I've never had issues with A2 Racer 1 with Direct3D with various cards - what version GeForce drivers are you using?

Given that it's a DirectX 3 game, there's also the possibility that you'll have better success using DirectX 7.0a or 8.1a instead of 9.0c.

You have 1GB of RAM installed - are you using rloew's RAM patch or system.ini modifications? Win9x is known to be unstable with more than 512MB of RAM.

Hi,

I’m using GeForce driver 45.23, I think from Phil’s Computer Lab, the latest DirectX 9.0c (October), and the DirectX installations that come with the games.

Davilex games don’t work well with newer versions of DirectX. I guess they simply don’t understand it. I can’t downgrade DirectX because many of my other games rely on it. As I mentioned before, around 140–160 games work without issues.

However, I did find a solution. It didn’t work on Windows XP, where I tried to on Vacantie Racer without success. It only works with A2 Racer 1 on Windows 98.

The game now works without having to disable DirectDraw first. I downloaded the Aqrit ddraw wrapper called “DSWin8.zip.”

Steps:
Placed the contents (ddraw.dll and aqrit.cfg) into the game’s installation folder. Unfortunately, A2 Racer still looks for ddraw.dll in the Windows system folder. To prevent this, renamed the ddraw.dll i placed in the game installation folder (not the DLL in the Windows system folder!) to xdraw.dll.

Used a hex editor (HxD) to open A2spel.dat. Go to Search > Replace.

In Search for, type ddraw.dll

In Replace with, type xdraw.dll

Set search direction to All

Choose Replace All, then save (top left of the screen)

In the in-game settings, selected 3D Accelerator, turned Horizon on, and Dashboard on. Clicked OK. Start the game.

Voilà! It works. 🚀