Reply 20 of 105, by Merrymaker
- Rank
- Newbie
I've gotten Interstate '76 running on my Windows XP machine*. I'm running the basic, old, barebones version, to the best of my knowledge, which I've updated with the 80 MB Gold pack update (supposedly updates from v. 1.0 -> 1.2 if I do remember correctly). Anyway it does add Direct3D support to the game which works pretty much ok at first glance.
In Direct3D the resolution is stuck in 640x480 which looks horrible and the bi-linear filtering makes it nearly impossible to read road signs etc.... When I find the time, I'm going to try a Glide wrapper and see if I can get it to run looking pretty on a higher resolution and see what I can do about that bi-linear filtering...
Because of the ugly state of Direct3D, I'm now running the game successfully in software mode with a resolution of 1024x768. This looks fine for now with all the details maxed out. No problems with the sound and the game seem to be quite stable. I played through several missions in succession without a hitch. 😎
The installation went through without any extra action on my part. Just ran the install from the splash screen. However when at the games main menu, whenever I tried to start a melee or new trip (i.e. new game), the game would whine that I needed to insert the PLAY disk in the CD-drive. Quite infuriating to say the least, since I do have an original game that I just bought. The real problem wasn't a faulty copy protection, like I first thought, but just generally sloppy coding I guess**. After roaming the Net I found one post where a guy suggested trying different CD-drives. This worked. The PLAY CD has to be in the first (alphabetically) CD-ROM drive on a PC for the game to work past the main menus. 😕
Now onto my issue with the game:
In the in-game menus and Groove's notepad there is no text to be seen. This is quite annyoing since I can't look at what my mission objectives are (I really have to concentrate on that radio chatter... 😒 ). The font just seems to be invisible... it's not there. Just blank 'paper'. The in-game menus aren't that big of a problem since all the submenus have a bitmap title (picture) which the game renders correctly. When I'm in other menu screens I can see the text (like in the controls settings page or the car repair/upgrade page...).
Mind you this is not a deal-breaker, but it would be nice to get it working. Any ideas on this?
*) My comp specs:
Athlon XP +3200
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB***
1024MB 400MHz DDR (dc)
Windows XP (non-English localization) SP1
**) If a game relies on the fact that it's installed from the first CD-drive in a computer, I'd call that sloppy programming. The game should store and use the drive letter where it was installed from and I wouldn't mind an easy to modify config file where I could change it, if the need arises. 😠
***) I'm using the last batch of Catalyst drivers that don't have that accursed Catalyst Control Center. I'm trying to manage with the older ones. I'm under the impression the never drivers haven't brought anything new of interest (maybe a performance gain of 0,0001% 😵) to my aging 9800 Pro and I'm not playing the newest games.