Log game calls with process monitor.
Leave the game open next to it and check which path it does store settings.

Maybe it's looking for a different path. I just set up Motor City Online with a launcher, and it should be possible to get Voodoo graphics via a wrapper applied to the game as well, but I didn't fiddle that much with it.

How is Win10 with games? Did you try any older titles (lower than DX8.1)? If so, it'd be interesting to see if they lock to 30fps (the thing fixed by the fixes here: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/post.php? … 77&post=1202630) or whether that was improved? Currently I use a huge Application Compatibility Toolkit list, and the modified DDRAW.dll (sometimes) and otherwise dgVoodoo's Direct3D wrapper, in order to get smooth framerates.

did you install it in program files ?

mirh wrote:

Log game calls with process monitor.
Leave the game open next to it and check which path it does store settings.

It's options.ini, as I thought. The problem is, every message refering to that file says "SUCCESS". There is no evidence of a write error or anything like this.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

I just set up Motor City Online with a launcher, and it should be possible to get Voodoo graphics via a wrapper applied to the game as well, but I didn't fiddle that much with it.

Unfortunately, it's not. There's even a thread about this on nGlide forums. The game can be forced to run in 3dfx mode, but when you do this, the track is invisible.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

How is Win10 with games?

I didn't play much on my current laptop, as soon as I learned about the Optimus problem I returned to Windows 8.1. However, I have an older laptop with AMD Dual Core M300 and ATI HD 4330. I installed Europe Racer and framerate was OK, without using ACT or modified ddraw.dll.

Davros wrote:

did you install it in program files ?

No, it is installed in D:\Gry. I install every game there.

Most things are "okay" in Win8.1, but limited to 30fps. I think Europe Racer I use the ACT fix to improve the smoothness.

Sorry, I should have been more precise. Europe Racer was running smooth in Windows 10. I didn't use fraps to measure frame rate, but by comparing it to Windows 8.1 I can tell it was definitely much better. It seems the ddraw issue is fixed in Windows 10.

That'd be truly awesome if it's the case. But I bet some things will also go wrong in new, amusing ways, in Win10 😁

There's another problem with my installation of MCO - in fullscreen mode, there is a visible stuttering, even though Fraps shows constant 60 fps. When I run MCO in windowed mode, the problem is gone.

It is not the issue with ddraw that VirtuaIceMan mentioned before, because the game runs on DirectX 8 (and other DX8 games work fine).

Maybe the two problems are somehow connected?

I've decided to do some further testing using Process Monitor. This time, I've got a lot of references to the SaveData\options.ini. The game tries to write the file, but it results in FAST IO DISALLOWED error. Could this be the source of my problem? ANy ideas how to fix it?

I really don't know how I missed this the last time.

tgomola wrote:

There's another problem with my installation of MCO - in fullscreen mode, there is a visible stuttering, even though Fraps shows constant 60 fps. When I run MCO in windowed mode, the problem is gone.

FRAPS sucks. Use something better (like MSI afterburner) to check frametime.

tgomola wrote:

I've decided to do some further testing using Process Monitor. This time, I've got a lot of references to the SaveData\options.ini. The game tries to write the file, but it results in FAST IO DISALLOWED error. Could this be the source of my problem? ANy ideas how to fix it?

I really don't know how I missed this the last time.

That's nothing interesting

Are you running the game as an administrator?

mirh wrote:

Are you running the game as an administrator?

I tried running it as both an administrator and a regular user. It didn't change anything.

Problem solved! I've upgraded my system to Windows 10 today and guess what... The problem's gone 😀 Case closed.

Technically, this is not really what I call solved..

Though I guess without somebody else with the problem we can not speculate on the problem anymore