VirtualBox may work with Windows 2000, but the original XP is actually more compatible -- has better compatibility mode with older games. XP SP1 made problems for 3 games, though I can't remember what they were for sure -- (I think Omega Stone, The Cameron Files 2: Pharaoh's Curse, and maybe the other one was Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy but I'm not sure). XP SP2 introduced all those problems with installing games in C:\Program Files as the default location.
If you can get a copy of the original XP (no SP's) it would be interesting to test with as a guest OS.

There was a way to enable compatibility mode in Windows 2000, but the 2000 compatibilty mode was pretty poor compared to the one in XP. I think this was it
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279792

It might help with some games.

I do have an original xp sp1 disk. that should work

i'll try that some time

but the reason I'm trying windows 2000 is because about a year ago i was talking to someone who got this game working on it

plus it's older but also supports 3d so it might be an even medium for some games

I'm hoping to get 3d working in ME.. I asked the guys at virtualbox about that. waiting for them to respond.

they said it doesn't work on 9.x os's... me is somewhere between 98 and xp
not sure if the same rule applies there

Windows ME would be DOS-based, like Windows 95/98.
ME is usually considered a 9x OS even though it doesn't start with a 9.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_9x

2000 and XP are NT-based.

gotcha thanks

Please keep us updated on your progress, and whether you're able to get 3D graphics acceleration working in VMware.

sure

no progress yet though

turns out that it's impossible to get 3d working in VMware for any windows 9.x operating system

they only support it for 2000 and xp


next is to try it in XP service pack 1 and in 2000 when that comes

we'll see

So 3D-Analyze on the OS inside the virtual machine didn't help either?
That's too bad.

Have you checked out the SVN versions of DOSBox? (not the main version)
Some people have managed to install Windows 95 on one of the SVN versions.
And they're experimenting with 3D too.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=24936
The instructions for installing it are non-trivial though.
This is the best how-to I've found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPq3_m5MGAI

You can get the "DOSBox SVN Daum" from
http://ykhwong.x-y.net/
(click the link for DOSBox SVN builds)

I haven't yet found anything specific to installing the DOSBox SVN Daum on a Mac though.

Another DOSBox SVN version that seems focussed on 3D is Gulikoza's
http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/
However this version seems to be older than the DOSBox SVN Daum.

If you try Windows 95 or 98 on the DOSBox Daum, let us know how it goes.

no luck at all with windows 2000 :(

though it started up a lot more smoothly
it still crashed at the same spot

I even discovered a settings menu that let you turn off 3d acceleration and it still crashed
so I guess that the problem that makes it crash is not 3d related.

I've tried windows 95 in dosbox before. It didn't make a difference at all and was way more work to get working than was worth it.


now I'm convinced this is some sort of hardware issue
maybe the game clock is determined by the clock speed of the cpu
I've run into a few games that were programmed that badly and they had a lot of troubles.
can often cause an immediate crash like in this game but usually just makes the mouse panning speed ridiculously fast.
I could try starting it up with either cpukiller in xp or moslow in win95 to slow down the cpu to see if that helps but I doubt it'll make a difference.

I'm out of ideas at this point
went back to restoring my old mac powerbook 180c with a dead hard drive as a project instead and won on that one at least still don't know how i got that to work lol

I guess I'll try 3danalyze in each one of my virtual machines instead of just in one of them to see if that makes a difference but like i said i'm convinced this isn't a 3d issue

gog, adventure gamers, or one of them should just re-release this one already
all of the jules verne games did really well
I'd buy it