Diablo 2/Civilizations 3/Flashpoint problems under Win2k

[Conundrum]

Diablo 2 doesn't seem to accept the fact that DirectX is even running. On the back of the jewel case it lists Win2k as one of the supported operating systems. When it does a search for supported video modes with the vidtest program, it says that none are supported.

This error will appear if I just try to load it up: Diablo II Critical Error Error 22: A critical error has occurred while initializing DirectDraw.

Oh, and for the hell of it I downloaded version 1.9 so Diablo2 is up to date in that respect unless there's a more recent patch for it out right now.

Now here's the ironic part. If I go ahead and reinstall DirectX 8.0a, it will work after I reboot... but only once. Anytime after that, I get the same error message. Really pretty gay. I have very little desire to go back to WinME, but I probably will if I can't get this problem licked with so many of the games out there.

With Civilizations 3, the game will load up until the sound begins. About half a second into the first sound file being played the game locks. After I downloaded the latest 5.1 drivers that they released for 2000/XP and ran it... the program ran fine ONCE. After that, the same results. The idea of loading drivers for my sound card just to be able to play Civ3 one time, and Diablo 2 reloading DirectX drivers to be able to play it one time is obscenely retarded.

With Operation Flashpoint, it's the same thing with the sound. I didn't try reinstalling the sound drivers for that one... but according to the problems I've been having so far. I think it's safe to say the same results would occur.

Does anyone that runs Win2k know what the problem might be? I'd love to continue to use it, but I love to play computer games and if Win2k just won't run them then there's little need for me to use it. Thanks.

 

[Need4Speed]

Just as an FYI, all of those games work flawlessly under win2k on my box. It sounds like you might have some issues with directx/directdraw...which can be a real pain to iron out. I generally discourage format and installs, since you don't learn anything from it, but it might be a good idea to ghost your current setup, reinstall win2k and all its patches etc etc, then install the games to see if they work. if it doesnt solve the problem its more than likely a hardware issue and u can recover your old OS from the ghost image.

 

[eviltoon]

Not much help from my end really. I just have Diablo 2 runnig beautifully under W2K. It's all I've been doing for the last month or so. I did have problems getting it to run when I went from an Athlon to a Pentium. But I then installed it on a new hard drive and all was well.

 

[noninterleaved]

Did you install the SIS AGP drivers from the CD that came with the motherboard? I have that same board running in my Win2k box and everything works fine.

However, if you read the manual then you will see that it says install the AGP drivers BEFORE you install your video card drivers.

I suspect this may be the problem. I would uninstall your nvidia drivers, use the generic microsoft svga drivers, and then install the SiS AGP driver. Then install the newest nvidia drivers and you should be good to go. Also, if you are not using the onboard sound on the ecs mobo, I would make sure it is disabled.