People's General on HP Notebook does not work

Hello, I have been trying my best to get this extraordinary game to work on the HP Notebook but the game simply crashes even the moment I try to start it. I already tried messing around with the compatability even trying to change the resolution of the Notebook but to no avail. Has anyone ever gotten the game to work on a HP Notebook ? Is the screen simply too small for the game to open up or....is the game too powerful for the Notebook ? Any help regarding this problem would be most appreciated whatber it is, I just want closure

 

Which notebook, what graphics card? What specs do you have?

 

It is a HP Mini 101, Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB with 0.99 GB of RAM. Graphics card is Intel GMA 950.

 

That almost sounds like a compatibility issue. Can you try locating the EXE file, right clicking, and set it to compatibility mode with Windows 95 or 98?

 

Tried that a lot of times but it does not work . It's like its about to boot the game then a split second after that, nothing. If I put compatibility with windows 95 and make the colours 256, its actually loads up a bit more, entering a black screen then it just returns back to Windows.

 

Your netbook should have no issues running it as far as CPU and GPU power considering specs show Pentium 166. Is it a 3D or 2D game? Try going to www.microsoft.com/directx and download the latest directx. That sometimes fixes issues for me.

 

Thank you, I will try the direct X although I think mine is pretty up to date. Its a 2D game from the 1990s, my notebook can play Red Alert 2, Worms Amamgeddon etc which came out later and People's Generals, graphically is a really simple game. I also am stumped about why it cannot work

 

I checked out my direct X, it's 9.0 C. Also, I tried to adjust sound acceleration as it is sometimes the remedy for older games to work but also this did not work along with the compatibility issue. Could it be that the Hp Mini 110 simply has a small screen that is too small ? I have a mobile internet connection setup program that will not start because the cause of the error is that the screen is too small.

Still, I find it puzzling that I can play 2D games that came out later without a hitch. Is there a way I can make it a DOS program or something ? This game is a classic and with the Mini, very portable. Such a shame !

 

If it is a DOS game, then try DOSbox.

If it is a Win 95 or 98 game, then try VirtualBox or VirtualPC (Microsoft) and install Windows 98, but you need a Win95 or 98 install CD and key. Normally a virtual PC on a netbook wouldn't work out too well, but considering the low system specs of this game, it should run fine.

BTW, this game is now FREE. Did you download the updated and modified versions?

http://users.skynet.be/rmypegww2/Pages/install.htm

 

Thank you, sir. Tried Dosbox, it's not a DOS program unfortunately. I'll try VirtualBox though, hope it works !

And yea, I got it for free from an abandonware site . I have the excellent unofficial 2.0 expansion pack (the one with Russia Resurgent) if that counts.

 

I installed VirtualBox but what does it do exactly ? Also what should I do ? Apologies for my ignorance in advance

 

VirtualBox and VirtualPC will run a virtual operating system within Windows. But you need the actual installation OS disk and license key (as noted earlier). So you can run Windows 98 within your Windows XP or Vista or 7 OS. It doesn't do 3D, but 2D should be no issue.

 

People's General is a Windows game...

It suffers from the same issue as most Windows 95/98 games...Windows XP/Vista eschewed the previous Windows versions and used the NT kernel which broke compatibility with several games from the Windows 98 era...

I do not believe that People's General is 3D enhanced, and your machine should have no problems running it...

I believe the max resolution of the game is 800x600...what is the resolution of your screen (size of the screen shouldn't matter)?

The game uses DirectX, but as far as I know, DirectX is fairly backwards compatible...

I have the game successfully running on an XP setup...I had some problems with the cinematics initially and moved them from my CD to my HDD (in a folder called 'CINE') and they worked fine...I also had problems with the artwork behind the hex grid (eg, the mountains and rivers and cities)...I, for the life of me, can't remember what I did, but the game runs flawlessly now...

I looked at the .exe last night and I don't have any compatibility settings chosen...there may have been a patch that I used from the internet, but I don't remember (usually, if I use a non-official patch, I save the original exe as '...exe Original' and that's not in the folder so it may not have been patched)...I believe that I may have just copied the cinematics to the 'CINE' folder and the artwork/maps to the appropriate folder and done something in the registry so it looked at the HDD instead of the optical drive...

If you're using Vista then all bets are off unless you can find someone who's got it to run on Vista...

 

It would be really nice if someone would make a program like DOSbox but called Win9xbox or something to run all the Win 95/98 games. Or perhaps just a good mod to VirtualBox, VirtualPC or whatever that would allow for Direct3D graphics.

 

It would probably be a huge undertaking of Wine proportions.

VMware supports DirectX 9.0c.

 

Thanks. So what Vmware version would I need? Workstation? $189?

 

For PC users, Workstation 6.5, 7.0 RC and Player 3.0 RC (which is free, though I'm not sure if the D3D support extends beyond Aero).

If you have a Mac, any version of Fusion.

 

D3D 9c gaming support should work fine with Workstation 6.5 and/or 7.0RC though right?

 

Yes, DirectX 9.0c works in Workstation 6.5 and 7.0 RC, though I should point out the following caveats:

1) Maximum video memory is 128 MB in 6.5, don't know whether or not they increased it in 7.0 RC as I've yet to try it. Oh, and this uses your DDR2/DDR3 main memory, not your actual video memory.
2) To my understanding (and I could be wrong here, but anyway) the way it works is that all D3D instructions are translated to OpenGL by the CPU, so no matter how fast your actual video card is, your CPU will entirely determine how fast the game runs.

When you combine the above 2 points, you basically have a modern IGP, and how good this "IGP" is depends on your CPU. In short, it's great for older games that won't run on Vista or Windows 7 for whatever reason, but not so great for anything more demanding than WoW.

Edit: Oh, and if you're the type that balks at the idea of paying for software, well, I'm sure you won't need any help there. I'll just add that you get what you pay for when it comes to VM software though, which is why VMware is the best and Microsoft's new Windows XP mode is so damn primitive.

 

Thanks. I just want to run older games like MechWarrior 2, Longbow 2, and F-15, and I think my desktop CPU and laptop CPU will probably handle that just fine. I know there's a handful of others I tried running in the past with XP and Vista with a no-go, but I didn't bother to try that hard. For that price tag, I'm going to have to really want it. $189 is a little steep. I'd be more intersted in $89. I have an older desktop (AMD Sempron 2400+, GeForce 6600, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD) that I have Windows 98 on that I can use, but I'd prefer not to have another machine lying around.

 

If that's the case, then there's 2 options:

1) You can be the guinea pig and try out VMware Player 3.0 RC and upgrade to the final version of Player 3.0, which will also be free, when it's released. If it works, great, and if it doesn't, then too bad, I guess.
2) The one I hinted at above in my previous post. Going into any more detail than that is forbidden.

 

I downloaded 3.0 RC. Will give it a try sometime in the near future.