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Beasts & Bumpkins (1997) and Windows 10

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,270
Location
Massachusettes
Was in the mood for something old (1997), something stolen borrowed (abandonware site) and something blue (screwed up color palette), so I settled on Beasts & Bumpkins because it looks charming, simple and fun and I need to scratch a recent itch I have for a "city builder" type game but how the heck do you get it to play on Windows 10 nicely? I used the old Windows 95 compatibility setup trick to get it installed and running but I strongly suspect the color palette is wonky - my lil computer guys/village idiots are literally blue. Tolerable but the worst thing is the unacceptable mouse lag. Anyone here ever play this under Windows 10 and get it lag-free or do I ask too much, for the sun, the blue moon, and the stars, and should I stop living in the past?
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,270
Location
Massachusettes
Try DGVoodoo. Worked for me on other old games on win 10.

Interesting enough, I recently had Dark Forces 2 & its expansion, along with Age of Pirates 2, running well under Windows 10 with the voodoo wrapper but, alas, Beasts & Bumpkins still hates Windows 10 no matter what I try. Guess I'll just have to throw in the towel. Thx anyway.
 

warcrimes666

Educated
Patron
Joined
Aug 8, 2017
Messages
93
I would borrow VMware and have a win95 machine sitting on the desktop for when these unseemly urges bubble up. I've spent the last few days in just such a hole.
 

Fray

Novice
Joined
May 28, 2014
Messages
24
I had a similar problem with a game recently that DxWnd fixed. It doesn't seem like there are presets for the game but it might not need too much fiddling with settings. Here's a link if you're interested in trying it. I've noticed I have to run DxWnd as administrator to get it to launch programs in case you come across that problem.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,270
Location
Massachusettes
I had a similar problem with a game recently that DxWnd fixed. It doesn't seem like there are presets for the game but it might not need too much fiddling with settings. Here's a link if you're interested in trying it. I've noticed I have to run DxWnd as administrator to get it to launch programs in case you come across that problem.

It was worth a try and it even gave me the best results but the mouse is still too choppy for my taste. Sometimes it's too high of a mouse's USB polling rate that causes issues (DOSBox used to make the mouse cursor jumpy until I would lower the polling rate from 1000 Hz to normal values like 125 Hz) and I even tried lowering it but... no joy.
 

G.O.D

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2011
Messages
851
Location
The Netherlands
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
I never got this game to run properly. On different kinds of OS too. Always had issues of some sort.
My last attempt was years ago, and it had me editing the Windows registry. It ran but not without frame rate and scrolling issues.

Though I love this game, I gave up on trying to get it to work. I've been wanting to replay this for years, and even got the original CD. It must be more than 15 to 20 years since I last played it :(

There is a Let's Play on Youtube so I assume it's possible to get it to work.
He says he has instructions on how to get it to work.



Installation instructions:
1. Download the ISO file from here: http://www.theisozone.com/downloads/p...
2. Download PowerISO here: http://www.poweriso.com/download.php
3. Download DXWND from https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/
4. Mount Beasts and Bumpkins ISO file to virtual cd drive using PowerISO.
5. Explore the ISO in a window and find Setup.exe. Right click on it and change compatibility mode to windows 95 or 98. Run this file with administration permission and install the game to your hard drive
6. Open DXWND. Click the Edit tab and select ADD. Name it whatever you want. In the Path section you have to select the Beasts.exe file wherever you installed it. In the directx tab make sure to select Directx1-6. Limit resolution to 640x480. 7. Run hooked. If it doesn't work you may need to fiddle with the settings as not all computers will run this game the same.
 
Last edited:

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,270
Location
Massachusettes
Not sure what hooked means but I followed everything else in those instructions and it still runs like shit through a crazy straw under Windows 10. There's a LOT of options in that DXwind proggie so maybe heavy fiddling & experimenting with 'em might make something playable. But I'm already petered out trying to get Crysis running at more than 25 FPS in fullscreen today (who woulda known that there's a refresh rate bug that forces you to create a custom resolution of 1919x1080 in Nvida CP instead of 1920x1080 to get it to work right? How could I be so dumb? I mean it's perfectly obvious that this is what needs to be done. Right? *smirk*) so maybe some kind autistic soul here can find the solution to B&B using DXWind and post their results.
 

G.O.D

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2011
Messages
851
Location
The Netherlands
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
Too bad it didn't work. But like I said, I have tried multiple times over the years. I'm done ;)

Fun as the game is though.. It isn't worth the vast effort, and there are plenty of other games to play.
 

PieBaron

Barely Literate
Joined
Jun 20, 2021
Messages
1
I had this same itch lately and persevered for a couple hours and got it to work on windows 10, give this a try:

1. get the iso
2. mount the iso (I used winCDEmu, but any other im sure is good)
3. as in above guide: find Setup.exe. Right click on it and change compatibility mode to windows 95. Run this file with administration permission and install the game to your hard drive

4*. I found an old star trek game website armadafleetcommand.com which is has a pre-setup DXWnd for all their mods and games here:
www.armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/botf/viewtopic.php?t=3179
i. Download the FULLSCREEN setting version
ii. Open it up and select the top entry in the list (Birth of the Federation) and go edit > modify
iii. change the path to point to your beasts.exe location where you installed it, clear the launch path, change the Name (optional)
iv. as in above guide, go to DirectX tab and set DirectX Version Hook to DirectX1~6, and tick both the AERO handling check boxes in that same tab, I left everything else as is.

That worked for me, running fullscreen and smooth with good colours on windows 10, dont forget cd/iso needs to be mounted for game to work.
WAHEEYYYY! zooka! *pfft*

*following the original dxwnd advice didnt work for me, either it was laggy, or it ran smooth but the color palette was messed up (green and blues where they shouldnt be in brighter ranges), i was messing with settings until I realised its better to see if someone had figured some optimal settings for other old 90s games, i got lucky it worked first try with that star trek games site, hope it works out for you, I never completed b&b when I was a kid so I'm pretty excited to play it again now in my old age.
 

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