Riven DVD on Windows 10 \ VOGONS

Riven DVD on Windows 10

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First post, by CelGen

Posted on 2022-08-26, 04:13

CelGen Offline

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This is a bit of an arm twist, but I almost got it.

I have a Windows 10 system that spends its entire life testing touchscreens. It makes sense to run something like a point and click game for testing and Riven is still visually pleasing.
My restrictions are hard-set that the machine is non-networkable and ScummVM also cannot be loaded which is leaving me with an ancient version of windows and my original DVD copy of Riven. This is something that has been asked before and the results were quite poor because everyone tries installing on 64-bit Windows and the installer is a 16-bit executable so it has a variety of errors and problems and the game itself some have reported will not run at all if manually installed however I'm running a 32-bit copy of windows 10. It has not been updated in years because the machine has no network access but because it's 32-bit the installer runs, Quicktime's installer runs, neither run into any errors and after a bit of tweaking the compatibility mode the game runs.

It is not without problems however. The installer wants to install DirectX 5, but windows 10 comes with DirectX 12 so I don't let it as to not trash what is already installed.
Riven is unstable (ironically) in that at times you are clicking around and the game locks. videos also load offset to the left edge of the framebuffer and are corrupted. Usually you can continue however you end up with corruption on the left edge of the game until multiple animations sit in the same corrupted space, then it locks up.

I have tried different compatibility modes and also used the in-game option setting to force 640x480 which does not seem to improve the situation much. I also moved the game data off the DVD and onto the hard drive as per the instructions to run the game completely off the hard drive. That does work but again, you get video corruption. I can't tell if this is Quicktime complaining, Windows complaining, DirectX complaining or I missed a compatibility combination.

"It's science. I ain't gotta explain sh*t"

Reply 1 of 7, by BEEN_Nath_58

Posted on 2022-08-26, 05:21

BEEN_Nath_58 Offline

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Ok I assume you are trying to correct the pink graphics corruption. This is a common issue, and in most cases can be resolved by using DxWnd or DDrawCompat or dgVoodoo2. Assuming that you don't have a dedicated GPU, dgVoodoo2 shouldn't work but the other two should.

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 2 of 7, by DosFreak

Posted on 2022-08-26, 10:25

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when I tested the game on windows 2000 a long time ago I believe I had to set affinity to a single process otherwise I would gave issues so you can try that. What do you mean by you can't use scummvm? Is there a technical reason or an emotional reason?

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Reply 3 of 7, by CelGen

Posted on 2022-08-26, 13:59

CelGen Offline

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Technical limitation. I've never used SCUMMvm and that would be another thing I'd have to get approval to use. Something like DxWnd or DDrawCompat I might be able to get away with saying it's a supplement component.

"It's science. I ain't gotta explain sh*t"

Reply 4 of 7, by Garrett W

Posted on 2022-08-26, 15:28

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Is the issue one of installation? If so, there exist portable versions of ScummVM. I'm not sure I understand the situation in which you can install Riven on a system, but not ScummVM.

Reply 5 of 7, by CelGen

Posted on 2022-08-26, 15:34

CelGen Offline

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*shrug*
I don't know either. Work policy thing. I'm just working with what I'm allowed to do, so basically I'm stuck trying to make the original game work and not a more modern modified/patched/updated/downloadable version.

To answer your first question though I tried the 5-disc version and it had similar results.

"It's science. I ain't gotta explain sh*t"

Reply 6 of 7, by BEEN_Nath_58

Posted on 2022-08-26, 17:32

BEEN_Nath_58 Offline

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CelGen wrote on 2022-08-26, 15:34:

*shrug*
I don't know either. Work policy thing. I'm just working with what I'm allowed to do, so basically I'm stuck trying to make the original game work and not a more modern modified/patched/updated/downloadable version.

To answer your first question though I tried the 5-disc version and it had similar results.

Fair enough. How did DDrawCompat or DxWnd turn out?

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 7 of 7, by CelGen

Posted on 2022-08-30, 05:07

CelGen Offline

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It's being screened. Don't ask. *shrug*

In the meantime I continued playing with settings and found that the purple color corruption could be fixed by forcing 16-bit color mode.
The weirdness with animations was a fun one. If you run the game with Windows set at any resolution above 1024x768, you still had weirdness where the transparency on animations might black out the screen around the now correctly aligned animation or you would perform one action, then do another and the last frame from the previous action flashed before the next action's animation played. This also happened if you were at a resolution above 1024x768 but the setting in Riven to force 640x480 mode. Once you were at 1024x768 or below it didn't matter if you forced it lower, it started working fine.

The last thing that is left is random game lock-ups but this is something I cannot point my finger on any one thing because this is something I have experience before on era-correct hardware. The game in certain configurations always seemed to be kinda crashy.

"It's science. I ain't gotta explain sh*t"

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