Kilrathi Saga: 3 works, 1 and 2 show a blank screen

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TigerNightmare

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Hello, I have Windows98SE running on a 400 mhz AMD K6-2 with 128 MB RAM and recently acquired Kilrathi Saga. While setting my soundcard accelleration to basic removed the FMV sound skipping and WC3 runs fine without any problems whatsoever, I have problems getting 1 and 2 to work.

When I run them, I hear the intro music and sound effects, but my monitor is giving me a "no signal" icon showing something like this floating around: [ Hz ? ]

I know it's not my monitor and it can run System Shock (in Windows, too) at all of its screen sizes including the 320 X 200 that I heard WC1 and 2 are supposed to run.

Could it be my graphics card? It's an old PCI 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 and it's not listed under the help file's test boards. What can I do to fix this? Help! This is like wanting to be a rock star for 10 years and then finding out you hate fame. Or something.
 
What a bad analogy. :) It sounds to me like even if your monitor can support the correct resolution, it's having trouble supporting the refresh rate you're going for. Have you tried adjusting this? It's under Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Monitor, Monitor Settings in XP. I don't remember where it is in 98, but it should be something like that.
 
I tried changing my refresh rate in my current resolution, which is 1024 X 768, from 85 to 60, but each resolution has a different refresh rate setting. I'm unable to change the refresh rate for 320 X 200 because I can't set that to be the regular screen size. One time, don't ask me how because I don't remember, I had found that after doing ... something ... the display properties window was still open and the screen was set to 640 X 480, but it wasn't the bottom notch. I dragged the slider down and it was 320 X 200. I clicked Apply and the screen gave the Hz ? icon again, plus my computer froze up.

Okay, I can repeat the action. Open display properties and click on settings tab, try to play wc1 or 2, press alt X, then I can drag it down to 320 X 200. But I'm pretty sure I'll get another freeze.
 
Whenever something (usually computer-related) gets fixed, I always hear Doc Brown when he sees his Flux Capacitor for the first time. It woooooooorks! Ha haaaaa ha ha! IT WOOOORKS!

Cff, your link gave instructions for win2k/NT and the registry keys for 9x are different. However, it did point me in the right direction. I googled [regedit "refresh rate" 98 OR 9x] and quickly found where to find the key, under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Display\

There were two subkeys that I needed to look at, which were 0000 and 0001. Naturally, I tried to change the 0000 first, going under MODES and inserting the key "320,200" within each color depth and changing the default value to "60". However, this didn't do anything, so I just erased those keys. I moved down to 0001 and under MODES were the same color depths, only the default value was blank and there was a second string that simply said "RefreshRate". Again, I added 320,200 keys and decided to just use 85 as the refresh rate; along the way, I read that monitors advertise faster refresh rates but only for 640 X 480, so I figured my monitor had the juice to do it. The Default value was also blank (showing "" instead of {value not set}) so I just double clicked on default and pressed enter to enter a blank value; I doubt that did anything, but I just wanted to be thorough.

Nothing happened until I added the key for 8 bits (256 colors). And that was it. Both 1 and 2 are 8 bit, 320 X 200. For some reason, KS asks for that screen resolution without a refresh rate (or one that's too low for my monitor). I'm pretty sure it's a DirectX porting or backward compatibility issue.

And now, it's time for me to play while I download the expansion packs. By the off-topic way, what's the difference between the separate expansion pack files and the bundled expansion pack files? Like, Secret Missions 1 and 2 are available in separate downloads, but are also available together in a smaller overall file.

Anyway, thank you all for your help.
 
Glad you got it working! The files are the same. There's some overlap, so the combined files are smaller than the two subpacks added together. If there was a lag between the individual packs being released, then the combined zips just put those together. I kind of remember SM1/2 coming out at the same time though, and SO1/2 as well later on. It also just comes down to the time when these were made. A one meg package was a 15 minute download, so people got in the habit of subdividing their stuff up a lot.
 
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