"It doesn't run" and "it did not work" is rarely a helpful way to get started. What exactly happens? Do you get a blank screen? An error message? Details are required.

If the game actually says on the box that it should run under Windows 2000, then it suggests it ought to be feasible to run it under XP. What virtual machine did you use? VMware, Virtual PC, or VirtualBox?

Also, what sort of graphics card are you using?

Jorpho wrote:

"It doesn't run" and "it did not work" is rarely a helpful way to get started. What exactly happens? Do you get a blank screen? An error message? Details are required.

If the game actually says on the box that it should run under Windows 2000, then it suggests it ought to be feasible to run it under XP. What virtual machine did you use? VMware, Virtual PC, or VirtualBox?

Also, what sort of graphics card are you using?

I get no error message but the game starts up and then graphically glitches out and then crashes completely. I used the virtual XP machine from VMware I believe. I was unable to run it because it required DirectX 7.

I had XP installed on a separate partition on two different machines. One machine had an nvidia 750 TI and the other machine had an ATI Radeon 9600 I believe. Same thing happened on the both machines under XP.

Thanks for the help

If the demo is any indication, it works fine in Windows 10 with DxWnd. Just run the configuration program for the game to disable hardware t&l.

ZellSF wrote:

If the demo is any indication, it works fine in Windows 10 with DxWnd. Just run the configuration program for the game to disable hardware t&l.

First off, thanks for the DXWND recommendation. It allowed me to run PBA better than I have in the past. I am still getting some graphic blotches on the screen. I have enclosed a couple of snapshots to show you.

Okay in the first picture the text is blocky with a black dark border. I have circled to show you exactly what the problem is.

On the second picture again you see evidence of the blocky layers on a couple spots where I have circled.

Again, thank you for all the help.

It makes me think of some of the texture-drawing problems in Lemmings Revolution.
https://jul.rustedlogic.net/thread.php?id=15018

While processing textures with alpha masks, the game will use BitBlt() to copy color data, then call IDirectDrawSurface::Lock() and write only the alpha bytes into video memory. This worked fine on Windows 98, though XP had some color errors, and Windows 7 just makes everything black. The culprit? Lock() expects every byte to be written to in the specified range. Lemmings Revolution was crossing its fingers and hoping the RGB channels would be preserved, which nowadays they aren't.

Unfortunately, this information does not immediately present a convenient solution to your problem.

PatmanQC wrote:

I was unable to run it because it required DirectX 7.

So, does that mean you got an error message stating that "This program requires DirectX 7" ? Or did something else happen?

There's an option in the game menus to disable transparencies. Verify that option is set correctly.

Oh and set alpha texture format in the control panel to 16 bit 4444 argb.

how's it look under dgVoodoo2?

Stiletto wrote:

how's it look under dgVoodoo2?

Same rendering glitches you get with hardware t&l. I wonder if detection of a new GPU somehow resets it, but the config program crashes with dgVoodoo2 so hard to check.

Too bad, because the game could benefit from forced resolution (it's limited to 1600x1200) and AA (it has a setting for it).

ZellSF wrote:

There's an option in the game menus to disable transparencies. Verify that option is set correctly.

Oh and set alpha texture format in the control panel to 16 bit 4444 argb.

Wow, after eight or nine years I'm finally able to play the game the way it was meant to be played! The alpha texture format is what did it, I didn't even think to check that! I guess I'm not as good with computers as I thought I was.

Thanks everyone for all your help