Anyone play Klingon Academy?

Hello, just wondering if anyone here still plays Klingon Academy. It's on old game from 2000, that I just got again after losing it many years ago.
On my new inspiron, with Vista, everytime I move the ship, the screen flashes bright white several times per second.
Tracked it down to a problem in ddraw (the game was written for dx7). Some incompatibility.
Just wondering, if by any chance, anyone who plays this game on newer hardware, has the same problems?
Trying to find a fix, but nothing yet. Might have to get win98 and virtual pc or something to make it run properly.

 

Yeah, I remember that game, I think it was better than the newest one, what Legacy? that came out last year. Curious to see if ya figure it out, I've got stacks of old games sittin around that I'd be curious to know if they'd run under vista somehow. I like the newest latest and greatest games, but there were definately some good older ones too.... funny that we sit here trying to make the newest DX10 game run on, and then go to play an older game and have totally different problems ha

 

I've played it....beaten it.....Haven't loaded it on anything newer then around 2002 hardware though, so not sure what you could do. I would suggest running in compatibility mode for the various differen't Window OSes though, and you could try over a Virtual PC, it might not affect it too badly performance wise(if at all really) and might just fix the problem.

 

I haven't heard this game mentioned in years. I loved it though. Hence my username. ^_^

 

Well, still the same problem unfortunately. No, compatibility mode doesn't work.
I installed virtualpc and windows 98 to test, only to find out, no hardware 3d acceleration in virtualpc, so that was a no go. Was nice to play some old DOS games though, wow the memories. Worked great too, was surprised.
I know it's a problem with ddraw, that's all I can say. Maybe it would work if I installed XP, as I know vista and directx with older games is a completely different thing altogether. Basically hit or miss it seems. Freespace 1 and 2 play great btw on vista. Along with Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. (yah, I'm an old skooler ).
Just have to put up with corrupted graphics in Klingon Academy I guess. Pity though, fun game.

 

If I may ask, if anyone here, has newer hardware (geforce go 7900gs or 7950 gtx preferably), and already has XP installed (if you decided to install that instead or whatever), and if you have KA, would you please install it and try it? I might just get XP if it does work.

 

I would if I could find my KA. I looked all over the place after reading this the other day, no idea where they are. If I find it or get some way to install it I'll try on my desktop and laptop, both Geforce 8s, but should work well enough for a test.

Hope I find it, heh.

 

Ok thanks.
Are links allowed here? It's the last official patch from Interplay for KA, just FYI.

ftp.interplay.com/pub/patches/ka102us.exe

Please, let me know.

 

I just reinstalled it the other day, actually. It ran on my 9800 Pro, but it crashed a few times. I rammed my Miranda into an enemy Akula and it crashed.

Anyway, I was running it on XP Home with no compatibility mode. I didn't even think to try it. Perhaps it would fix the crashes?

One more thing - is the res locked at 640x480? I couldn't find an option to change it, but I don't remember the game looking that crappy 7 (wow!) years ago.

 

In the KA launcher, go to Setup, and you can select the resolution from there. I had mine set to 1280x1024 (highest res of my flat panel monitor).
9800 Pro is a bit old though. Something just tells me, that newer hardware/drivers have issues with this game. Or rather, the game has issues with newer hardware/drivers.

EDIT: I don't remember if the original version had higher resolutions, but I know 1.02 does.

 

Besides the crashes, did you get any graphical glitches/artifacts? Screen flashing like I described?

 

Nope. The main menu had some glitches where it would go black and you couldn't see the options. They were still there, though. They re-appeared when you swept the cursor over them. I didn't notice any in-game glitches (with the exception of the crashes).

 

Thanks for your help. I really don't think it's worth it to purchase XP just for a game or two though. Pity.
I'll just have to deal with the graphical glitches.

 

Perhaps you could try Bridge Commander instead? It's awesome as well.

 

Well I installed it the other day, which reminds me I should have tried Hellgate on Vista then too, anyways the install went fine, and the ran fine, but there were some strange graphical dealies going on like you said there would be. I did everything I could think of, and nothing seemed to matter. I tried it on my C2D and 8800GTS. I have another computer I could try it on with a PenD/7800GT but I haven't yet.

So unless someone creates some kind of fix, I think it's just the clashing with something in Vista. I could try it in XP as well if you would like, as I haven't yet.

 

@ meh_cd I've thought of trying Bridge Commander, I just might.
@ Scavar, sure if you want to try that. Would be nice to know just in case. I found the old KA board the other night, was reading through and apparently KA just has issues with new nvidia cards, and it does look like a Vista issue as well. Seems, the older you go back (in operating systems, to win98), the less buggy the game gets.

 

I have an old HP somewhere in my house with Windows 98 on it. Maybe I should mail it to you hehe

 

If only! But seriously, the reason I got a laptop and got away from building computers, was so I could actually consolidate EVERYTHING into one machine. Well that and I got tired of building my own.

 

I have an update. I installed XP today. Already had the Dell drivers.
The game works FLAWLESSLY. Go figure.

 

Turning off the High Detailed Starfield in the game will stop the flashing for those running Vista, but it makes the game look a bit washed out. I hope to find an answer myself.