I just finished GK3 and wanted to pass along a couple of tweaks needed to get it going on Win XP. Fortunately I saved the info from a battle with XP a couple of years ago. I must say it took hours of searching forums to resolve these issues. So I will post these two solutions just in case somebody needs help to resolve them.

Most likely many of you know this already. But it was not long ago when I would have chucked the whole operation when I encountered the first issue below and missed out on an incredible game.

Unrecognized Fatal Exception Error

You may get this one after install when you try to start the game. You get the warning and the game will not start. Compatibility mode does nothing for you.

The demon is a video codex file that tries to initiate upon startup and causes the failure. The cure is rather simple. The file is located on your hard drive and its path is,
C:\windows\system32\mpeg2dmx.ax
You simply change its name. Left click on the file, select rename. Keep it simple change the .AX to .Old Your file name should now read MPEG2DMX.old

The game should start without any problem. Remember when you uninstall GK3 to go back and undo your name change. I had no issues with any program functions while the file was rendered unusable. Not sure what programs are dependent on this old codex but I did not come across any need for it. To be safe change it back when done.

Flickering Screen

I searched for quite awhile for info on this pain in the neck. Found many people had the problem but no one had an answer. Well I actually figured it out myself, scary.

Right click on any part of the game screen and a functions box pops up. Icons are there for several things including inventory and so on. Select Configuration options then Advanced Options then Graphics options You will see a box named 3D Driver it is set by default to Primary Display Driver click on the tab and change the setting to Software Renderer That eleminates the flickering screen.

Also while in graphics section you can slide the Gamma control to the right to brighten your screen. Mine was defaulted to a rather dark rendering.

A few things I could not quite resolve were, Sometimes the game would freeze to a black screen when you use either the windows key or alt-tab. Not always just sometimes. Save before utilizing either of those actions. The only way out is alt-tab-delete to restart and having to revert to the previous save. Also this effect occurs infrequently when you quit the game. This only happened to me when having CD #3 in the drive. Not sure what the cure for this is.

These tweaks resolved the issues on my system and require no technical knowhow to do. Hope this is useful for someone having trouble

Thank you for typing up this information, Oldmariner.

Can you do this in order to play
GK The Beast within which also is
an old game. I think it was released
1994 I have XP Microsoft laptop
I just purchased this game and I hope
I can play it.Thank you for your help.
Chris

Chris, there is a great installer you can use for Beast Within so that it will run on Windows XP. You can download it here:

BEAST WITHIN WINDOWS XP INSTALLER

It's on the lefthand side of the page if you scroll down, the one that says Gabriel Knight 2 HD/DVD installer, for English.

Marion
Thank you so much I installed the
game I was going to send it back
but thanks to you I can start playing the game.
I hope its a good game.
Chris

I'm so glad I could help. The Beast Within is one of my all-time favorite adventure games, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Chris is you look on that installer page there is also a dvd installer for The Beast Within. It allows you to create a backup of your disks to a single dvd. No disk swapping

That's a great option, too, oldmariner. The neat thing about the installer I showed Chris is that also doesn't require any disk swapping; it installs the whole thing to the hard drive! I tried this out last month and it works great.

Oldmariner, your information about GK3 is interesting but I wonder what percentage of WinXP users need to do any of these tweaks. I expect that any new hardware won't need the tweaks but systems that existed when this game was new could have been overloaded.

On my WinXP Home SP2 system, I just installed the game without doing anything other than clicking on the Setup program (CD auto-run is turned off). The options within the game were used to obtain 1024x768 resolution and all other video and audio options were set to maximum. The game ran perfectly with none of the problems you've mentioned.
Can't say anything about disk3 problems as I've just started to replay the game. Also I'm using virtual CDs so everything is running from my hard drive.

I don't know the answer to that question. My system is only a year old. Dual core top of the range Intel processor. Don't remember the number 6700 I think. It is an xps 410 with 7900gs Nvida card. So not ultra new and closer to the higher end than a low end entry level machine.

Again it is machine specific, perhaps you don't have that mpeg codex on your machine. Perhaps the flickering was a reaction to my Video card. Whatever, the default settings when I installed it the same way you did were all set toward the low end. Perhaps it is the version of the game. I have the Sierra Best Seller Series which was a reissue not dated.

I speculate these issues are likely to vary machine to machine. These are just suggestions if someone has these conflicts. I am glad you did not have difficulty with your install. I certainly cannot explain beyond speculation. Certainly it comes down to how each machine reacts but from reading forums I discovered there are many who confronted these problems.

Marion
I agree with you i'm enjoying the game.
I have another qestion hope you can answer.
Can this old game GK "Sins of the Father" be played
on XP Microsoft ?I didn't buy it yet
Chris

I have good news for you about Gabriel Knight 1; if you go to that same website that I linked you to above, there is a Windows XP installer listed for Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers, as well (it's listed just above the installer for Gabriel Knight 2).

Bear in mind that Gabriel Knight 1 does not have full-motion video like The Beast Within does, and the graphics will seem a bit more dated, but it is an excellent game and well worth playing.

Happy gaming!

Also Gabriel 1 will play on XP if you use dosbox. Just another alternative. I used the installer Marian pointed to and it works great.

Marion and Oldmariner
You are the greatest
Thanks
I guess I will buy the game.
Chris

Hi pittston

Just wanted to say that I have played both GK1 and GK2 using those XP Installers and they both ran without a hitch from install to end of game

Cheers.

Mad