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Old 05-10-2007, 03:58 AM   #21
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I hope it works out for you, too. After disabling compatibility mode on the Black Dahlia executable, I was able to install the patch and the game still works fine. The changes to the .INI file really make a huge difference, to the extent that I will probably disable edge spinning again, which made things much easier already. The values can probably be tweaked further to your liking, but this should definitely improve the playability by a huge amount.

Great game, too, with excellent atmosphere.

As there is so little good information written about this old game, I felt compelled to share what little I found out.
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Old 05-10-2007, 05:02 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thaurin View Post
As there is so little good information written about this old game, I felt compelled to share what little I found out.
Good thinking

I haven't had the time to try it out but I will try it this weekend.

Shivers II also suffers from this problem. Can't remember if there is a similar option in the resource.cfg/ini file...
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Old 05-11-2007, 12:21 AM   #23
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Yeah, I can't imagine how it should work on hardware of the time it was released. I can't imagine how it would work fine then, I mean, is this really a timing problem? CPU Killer et al really don't do anything to remedy the problem, but I guess they're not exactly the same as really having a slower CPU, anyway.
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Old 05-14-2007, 04:46 AM   #24
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Ok, I tried it this weekend and OMG it works

Thanks!

Now I just have to figure out how to fix Shiver 2...
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Old 05-14-2007, 04:48 PM   #25
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Great! This game really deserves to be played. Now I still have to finish Curse of Monkey Island, Escape From Monkey Island, The Pandora Directive, Overseer, the rest of Sam & Max Season 1, The Last Express, etc. before I can start Black Dahlia full on... oh, why can't I ever finish a game the first time round?

Did you play with the values some more? If you've found better settings than I posted, go ahead and share them.

P.S. Excellent, a Google search on "Black Dahlia" and "spin edges" already brings up this thread. It gave me no results when I tried searching for it. So hopefully this helps some more people (although I fear that we are a minority in still enjoying games from 1998 like Black Dahlia ).

Last edited by Thaurin; 05-14-2007 at 04:53 PM.
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Old 05-14-2007, 11:14 PM   #26
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I'm currently trying out some different settings. I'm experiencing some minor mouse issues that I have to fix first. My mouse cursor sometimes disappears and after it's gone, the game suffers from slowdowns

Argh!

Anyway, there are quite a few people here that fully appreciated Black Dahlia
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Old 05-15-2007, 03:04 AM   #27
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I checked Shivers II real quick, and there is a config file at SHIVERS2/RESOURCE.WIN that you can play with. I couldn't find any settings related to the mouse speed, though. And that game also runs in a small section top-left on my desktop rather than full-screen. Can't get it full-screen, which is a bummer.

I read that can be fixed by setting the desktop resolution to 640x480, but I hate that. It messes up all my icons and it's tedious.

As for Black Dahlia, you did disable compatibility mode? Because for me, Black Dahlia ran horribly with it, that is the mouse control did.
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Old 05-16-2007, 03:24 AM   #28
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Hmmm, never thought it could be the compatibility mode...

And yes, switching back to 640*480 is the only way to get Shiver 2 to run in fullscreen mode.

Personally, I don't find it that annoying, don't care about icons anyway

Tried fiddling with the settings in the resource file but there isn't a similar option to be found. So, I guess the only way to play Shivers at a normal speed is to use a slow down program.

I've looked for 3rd party patches or fixes but no luck so far...
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Old 05-16-2007, 12:17 PM   #29
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I haven't tried if a CPU slower works well with Shivers II. With Black Dahlia, it didn't. But I think I'll skip Shivers II for now with too many other games still lying around gathering dust.

So it was compatibility mode that gave you grief before?
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Old 05-22-2007, 02:45 AM   #30
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Sorry for the late answer, but I was away for a couple of days

Anyway, it was indeed the compatibility mode! When I've finished Ripper and The Pandora Directive on evil-bastard mode, I'll start with BD.

Can't wait to play it again!
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Old 05-24-2007, 03:06 AM   #31
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I haven't played very much and long marathon sessions, but I've heard reports of random crashes. I have not experienced anything like that myself, so it might be okay. Hope it doesn't do that for you or if it does, that there's a solution.
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Old 07-17-2007, 11:18 AM   #32
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Hi everyone...

first of all I would like to say that this is a great forum!!!

also, I've been trying to run Black Dahila for quite some time now...
I did everything that was suggested here:
changed the ini file and I turned off the compatibility mode and now the game runs in the right speed but crashes every 2 minutes..

did someone manage to fix this...????
any help would be greatly appreciated...

thx

Last edited by nirvana; 07-17-2007 at 11:29 AM.
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Old 07-20-2007, 01:10 AM   #33
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Hmmmm... Never ran into this problem...

Can't think of anything at the moment that might solve the problem.

Did you try to patch the game?

If not, you can download the patch here: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure...d_2539114.html
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Old 12-11-2007, 12:29 PM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thaurin View Post
Okay, what I just found out (that was fast!) that my compatibility setting of Windows 95/98 was causing this. Disabling compatibility mode fixed it. I'm going to try the patch again.

I read that you couldn't even run the game without compatibility mode, right? I would still urge you to try to get it working without, because it does fluently on my Windows XP machine.
Thank you. Disabling compatibility mode helped my mouse problems in Black Dahlia immediately.
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Old 05-27-2008, 02:49 PM   #35
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if you're still aving trouble making this game run properly, set processor affinity to 1. this game has real issues running on dual processor systems. that's the ONLY thing I've done and Black Dahlia runs like a charm under Win XP for me
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Old 05-30-2008, 06:32 AM   #36
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Hiya

Maybe it's just me, but I have the Black Dalhia version with about 6 discs, and I have no problems running it on my XP PRO machine. It plays and runs without any hitches. Just my experience.

clydevalley, Scotland.
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Old 08-31-2008, 01:05 AM   #37
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I tried getting it to run in VirtualPC (Win98) but just got a black screen.

I can get it running without win95 compat mode on XP just fine, but I did run into crashes when I got to the first playable screen (and was getting visual glitches).

Since I run on a dual core, I tried setting the affinity and it fixed the issue:

http://www.robpol86.com/pages/imagecfg.php
what I ended up doing:

Code:
imagecfg -a 0x1 c:\games\BDAHLIA\bd_win.exe
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Old 09-08-2008, 08:25 PM   #38
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I am having a problem with this game. I am on the fourth CD and I have just gotten out of the raven room after the table puzzle. after a few cut scenes (just after the December 2. 1941 sequence) I get an error saying: cannot find/open file J: \p3a\c28z1.pcx. I have the images ripped onto my computer, and J: is my CD drive. All the CDs before have played perfectly so I don't think it's because they're ripped images.

I have found this file on the fourth CD. it is in the exact file path specified in the error message. Why can't the game run it? after the error message comes up, the cut scene continues, but I get horrible screen garbage and then the video slowly hiccups along, and I can't get it past that. The game quits and I get a windows XP error: Memory cannot be read.


I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game. I have tried the patch and I tried the compatibility modes and all that. I even tried putting the directory with my missing file into the install folder of black dahlia on my C: drive. no go. just got the same error message, instead of j: \, I got c: \dosgames\bdahlia\p3a\c28z1.pcx not found. BUT IT"S THERE. (and yes, i know i have spaces in between the drive letters and their backslashes. if i don't, they show up as smiley faces.)

I have also tried the game in Windows 98 SE in Virtual PC 2007. I copied my game save files over to the partition using a CD. same problem. can't find that c28z1.pcx file.

Is this a problem with the cd? what's happening?

Please help, i want to play this game.

Last edited by skwatter; 09-08-2008 at 09:14 PM. Reason: tried more things
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Old 09-09-2008, 04:11 PM   #39
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I solved my problem.

I got one of my friend's CDs from him, and ripped 'er on to the drive. Worked perfectly. No missing file errors, no choppy, messed up videos.
Turns out my 4th CD was... well... I dunno... fucked up or something.
Weird how that happens, no?
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Old 12-31-2008, 12:55 PM   #40
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My apologies for the thread necromancy but I was just wondering if anyone had some further advice on making Black Dahlia playable on XP-Home.

I've managed to get the game both installed and patched, and I've edited the .ini file in order to set limits on the '360 mouse rotation speed' issue. The problem now is a consistent mouse movement failure whilst playing. By this I mean that in the menu system the mouse will leave pointer trails that often result in general slowdown, whilst in the actual game the pointer will often freeze completely on the screen (although both buttons are still perfectly functional) and only a game restart will reset it. This happens so frequently that the game is basically unplayable, even with pig-headed determination!

I'm not running the game in any form of compatibility mode as this seems to only exacerbate the mouse issue. Also, on a possibly unrelated note, I find that the background music/sound can sometimes grow choppy or stutter into repetition.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
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