Links 2001 not rendering after vid card upgrade

[Jeff H]

Guys,

This is a long shot, I searched the gaming forum, to no avail, and I'm turning to you guys for suggestions.

Game is Links 2001 (golf). Previously ran fine on an XFX nVidia 7600GT vid card. Had to replace card, due to fan/cooling failure. Replaced the card w/ a Zotac nVidia 9500GT card. I first installed the driver set that came on the enclosed CD. I then installed the latest nVidia driver (260.99). OS is XP SP3 fully patched.

Now when I fire up the Links golf game it works fine until it's time to complete the rendering of the course. At that point it hangs at the "Rendering" screen. Any idea why this might be happening, and what could be done to fix it? Would a reinstall address it?

TIA,

Jeff

 

[911paramedic]

Wow, that's an old one. Have you checked to see what your new card has compared to the old one? It sounds like a compatibility issue, and unless the game has updates you may be out of luck. I have quite a few games that just don't work anymore.

 

[Modular]

Do you remember what drivers you were using with the old card? I'd start going back with some old drivers and see if they help.

 

[Jeff H]

Modular & 911paramedic,

Thanks for the replies. Driver version that worked was 163.75. When I replaced 7600GT w/ 9500GT the video setting went to VGA. Only resolution available was 800 x 600. I first changed driver w/ Zotac supplied CD. That didn't work so I tried the latest download from nVidia.

By chance would/could a reinstall (of the game) address the issue? I'm guessing it's nothing more than a stab in the dark. FWIW I'm getting ready to replace my HD w/ a larger/faster drive, and I'll try a reinstall then.

Jeff

 

[Modular]

I would try the old driver and see if it works before doing anything else.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Maybe the game uses a really old version of directx that the new card isn't cool with. I've read of Nvidia cards not working well with older dx versions.

 

[Anteaus]

Links 2001 was a Windows 98 game that used Directx 7. I wish you luck trying to get it to run, but it's going to be an uphill battle. The likely situation is that your newer video card never had drivers that supported revisions of DX farther back than 9.

It's amazing you got that many years out of the game though. I have many games younger and older than that and sometimes its a craps shoot on whether they will work on newer platforms.