestamp
26Sig[5].Value=54c846bb
27Sig[6].Name=Exception Code
28Sig[6].Value=c0000005
29Sig[7].Name=Exception Offset
30Sig[7].Value=00041a78
31DynamicSig[1].Name=OS Version
32DynamicSig[1].Value=6.3.9600.2.0.0.768.101
33DynamicSig[2].Name=Locale ID
34DynamicSig[2].Value=2057
35DynamicSig[22].Name=Additional Information 1
36DynamicSig[22].Value=c83b
37DynamicSig[23].Name=Additional Information 2
38DynamicSig[23].Value=c83bc503990c339334242925e8345ae6
39DynamicSig[24].Name=Additional Information 3
40DynamicSig[24].Value=fa23
41DynamicSig[25].Name=Additional Information 4
42DynamicSig[25].Value=fa2342993d3fe86a4e1188c7c5abee98
43UI[2]=D:\Games\nfs6\NFSHP2.exe
44UI[3]=NFSHP2.exe has stopped working
45UI[4]=Windows can check online for a solution to the problem.
46UI[5]=Check online for a solution and close the program
47UI[6]=Check online for a solution later and close the program
48UI[7]=Close the program
49LoadedModule[0]=D:\Games\nfs6\NFSHP2.exe
50LoadedModule[1]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
51LoadedModule[2]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\KERNEL32.DLL
52LoadedModule[3]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\KERNELBASE.dll
53LoadedModule[4]=C:\Windows\system32\apphelp.dll
54LoadedModule[5]=C:\Windows\AppPatch\AcGenral.DLL
55LoadedModule[6]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\msvcrt.dll
56LoadedModule[7]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\sechost.dll
57LoadedModule[8]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\SspiCli.dll
58LoadedModule[9]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\SHLWAPI.dll
59LoadedModule[10]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\UxTheme.dll
60LoadedModule[11]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\USER32.dll

61LoadedModule[12]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\GDI32.dll
62LoadedModule[13]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WINMM.dll
63LoadedModule[14]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\samcli.dll
64LoadedModule[15]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ole32.dll
65LoadedModule[16]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\OLEAUT32.dll
66LoadedModule[17]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\MSACM32.dll
67LoadedModule[18]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\VERSION.dll
68LoadedModule[19]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\SHELL32.dll
69LoadedModule[20]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\USERENV.dll
70LoadedModule[21]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\dwmapi.dll
71LoadedModule[22]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\urlmon.dll
72LoadedModule[23]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ADVAPI32.dll
73LoadedModule[24]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WINSPOOL.DRV
74LoadedModule[25]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\MPR.dll
75LoadedModule[26]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\RPCRT4.dll
76LoadedModule[27]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\CRYPTBASE.dll
77LoadedModule[28]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\combase.dll
78LoadedModule[29]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WINMMBASE.dll
79LoadedModule[30]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\profapi.dll
80LoadedModule[31]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\iertutil.dll
81LoadedModule[32]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WININET.dll
82LoadedModule[33]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\bcryptPrimitives.dll
83LoadedModule[34]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\cfgmgr32.dll
84LoadedModule[35]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\DEVOBJ.dll
85LoadedModule[36]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\SHCORE.DLL
86LoadedModule[37]=C:\Windows\system32\IMM32.DLL
87LoadedModule[38]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\MSCTF.dll
88LoadedModule[39]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\d3d8.dll
89LoadedModule[40]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\DINPUT.dll
90LoadedModule[41]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\DSOUND.dll
91LoadedModule[42]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WS2_32.dll
92LoadedModule[43]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\d3d8thk.dll
93LoadedModule[44]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\POWRPROF.dll
94LoadedModule[45]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\NSI.dll
95LoadedModule[46]=C:\Program Files (x86)\AVG\AVG2015\avghookx.dll
96LoadedModule[47]=d:\Windows\TEMP\~ef48e7\~df394b.tmp
97LoadedModule[48]=d:\Windows\TEMP\~ef48e7\~dee373.tmp
98LoadedModule[49]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\kernel.appcore.dll
99LoadedModule[50]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntmarta.dll
100LoadedModule[51]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\PSAPI.DLL
101LoadedModule[52]=C:\Windows\system32\nvspcap.dll
102LoadedModule[53]=C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvSCPAPI.dll
103LoadedModule[54]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\SETUPAPI.dll
104LoadedModule[55]=C:\Windows\system32\nvapi.dll
105LoadedModule[56]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\WINTRUST.dll
106LoadedModule[57]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\CRYPT32.dll
107LoadedModule[58]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\MSASN1.dll
108LoadedModule[59]=C:\Windows\system32\dxgi.dll
109LoadedModule[60]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\nvd3dum.dll
110LoadedModule[61]=D:\Games\nfs6\Win2kHook.dll
111LoadedModule[62]=C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\HID.DLL
112State[0].Key=Transport.DoneStage1
113State[0].Value=1
114FriendlyEventName=Stopped working
115ConsentKey=APPCRASH
116AppName=NFSHP2.exe
117AppPath=D:\Games\nfs6\NFSHP2.exe
118NsPartner=windows
119NsGroup=windows8
120ApplicationIdentity=7DF33899699FB3CC06FD7B0FE645D3FF

If not the motherboard, there is probably some horribly obscure thingamajig that has not occurred to you or anyone else that is at fault.

Perhaps you'd like to try HWmonitor and verify that nothing's running hot?

I tried Googling the motherboard and found this review. Perhaps you've accidentally flipped the TPU switch?

Besides not getting Superbike 2001 & Racing Sim 3 to run I can test these others - but they're out at the storage unit now so I won't be able to get to them for a while:

F1 Racing Championship
Racing Simulation 3
F1 World Grand Prix
Le Mans 24 Hours (2002 edition)

It would interesting if others here could test some of the games in question on their own W7/8 rigs to see if we are dealing with more generalized issues. I'm beginning to suspect that it's just 'retro game creep' and not necessarily an obscure hardware issue. On the other hand the TPU switch Jorpho mentions would be a coup if it were the culprit...

I've checked those switches and all are set to disabled.

However I'm going to see if I can upgrade the BIOS, so there's a newer version out...

Bah, updated BIOS to latest, and installed the ASUS AI Suite 3, then ensured TPU and EPU were both unticked in there too, and once again, game crashes the same.

I think I'll run memtest next...

And Memtest reported no errors, sigh...