original Myst

Hello Boomers, I am trying to reinstall the original Myst. I haven't played it in sometime, and thought I would like to try it again.

However when I try to install the game, I get an error message about needing a 256 color pallet. I am trying to install on the same computer I used before. It has a Windows xp operating system with a Dell plug and play monitor and an NVIDIA gforce 3 Ti 200 video card.

I don't see anything in the Display setting in control panel that I can adjust the color pallet.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

I have moved your post over to Glitches, where our techies can try to help you.

Use compatibility mode on the shortcut or the game exe.
Compatibility mode should have an option to run the program with 256 colors.

Instructions here
https://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu...256_colors.mspx

Picture ***here***.

Picture is from PCgamingwiki
https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Windows_Compatibility_Mode

Here are a couple links I found on the color palette error with Myst. Instructions in the first one are for Windows95/98, but may also work in XP. You might try running it in Windows 95 or 98 Compatibility mode as described in the second and third links.

https://support.ubi.com/en-US/Faqs/000002220/Error-Myst-Requires-256-Colors-Setting-1364549712879

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/589...-with-XP-Forums

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/589...-with-XP-Forums

Thanks Boomers. I'll give these suggestions a try.

Just a thought ....

Are you using the same monitor as when you originally played the game ??

Some more modern monitors might not display 250 colours.

Thanks for all the feed-back. Looks like Myst is not going to work. I am using a new monitor. That may be my problem.

Good gaming

What brand and model is the monitor?
We can check if it can't run 640x480 resolution or has some other limitation.
Some video card/monitor combinations might have problems with 640x480 resolution, and though I don't know of any monitors that can't display 256 color graphics, I suppose it's possible there could be one.

Also the QuickTime 2 that came with Myst from 1993 might be an issue on XP.

Another way to run Myst is to use ScummVM.
Myst, Myst Masterpiece, and Riven are listed as running on ScummVM.
http://scummvm.org/compatibility/

Download and install the latest version of ScummVM
http://scummvm.org/downloads/

The files you need to copy from the CD to a folder on your hard drive are listed here
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Datafiles#Myst


After copying the files to your hard drive, start ScummVM, choose the "Add Game" button, and browse to the folder where you copied the Myst files. ScummVM should recognize the Myst files and add Myst to the ScummVM menu. You should be able to start the game from there.

Satch,

I don't know what is causing your problem but it is not WinXP nor probably the nVidia card.
I just reinstalled Myst 1.3.0.5 on my WinXP SP3 system which has an nVidia GeForce 7600 GS card and a Samsung SyncMaster 204B 1600x1200 monitor. I do have QT7 installed which may or may not be relevant.
MYST plays perfectly on my system, automatically switching to the correct resolution and color depth when the game starts.

If you run Myst in ScummVM, it will be widescreen whether you want it or not. You can adjust it to "full screen" or a 2x or 3x window, but it always seems to be widescreen, which means part of the original game's graphics will be chopped off the top and/or bottom of the screen. There doesn't seem to be an option to display in the original 4:3 aspect ratio.

With ScummVM, you use F5 to access save, load, and exit, which is different from Myst's original controls.