VOGONS

Common searches


The old Timeshift demo does not start

Topic actions

  • This topic is locked. You cannot reply or edit posts.

Reply 20 of 31, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I don't know what version of the demo it is but the following are the results of the TimeShift demo from my compatibility list:

Windows 2000 (Works but requires dbghelp.dll from XP)

XP 32bit Works
Tested 4/11/2010
Tested on Dell XPS M1330 with Nvidia card.

Vista 64bit Works
Tested 4/24/2010
Tested on Dell XPS M1330 with Nvidia card.

Windows 7 64bit works
Tested 9-30-2009
Tested on Dell XPS M1330 with Nvidia card.

I never wrote down the Nvidia driver version but whatever version for driver was out for whatever Nvidia card in the XPS M1330 that was out at the time is probably the one.

All the other operating systems couldn't play the game but IIRC those were tested with Intel graphics.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 21 of 31, by Kerr Avon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I don't know what video card is in the desktop, (I'm not at home, but I think it's an Nvidea, though) but the OS is Windows 7 64 bit.

Still, I'm not too bothered that one demo won't run, especially since the full game runs fine, so don't worry about, and thanks to everyone for their help.

Reply 22 of 31, by SirChronocide

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I know I'm basically necroing an ancient thread here, but has anybody managed to figure out the cause of this issue. I've scoured countless threads and trying every related search term, VM related, and third party solution to emulating older directX versions to get this demo to boot, all failing. Still resulting with the "gsvideoinit() failed" and no amount of compatibility tweaks change the result.

Even Virtual Box with a Windows XP 64-bit install yields the EXACT same result.

I'm running a Windows 10 install with an RTX 2080 SUPER and an i7-8700.

If there is ANY suggestion anyone can make that would even give me DIFFERENT results that I can go off of it would be highly appreciated.

Reply 23 of 31, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
SirChronocide wrote:

Even Virtual Box with a Windows XP 64-bit install yields the EXACT same result.

I'm not sure what VirtualBox 3D acceleration is like these days, but the 64-bit version of Windows XP was incompatible with a lot of things, even on real hardware. You would be better off testing XP 32-bit for starters.

(Maybe BoxedWine would be worth a shot?)

Reply 24 of 31, by SirChronocide

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Jorpho wrote:
SirChronocide wrote:

Even Virtual Box with a Windows XP 64-bit install yields the EXACT same result.

I'm not sure what VirtualBox 3D acceleration is like these days, but the 64-bit version of Windows XP was incompatible with a lot of things, even on real hardware. You would be better off testing XP 32-bit for starters.

(Maybe BoxedWine would be worth a shot?)

AHA! We've made progress! FANTASTIC! In 32-bit WinXP the game runs FINE.....up until actual gameplay starts. Running at a LIGHTNING FAST 0.5FPS. And that's with VirtualBox Guest Addons installed.

At least now I've made it INTO the actual game now.

Reply 25 of 31, by Kerr Avon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Have a read of:

Re: Cannot get older Timeshift demo to work

and

https://assemblergames.com/threads/timeshift- … -history.59888/

(and note that Assembler games might be closing down any day now, so you should probably have a look at that thread pretty soon). If that doesn't help, then if you don't have the .exe files mentioned in that thread, then post here, and I'll PM them to you.

Reply 26 of 31, by SirChronocide

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Kerr Avon wrote:
Have a read of: […]
Show full quote

Have a read of:

Re: Cannot get older Timeshift demo to work

and

https://assemblergames.com/threads/timeshift- … -history.59888/

(and note that Assembler games might be closing down any day now, so you should probably have a look at that thread pretty soon). If that doesn't help, then if you don't have the .exe files mentioned in that thread, then post here, and I'll PM them to you.

You would be an absolute GODSEND if you have all those files! I KNEW a full Beta with several levels and cutscenes existed, but Google results turn up NOTHING! Sadly all the links in the threads you linked have expired (unless I skimmed over a valid one somehow) if you could provide me a like to the demo and modded exes you'd be a savior!

Reply 27 of 31, by SirChronocide

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

ALRIGHT! I've made a BUNCH of progress since last night. And I managed to get the demo running FLAWLESSLY on Windows 10 64 bit.

Literally just install the Demo as normal and....install dgVoodoo 2.....and it works......no issue......well, THAT was a headache and half of wasted time!

Not onto my second bit of good news! I managed to find the Single Player Beta build with the 7 levels, complete with a couple of cracked exes! The Bad News: the game doesn't start. At all. It just appears in task manager for a second and dies. I tried cracking my own exe using DeActiveMark (which seems to create identical exes to the crack one's provided) and get the same result.

According to the uploaders readme the SP demo will ONLY runs on 32 bit OS's.....which I find strange, yet probably fixable. Any ideas on where to go from here?

Reply 28 of 31, by Kerr Avon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Sorry, no, unless running it in a 32 bit Virtual Machine (such as VMWare) will work. Where did you download the 7 level demo, so I can check if it's the same one that I have (you start off talking to the woman, IIRC, I can't remember her name)? Actually, I'm not sure I ever played the later demo, the one you have working now, so can you post a link to that too, please?

Reply 29 of 31, by SirChronocide

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Kerr Avon wrote:

Sorry, no, unless running it in a 32 bit Virtual Machine (such as VMWare) will work. Where did you download the 7 level demo, so I can check if it's the same one that I have (you start off talking to the woman, IIRC, I can't remember her name)? Actually, I'm not sure I ever played the later demo, the one you have working now, so can you post a link to that too, please?

Yup, https://archive.org/details/TimeShiftAtariDemosDJXavieRO.

And yeah, that's the Sp demo here. It's the same one from one of the Youtube playlists in the forums you linked earlier.

I WAS able to get the game running via Virtualbox......but once you get past the menus in game, performance goes to absolute garbage, visible boxes around Lin once she fades in after 10 seconds of fading. And using dgVoodoo 2 on Win10 didn't solve the issue like last time, sadly. Same result as before: Boots for a quick second with no window, then crashes. Although there was ONE TIME a window popped up in the top left (YES!!!!) aaaaaand then just hung there not responding. (Not yay...) Event viewer says it's due to ntdll.dll faulting every time.

I've check my ntdll.dll versions across all my updated PCs and they're all the most recent, and all my drivers are good (I'm 99.9% sure of that since I check for updates more often than most rational people would).

Sooooo.....damn. That's pretty much the wall I've hit now. 😒