Originally posted by Snover ...since they have NOTHING TO DO with Star Trail -- at all.
*heh*
I guess I should've been more clear. The "Realms of Arkania" series is the English version of "Das Schwarze Auge" from Germany. Literally, that means "The Black Eye", so you can see why marketing would think a different series title would be in order for the English-speaking market.
So, "Das Schwarze Auge - Sternenschweif" is actually "Realms of Arkania - Star Trail" (although it's literally Star Tail). Not sure why the Mobygames people went with the German name in their database. I guess they wanted to stick with each title's "origins". Anyway, they ID it as VGA only.
"Star Trail" fans should recognize "Shadows over Riva" as the 3rd (and final?) installment of "Realms of Arkania". The article refers to "Star Trail" and the relative text from CG Online is:
What’s new for this installment is SVGA cutscenes and animations, a somewhat refined interface, a much improved 3D adventuring environment, and better music.
So SVGA is new for "Shadows over Riva" (even then, only portions of the game are actually SVGA as "combat is still blocky VGA").
It sounds like his video card doesn't like to switch video modes (for combat) frequently...or something. If no other fix is found, the next version of DosBox should be able to run it, although you would need a pretty powerful PC to handle it. The present version has no support for protected-mode games (like Star Trail), so it won't run just yet.