need for speed problem

I have a 2 week old Dell Inspiron E1505 w/

Intel Core Duo 1.83 ghz
1 gb RAM
256 mb ATI Radeon X1400
Windows XP Media Center 05

and I recently installed Need for Speed 2 SE on it (old game, I know). The problem is that the game installs perfectly fine but it doesn't run. When I try to run the game the computer just sits there doing nothing. I can see that the process "nfs2se.exe" is running but the computer doesn't show any signs of thinking or starting up the game. I know this computer is much more than capable of running this game, so does anyone know why the game doesn't start? Does it have anything to do w/ it being a pretty old game? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

What operating system(s) is it designed to run on?
Try: Right-click the icon on the desktop, hit the Compatability tab, check "Run this Program in ... " and change it to Windows 2000 - see if that helps.

 

Oh yeah, I was gonna mention that my computer has WinXP MCE 05. I'm not sure what specific OS it was designed to run on but I have had it installed on computers w/ Win98 and WinXP Home. I will try doing what you said.

 

Ok, I tried doing that and setting it to Windows 2000 as well as Windows 98 and unfortunately neither worked. It still just sits there doing nothing but the process is running. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Greg, did you try looking for any patches or fixes for the game?

 

I googled it and looked around some but haven't found anything yet.

EDIT: found one patch, but the fixes listed don't sound like they will help. i remembered there is also an "update via internet" thing you can run under the game folder. I will try those later but if anyone knows of anything else let me know.

 

I would be interested to know if you resolve this problem as I am thinking of getting this laptop.

 

go to http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?tg=dl-2001&qt=need%20for%20speed&tag=srch
and look for a patch

 

The patch that I did find didn't work, and the update via internet thing couldn't even connect to the server (if it even exists anymore). Also, there we no patches for NFS2 SE on download.com. I will try the update via internet thing again and see what it says but if anyone else knows of anything, let me know.

 

I seem to recall NFS2:SE was a Glide only game, it didn't actually support Direct3d devices (though it did use directX3)

 

what does that mean?

 

the glide API was only for 3dfx cards. You cant accelerate it with direct 3d.

 

NFS2:SE's primary renderer was actually software, and that was what was installed by default. In order to get Glide, you had to copy a different executable from the CD.

I've tried playing this game in Glide using a wrapper with mixed results. Best just to stick with ugly, pixelated software...or build yourself a Pentium II-class PC with a PCI 3dfx card.

 

saturn, not sure how you configured it, though I do know the main point of the SE edition was the glide renderer. But games didnt drop software rendering modes till like..quake 3.

 

So what can I do to get this game to work with the computer and hardware that I have?

 

You don't. :/

 

Really? There's nothing I can adjust w/ my graphics or anything? How come it doesn't even give me an error message or anything? When I click the icon to start the game the CD doesn't even start to spin, but the process shows up in the task manager.

 

If possible, I would run it on another system and see if it has the same problems.

 

I can try that, although I did have it installed on my previous computer (Gateway M305, Intel Celeron 2.4ghz, 512mb RAM, Intel integrated graphics, WinXP Home w/ SP2) and it worked fine. This was no more than a month ago, shortly before my Gateway died and I bought my Dell.

 

Tried it on my dad's Dell Latitude D600 w/ WinXP Pro, Pentium 4 Centrino, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 and it works fine.