Knights and Merchants meets Windows 7 :-)

[mrfusker]

Hi.

Years ago I played Knight and Merchants, and found recently your web site. I downloaded 1.60 Patch (Service Release 3) and installered without any problems at my Acer Laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium SP1. My desktop computer was running Windows XP, but due to the lack of perfect support to my dual-core processor, motherboard chipset and graphics adaptor, I changed to Windows 7 Release Candiate, bulid 7100.
K&M w 1.60 Patch (Service Release 3) ran perfect at my laptop with Vista.

In Windows 7 some weird problems occurred. The game was lagging a bit, slow startup-state and some colour problems inside the game.

I havent found a some sort of screenshot or screen recorder, which can capture these bugs. Well, I can record but the result isnt as Im seeing on the screen

800x600 - Running perfect.
1024x768 - Colour problems and serious lagging.
1280x1024 - Colour problems and serious lagging.

Informations from Dxdiag:
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 5/23/2009, 23:45:10
Machine name: THOMAS321-PC
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7100) (7100.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700)
Language: Danish (Regional Setting: Danish)
System Manufacturer: GBT___
System Model: NVDAACPI
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 2048MB RAM
Page File: 1602MB used, 2492MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7100.0000 32bit Unicode

Any solutions or Im just unlucky?

[harold]

Have you tried that windows XP emulator thing that should come with W7?

[mrfusker]

I will make a try

The emulator called Virtual Windows XP Mode (XPM or VXP). Search "Virtual Windows XP Mode (XPM or VXP) for Windows 7 x86 and x64 VHD Package Installer Download" at Google for download.

[H.A.H.]

And? What are your test results?

[Thunderwolf]

Well, the 800x600 works. It works on my test machine too.

I, however, haven't gotten it to work in Vista... (extreme mouse lag).

I'm currently downloading the xpm...

[Litude]

Seeing as everyone else left this thread to die I might as well continue. Running KaM under XPM isn't possible as the graphics driver is really poor and doesn't support playing games whatsoever.

[harold]

Well that sucks. M$ yet again delivers a big heaping of stinking bullshit and pretends it's nice.
Isn't it possible to change the driver?

[Litude]

Yeah, it is possible to install the same driver that Virtual PC 2007 uses by tinkering so that you get the file over there but apparently some functionality is lost or something making it pretty much identical to the normal Virtual PC. Still would be heaps better if it had a decent driver out of the box.

[Thunderwolf]

It seems vmware's driver (for VMWare) is better then, It runs KaM nicely and it even runs games like Trackmania at a still decent speed...

[Litude]

If someone simply has to play the game under Windows 7 at a resolution higher than 800x600, there is a solution for the color corruption. Apparently this is caused by the poor color management of Aero and by killing explorer.exe this problem won't occur.

Naturally you have to start the game first, alt+tab out, kill explorer.exe and alt+tab back in. It's far from a handy solution but is 100% working unlike those open window x in control panel which never worked for me.

Oh and to make it a bit more userfriendly you could create a BAT in the game folder with the following content:

  Code:

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe KM_TPR.exe Start explorer.exe[/quote] Should take care of everything automatically.

[harold]

Couldn't you just keep a CMD prompt open to do this?

[Litude]

But creating a BAT file means you only need to do it once (then you just start the game from it)? Or am I missing something with having a CMD prompt open?

[harold]

Well that's true but it seems to me that doing this by hand is not that hard at all..

[Litude]

Well I find it easier to kill it using the task manager (if I do it manually) but I guess everyone has their preferences.

[Thunderwolf]

hey, this is a nice solution...

stupid earo trying to ruin Knights and Merchants