Nancy Drew Games Crashing in Windows 11 Machine

Hi,

My old Windows 8 machine died last year and when I finally replaced it with a new windows 11 model a few months ago, one of the first things I did was to start loading and playing my old Nancy drew games. After working through a variety of problems, I have been able to get most of my games playing (I used voodoo to fix the flickering problem in the newer Nancy Drew games), but now I have a new problem... crashing.

I started playing The Shattered Medallion and as soon as I finished the opening train puzzle and backed up to exit, the game crashed. No error message was provided. I've tried reinstalling and running it in various compatibility modes, all to no avail. So, any suggestions would be welcome.

For reference sake I have been able to play through ND3-ND28 in their entirety, but ND29 (Silent Spy), 30 (Shattered Medallion), 31 (Labyrinth of Lies), and 32 (Sea of Darkness) all crash a few minutes into the game. I tried uninstalling all the broken games and all their data and then reinstalling, but the problem persisted. I own all the games on disc, so this isn't a download issue.

If you're wondering why I didn't play ND1 & ND2 its because #1 has its remake which is much easier to play so I didn't bother and #2 I gave up after trying every online suggestion I could find to make it (Stay Tuned for Danger) work. I'm still a bit sad about it, but not being able to play the 4 later games is more upsetting to me. Oh and I played through ND33 (Midnight in Salem) without the crashing issue, but since that game is very different from its predecessors its probably not relevant.

I have an old laptop that I used in between computers and the game will play on that, but its probably on its last legs, so I'm hoping that someone can help me keep my favorite game series going.

Thank you for any help you can give.

- Rebecca

Hi, Outlast! Nice to see you here.

I did some searching and the only suggestions I could find were to use the compatibility modes - which you say you have already tried. I did find this conversation which was trying to address flickering in certain ND games. It's good to know Voodoo fixed that issue for you. When compatibility and windowed mode didn't work for some, display adapter changes were suggested. Maybe browse through this and see if there is anything there that might work. I would be curious to know if these games worked on Windows 10. I did find several Youtube videos on game crashing in Windows 11, but nothing specific to ND games. Most of them start with an update to video card drivers.

ND Issues on Windows 11

My only other suggestion would be to post on the ND forums to see if anyone else is having this issue.

Here is a video from someone who used to work for HeR Interactive explaining how to get all ND games working on Windows 11. Maybe this will help - you can check it out here.

Excellent, Marian! Although it appears to be addressing installation, hopefully, there will be something in there to help Outlast.

Yes, even though it's just about installing, good to check on that first. Otherwise, I haven't heard of any real issues with Windows 11 and Nancy Drew games, so I hope these things can be resolved.

Exactly what I thought too...

I really appreciate all the quick and kind responses. Nothing has worked yet for me to get these games running, but I'll keep trying and if I find a solution, I'll post it here because I know I'm not the only one having these crashing issues.

Good luck and definitely be sure to post here if you figure it out!

I have to admit that I'm getting seriously frustrated with this issue. The threads at Microsoft seem to think that I need 'Vulkan' to fix my issue, but I tried downloading an installer from here https://vulkan.lunarg.com/sdk/home#windows which downloaded fine but whatever program this is, is WAY to complicated for me. I didn't even know what I was looking at, let alone how to use it to fix my problem (if it even could). I also tried downloading Vulkan drivers from here https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver but the installer didn't finish because it said it wasn't compatible.

Nancy Drew may not give up, but I am seriously considering it.

Apart from contacting HeR Interactive about this issue, I don't have any other suggestions at the moment. I have heard they can take quite a while to reply, but hopefully that will not be the case should you contact them. Meanwhile If I see anything else about this issue that might be of help, I will post it here in this thread.

I’m reading Valkin is for AMD NOT NVIDIA. DO YOU HAVE AMD

Excellent point, Winfrey.

My graphics driver is 'Intel(R) UHD Graphics 730'. Does this help in any way?

(good heavens do I wish they had computer classes when I was in school. All this stuff feels like I'm trying to read Greek sometimes).

It looks like you have an Intel integrated graphics card.

I do a lot of computer building and fixing and I STILL think I'm trying to read Greek too, so don't feel bad, Outlast! You do indeed have an Intel integrated graphics chip. Since this is a really low end graphics chip, have you tried lowering the graphics or using a plain cursor if those option are given in the Options Menu?