Tie Fighter on Newer Systems

[ajkochev]

Yes that is right. I love this game from the previous century and would like to continue playing it every now and again. I'm using the CD Rom collectors edition released around 1999.

I recently migrated to Windows 7 from XP. Had a AGP Nvidia 5700 Ultra on an Asus motherboard P4 with 2 gigs ram. The only thing I did was reformat and install Win 7. On this system I installed the game, the third party Win2000/XP patch and was playing the game with 3d support, the only issue was a few prefight, post flight and option screens had minor to major color palette issues. XP did not have this issue. No big deal, the in-flight game looked just as good as ever and was still as fun.

Well, I got a bit better system recently. Still a P4 with a faster processor but it has PCI-E. I bought a Evga Nvidia 9400GT for it. Running Win 7 as well. Well, I was able to run the game, still had the palette issues but this time no 3d. When enabled I can see the starfeild background and the Hud but no 3D objects. When I turn off 3d accelleration, the flight engine runs fine albeit poorer graphics.

Should I give up on the game and let it fade into history? Anyone have experience with this game and getting it to be fully compatable on newer systems? Any suggestions for virtualization or emulation?

[Ferrit]

Have you tried compatibility mode?
Well which windows 7 ?
Because the better versions offer XPMode free
It may run in there.

[Guts3d]

Simple solution that is cheap or free, watch Craigslist for someone getting rid of old lease computers or check the salvage stores in your area for old machines. I picked up a 2.4 Pentium 4 Micron desktop for $20 at goodwill with no hard drive. Put Windows 98 on it, ( had a copy laying about ) and an old 80 gig hard drive, and put Empire, Doom2, Serious Sam, etc. on it. I use a KVM so I can swich between computers, but it is easy enough to swap wires.

[ajkochev]

Thanks everyone for the advise. I tried a few of your steps. No dice with compatibility mode. Still the same issue. I have Win 7 Pro but the computer is new to me but not new enough to have the virtual VT hardware required to run XP mode. I have installed the regular Virtual PC 2007 on it and will see about making my own XP build. I have a feeling that 3D accelleration in Virtual PC is not going to fly though.

I have an older laptop that runs XP well. The graphics card should be able to run the simple 3D engine in the game, so worst case I'll start playing it on there. Again, thanks for the advise.

[Niclo Iste]

I myself haven't tried the game on win7 since I don't have the disks anymore. However, I've been making old win98 programs work for clients on win7 for the past month or so. Some advice I have is going into the game folder and finding ALL the files you can that will allow you to change their compatibility mode and changing them all to the same compatibility. Such as Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000 or something that would work. Another thing I would suggest is disabbling the visual themes, and display scaling together or seperately until you get a better result.

[slgrieb]

a recurring problem I've seen with some older games is that they just won't detect a lot of current video cards correctly. Sometimes you get error messages that they cant find a hardware accelerated video card and installation fails. Sometimes the games will run, but default to a lousy video mode.

[John_K]

I have a copy of Tie Fighter and X-Wing somewhere collecting dust in my attic. Although I can't say for sure that this will help get you running, the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit is the best app compatibility tool I've seen short of emulation. FYI, there is an entry in the database for Star Wars: X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. It might be close enough to work...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[ajkochev]

Well, I found out that it is not Windows 7 causing the issue. I did a bit more test and tried X-Wing Alliance on the system and it thinks that there is no 3D card in the system, runs entirely in software mode with no option to force it into 3D.

I searched several forums particular to the Lucasarts Starwars Space simulation line and discovered that this happens on several of the newer Nvidia GPUs, even if they are running XP. So the problem appears to be hardware related and not Windows 7. There is probably no fix for it unless Nvidia does something with the driver or firmware of the chipset.

[ajkochev]

I read the thread a bit more closer. I found the fix on page five of this post in the zip file.
http://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3/vie...rt=100#p137908

Both Tie Fighter and Alliance are working on my system with the new NVidia card.