Win 2000 and WinSPMBT?

[jthomas]

I downloaded and installed WinSPMBT on my Win 2000 machine, IBM T-23, 512MB ram, oodles of HD space, S-3Graphics SuperSavage/IXC display adapter.

Got several really cryptic error messages once I clicked on "Play WinSPMBT", then it produced the dreaded "WinSPMBT.exe has created errors and will be closed by Windows. OK?"
I did screenshots of each message in a Word document if anyone is interested. Maybe Win2000 is not supported?
I will be trying it on my XP machine at home tonight.

[Pyros]

Hi,

From what I know there has been testing on W2k operating systems and the game should work.

I am sure Mobhack will help you on this.

cheers,
Pyros

[Arralen]

The game does run fine on W2k. I tested it on 2 different W2k machines (one Intel/nVidia, the other AMD/ATi based).

Judging from the error messages, there's a little problem with your (slightly dated ) graphics card, or it's drivers.

Simply, the game could not initialize DirectDraw correctly. DirectDraw is the 2D-Subset of DX .. (ok, I know win programmers will beat me for this oversimplification).
But without being able to initialize it's main window there isn't much the exe can do besides crashing.

Please run dxdiag.exe and post the full result as a zipped attachment, so we can check for outdated drivers and installation problems.

Besides: judging from your screenshot, you're running a whole lot of stuff at the same time as you try to start the game .. try to close all other programs, and ever try to get rid of some of those in the .. how do they call it .. the icon bar in the lower right. Could be that some multimedia-software or chat client tries to get itself into the foreground constantly and thereby keeps WinSPMBT from initializing correctly.

SW

[FJ_MD]

When Directdraw is not initialized the game will not work, this also happen on my winxp if the hardware acceleration is not set to max or near it.

Try to see your hardware acceleration status in the properties of your graphic card.

[Mobhack]

If it is a WORK pc, then it may not even have DirectX installed in the first place, as the sysadmin and/or management take a dim view to games on thier machines!

The original poster ommited to mention his DirectX version, but running dxdiag will put it right in front of you though, and if the thing gives an error trying to run dxdiag, then it's probably a fair bet that DirectX is not even installed!.

It MIGHT work in windowed GDI mode. Depends if there is DirectPlay installed on the box - if the splash screen with the Leo 2 came up before the errors, then sound should be a go, as it uses DirectPlay (for sound), as does the splash screen (for video, or in this case to display a single picture). Or DirectShow, been a while, but one of the multitude of DirectSomethings!

Cheers
Andy

[jthomas]

DirectX 8.1(4.08.01.0901)
It's good to know at least there is hope!

Mobhack- you are right sysadmin here take a dim view of games, but I managed to wrangle admin rights for my machine.
The splash screen DID come up before the errors.
I ran the DirectDraw tests, and everything was OK.
But, I got these lines in the dxdiag output:
DDraw Status: Not Available
D3D Status: Not Available
AGP Status: Not Available
DDraw Test Result: All tests were successful.

So the tests were successful, but DDraw is "not available"?
What do I need to do?