[housellama]

Originally Posted by The Curious Mr Quint

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.

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.

I have this EXACT same issue. I have tried a number of things, but I can't get anything working. It is very frustrating.

Thanks in advance.

-Tug

[inm8#2]

I had all the problems with mouse movement, choppiness, and such under Win95 compatibility. I changed to Windows2000 compatibility mode and everything runs great, except for the slightly fast panning, but otherwise no streaky trails of the mouse or lags in video/audio.

[Gamma]

hello! i'm new in here.

i have some problems with black dahlia.
my game (8 cd's version) doesn't works on my XP. first i installed the game, then i tried to play with it, but the game was crashed every 2 or 3 minutes. later i found this old 1.10 patch. the installing of the patch is works perfectly, but it won't do anything in the game (except the subtitles line in the bd.ini file). my game has graphic bugs ("funny" mouse glitches) too.
after these, i tried to start it in windowed mode (i made a shortcut, than i use the -w code). it works, but when i try to save or restore, the game turn to a totally black screen, than crashing.
i remember, 2 or 2.5 years ago black dahlia worked perfect on windows xp.
i tried everything, but when i try to play the game in win95 or win98 compatibility mode, the mouse is incredibly slow and the game is unplayable (and of course, saving and restoring doesn't works even in win95 mode). i'm totally depressed, black dahlia was one of my favorites back in the 90's.
but i fixed the fast speed mouse problem with the bd.ini (i was found the tip in the AG forum, thanks a lot!)

please guys help me if you can!

ps. sorry for my bad english

[saulob]

Guys, found THE solution for this game

"Googling" for fixes to play in Windows Vista, I found one page (warez page, no link here, sorry) with this patch.

Called DVD/HDD Patch. I tried, really tried, to find the official page or author on the internet, no luck. If anyone can find it, please give us a link. I want to check if there's a new version.

What the patch do? From the official description:
"This install Black Dahlia to your harddisc, removes disc swapping, improves video quality and solves rotation, graphic and crash issues"

It removes video scanlines, fix multi-core errors and other amazing things. Played fine on my Windows 7 (still on the beginning)

I uploaded the patch for this link:
http://www.uploadjockey.com/download..._Patch_v03.zip

Here you can download from a lot of mirrors (Megaupload, Rapidshare...)

Hope that this fix the game for you too

Edit: Found the original creator talking about the game and fixes on a german forum (I don't know how to read it), the link: http://www.adventure-treff.de/forum/...7f6794#p327258 , this is the 'official thread' of the patch.

Btw, one thing I didn't like about this 'fix patch', it removes the english subtitles (that's included on the official 1.10 patch.

[sandymc79]

I downloaded the No-Cd patch(V.03), ran it, and then installed The 8 Black Dahlia game disks on my Win XP PC, followed the instructions, and the game ran PERFECTLY, including the "fast rotation" problem and the videos running without the "black lines". In order to prevent some random crashes, however, make sure you DON'T set the "MUSIC OPTION" bar all the way to the left. It can be "low" but not entirely OFF.
ALSO, I set the "compatibility" of the BD WIN.exe file to Windows NT, and then put a checkmark in "Disable Visual Themes" and in "Turn Off Advanced Text Services---------". After doing all of those things, I have been playing this game without a "hitch". Good luck to everybody, and enjoy playing this marvelous game.
Sandy

[Lee in Limbo]

Thread Necromancy FTW!!!

I just installed using the v03 patch, and the install went like butter. The problem is, the graphics are sort of a mixed bag of 'that looks great' and 'that looks horrible', with grainy textures running through the animations. I've tried compatibility settings as recommended here and elsewhere, but the noise in the animations persists.

Basically, I'm running Windows 7 x64 bit. I installed the eight disc set of Black Dahlia using the new v03.exe patch. Ran the game, and it kinda worked, but sorta didn't. Bacially, the title screen was a mess, so I shut it down. Then, I set the compatibility settings for 256 colours and 640x480 on the BD_WIN.exe, the bddvdpatch file and the BDPatchVideos file. That still didn't help. I installed the v1.10 patch. Nope. Tested in XP mode, and then in Win NT/2000 mode; same thing. I turned off visual themes. Nada.

The game itself seems to be running, but I can't see anything animated clearly (artifacts and decay), and the menus look all pixellated and crunchy, like someone coated them in little bits of pastel gumwads. They're absolutely illegible.

So now I'm back to wondering if my files are glitched. Any thoughts?

[Ascovel]

I'm afraid I don't have any clever ideas how to get rid of the glitches. However, I know for certain that Black Dahlia uses many more colors than 256, so you shouldn't limit the settings to that.

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Ascovel

I'm afraid I don't have any clever ideas how to get rid of the glitches. However, I know for certain that Black Dahlia uses much more colors than 256, so you shouldn't limit the settings to that.

You were exactly right. It looks great now that I've unchecked that setting. I still have to play it a bit to see if the other animations look right, but I'll come back and post about it in either case, once I've had time to sit down and play it. Sadly, it's time to run errands, and I have a short game review to write for a dear friend before I play any other games.

[Lee in Limbo]

Just a follow-up to say that I finally started playing BD today, after trying to troubleshoot it for the last week, and found that the game only works correctly immediately after a reboot of my computer, and that any attempts to alt-tab out for hints leads to the same graphical degradation. No ideas one way or the other. Just thought I'd add it to the pool of things to be discussed.

[shideshide]

Well, talk about thread necromancy, but I really don't have hope of getting help anywhere else.

So, I'm playing BD on Windows 7 64bits (or, rather, trying to paly it). I've installed the No CD patch and the game plays nicely alright, except for the color of the title screen, some of the videos and the menus - it all looks like a mess of weird colors, some look inverted or something like that. If anyone could help me in any way to play this awesome game, I'd be very happy.

Thanks in advance.

[Collector]

Did you try compatibility modes, especially 256 colors and disable desktop composition?

[shideshide]

I tried everything you guys mentioned so far, and nothing seems to work.

[Collector]

Sorry, I don't have the game, so I can't experiment.

[shideshide]

I should mention I'm using Windows 7 though, and my processor is a Core 2 Duo. Don't know if it makes a difference.

[plumgas]

I had the same problem under win 7 64 & it something that could not be solved so I have run under xp. patching it to run under 1 core makes not difference.

here is the screen shot- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21372568/IMG...10125-2359.jpg

[Phaid]

Originally Posted by plumgas

I had the same problem under win 7 64 & it something that could not be solved so I have run under xp. patching it to run under 1 core makes not difference.

here is the screen shot- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21372568/IMG...10125-2359.jpg

Try Alt-Tabbing out of the game, then hit Ctrl-Shift-Esc, go to Processes and shut down explorer.exe.
Alternatively, before running the game, right click on the desktop, select Screen Resolution - leave the window open, launch BD.
Or - you can fiddle with compatibility settings of the BD exe file (set to 640x480, display in 256 colours - try these and others and see if it helps).

[tsampikos]

You can do the following:

1) Download and Install Virtualbox
2) Set up a virtual windows 95-98 enviroment, if you have the OS original.
3) Install the game
4) Apply Patches
5) Use scale mode for real full screen.
6) ENjoy!

In my opinion this is the best way to play old windows games in new Computers. It takes a while to set everything up, but the result is worth the effort!

[millenia]

Originally Posted by saulob

Btw, one thing I didn't like about this 'fix patch', it removes the english subtitles (that's included on the official 1.10 patch.

Crap. I am really enjoying my subtitles in GK2 now, makes the replay so much more enjoyable. I guess I should try to setup a Virtualbox and just use the official patch first. When I get myself to play this one in the first place...

[epc]

Hi,
the color problem can be solved the same way as for NeverHood. So look for the NeverHood Seven color fix patch, then rename the executable under wa.exe (mine is also set with W98 compatibility and no themes) and run VistaWin95.exe and it will be ok