Grim Fandango: DX7 fail

[hal900x]

I've never played Grim Fandango. It's one of those games of the DirectX 6-7 era that either works for you or it doesn't (on XP or later). I think it has to do with the fact that these games look for certain aspects of old DX, and your particular mix of card/driver/system etc may or may not cut it. Yes, I know about the launcher and the so-called XP patch. Neither of these helps. Forums are filled with basically two replies: A.) MINE WORKS FINE, WUT DO U MEAN? or B.) "It's hopeless".

I'm just mining for secret tips from the ultra-leet Codex dwellers before I start building a Win98SE system for the sole purpose of playing these games. I mean something a bit more hardcore than setting the compatibility mode. I'm fairly capable, I just don't know where to start. Hacking a DX install? Some hex editing? Recompiling a DLL? I dunno.

Building a 98 machine could be a major endeavor, given that no 98 drivers exist for my hardware. I have heard that 98SE had a similar driver model to XP, and that you can actually install many XP drivers in 98. I do find myself curious about that. As I write this, it occurs to me there might be virtual image of 98 that I could mount somewhere. Last time I checked VMs and hardware rendering didn't play too well together though.

Help me play this classic.

 

[sparrowtm]

Google came up with this.

 

[FaChoi]

Hmmm, i managed to get it to work on my XP P4 system, cant remember how exactly- used the patch and the launcher says its the demo launcher- not the same as this one. http://quick.mixnmojo.com/grim-fandango-setup(link to the same launcher as above) I set it to run in single thread/core mode but there was other problems i'm sure... something to do with setup .dll's or .lod's or someit. What about residual? like scummvm but for grime engined games.http://residual.sourceforge.net/

edit; Think i fixed it using something on the lucas forums http://www.lucasforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=236

 

[hal900x]

The solutions above seem to be for installation, rather than running. I'll look a bit deeper into the lucas forums, but I'm not having any trouble installing. The game runs, it's just screwed up from DirectX issues. Switching to software mode doesn't help, because there are still hooks to DirectX. Some of the symptoms are missing textures, freezing, controls don't respond etc.

Residual would be a solution, if it were out of the pre-alpha stage. Last I checked, development on it was strictly an afterthought, lowest priority. I'll look again though.

 

[SCO]

It's for both. At least on wine. There is a problem with the registry entries (the launcher needs them, but not the game itself - it's retarded). I worked around it but i don't remember how. Would have to unzip it to see now. But truth be told maybe i ran in software mode.

 

[hal900x]

It looks like Residual has gotten more love than anticipated since the last time I checked the repository. Back then it was the unloved stepchild of SCUMM and in permanent pre-alpha. Now, I have Grim running under it, no idea if there will be game-breaking bugs or the like. I'll take it as far as I can.

 

[Topher]

I bought this game when it came out and I still have yet to play it... I really need to get around to that. I hope I can get it running on Win 7.

 

[ironyuri]

I bought this game when it came out and I still have yet to play it... I really need to get around to that. I hope I can get it running on Win 7.

If you can't, make a post or send me a PM. There's a special installer program available for download to make it run with x64 versions of Win7 which overcomes compatibility problems.

I still have some graphics issues though (blurring when Manny runs etc)

 

[Monk]

Thanks for mentioning the special launcher. Usually, one can run these games by using Virtualbox and installing XP, but it's a lengthy process.

 

[Jaesun]

I've only been able to get the game to run on VMWare Player (using Windows 98). Fast and easy to set up. It's doesn't have 3D (NO VM emulator to date does), so I just used the emulated 3D option. Worked perfectly fine for me.