Black Dahlia on XP,any advice?
I have recently purchased an 8 disc copy of Black Dahlia
ast lookednd sounded intriguing.
Have tried to load ot on my Win XP Laptop but with
no success.
Error :
Cannot open source file :
'D:/bdahlia\.'
Have tried to understand the set-up instructions from
Inferno's site but nothing I see on here coresponds w/what
he is saying to do.
Are there any Blonde G'ma Friendly set-up instructions?

Have you tried installing the game in compability mode ?

You could try this:

Please let each disc spin all the way up and all the way down again before you put another disc in the drive.

Have you tried putting CD 1 in the drive, then while it is in the drive, right clicking the drive, then selected open/explore, then found setup.exe or install.exe

To install in compability mode, please right clcik the install.exe and select the compability tab. In the drop-down mneu, then please select win 95.

I hope this works

The game isn really interesting. I've played it many years ago.
(and still have it somewhere, I think...)

Click on link to see what Inferno has for being able to play game- it also gives you link to a patch you need-

Inferno's link

Older FMV titles like these run just fine (for the most part) under Virtual PC, or VMware.

But the fact that it can't locate a file on the CD sounds more like you've got a damaged disc.

There's also a link on Adventure Gamers to this new patch for Black Dahlia/Windows XP:

Black Dahlia patch

The poster says that it installs the game from the CDs for you and fixes some things. Text in the installer is in both English and German.

I will have to give this a whirl.

Thanks for this tip Marian, this makes things a lot easier!
BD ran fine on my 5 year old XP laptop using Inferno's setup, but on my new one (used-to-be Vista, but downgraded to XP)it gave me lots of grief
Just a minor point: the option for subtitles seems to have gone (though the BD.ini reads subtitles = 1), but otherwise it runs great so far without mousetrails and dizzy spells.
Video's look 100 % nicer now too!

@ Katbear - installing is a piece of cake now, it's time-consuming but real easy

8 CD's is bound to be a time-consuming install.

Isn't Black Dahlia one of the games that doesn't like hyperthreading/dual-core machines? If so, I'm wondering if this new patch does anything to address this problem (this is probably an ignorant comment, but I will make it anyway--I doubt that the patch would be able to correct that).

I'm glad it worked for you, nanette.

Here's a rough translation from German what this patch+installer does:

- Includes No-CD patch (no more disk-swapping)
- Scanline-Remover (improved appearance of the videos on large TFTs)
- Rotation speed decreased (problem occurs from about 1 GHz in order to have the game in high-speed rotation, now fixed)
- Graphic errors reduced (mouse pointer freezes, etc.)
- Black Dahlia for current machine (dual core, etc.) and can run under Windows XP (Vista untested)

BD must be set to 1 core and this patch does it for you.
I did it manually on my new laptop, but it didn't solve all my issues with running the game. This patch did solve them!

Wow! That's great news, and thank you very much for posting all of that information!

Great news indeed, thank you !!

I love the game and only recently played it yet again

Are full instructions included with the patch ??

I just installed the game with this brilliant patch!!

The instructions are VERY clear and easy to understand; no problems at all.

The game runs perfectly--and it's absolutely terrific to be able to put the eight CDs away for good once it's all been copied to the hard drive.

The whole deal took about 50 minutes, and it was time well spent!

Soooooooooo - do the FMV sequences look to be improved? There was a mention of removing the scan lines.

IIRC someone else did this with another FMV title, and I've heard it looks pretty good.

Can anyone confirm, that there's actually NO subtitles?

Another Blonde G'ma query :
Does a Patch have to be installed After a game is installed?

Yes usually it does katbear



But this one in particular is an Installer, which means - as I understand it - that you use it to install all of the game to the harddrive.

@ Misslilo - the installer apparently gives German subtitles for the German game, so my guess is that the English subs are
'pushed away'. I reinstalled the patch from Inferno's website, but to no avail
At the German forum here http://www.adventure-treff.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14685&start=90 someone else mentions the same problem in the English version; no solution until now, nut I'll keep checking there

Also there appears to be a problem at the end of the game where the revolvermovement freezes. Workaround would be to temporarily roll back the changes made by the installer through the Patch configuration

Thanks for the confirmation, Marian

Yes, thank you Nanette
Sorry for the delay - got busy at work and just returned home now.

Just wanted to let everyone know, this patch worked perfectly on Windows Vista as well (32bit vista home premium on a dual core pentium laptop).

The first time I had an issue with my disc 4 and the installer stopped responding .. so I had to start all over again. I cleaned all the discs and started over and I had no problems the second time.

Now the game runs perfectly! Thanks to whoever made that installer and all those patches!

just add 1 next to subtitles instead of 0

I'm not sure if this is a glitch, but i'm stuck right after visiting the mission (early on in the game). Walkthroughs tell me to either go to the Raven Room (Louis should be there by now) or go to Museum and ask about the Runes.

Neither option is available and I've been to all locations, spoken to everybody and offered everyone everything out of my inventory.

As far as I can see I'm at a dead end and I recall years ago when I first got this game I hit the same problem (this is a new copy I'm playing now) so this suggests it isn't a glitch, but I'm doing everything walkthroughs tell me to do to no avail!

Laguy,
Are you using the patch?
http://www.filefront.com/899909/bdpatch.zip

It fixed a number of problems.
You may have to restart the game after applying the patch.

Hi Jenny,
Do you know if your posted patch is needed if I use the full install no cd patch mentioned furthur above ?

Cathy

No. I used the one I linked to back when I played the game, but I haven't used the new one. The one I linked to fixed problems with the original game that would cause a problem on all computers, both new computers and 10 year old computers. The new patch is optimized for new computers and may or may not include that older patch.

From the description at ***Adventuregamers*** about the install patch,


If one patch doesn't work, you can always try the other.

Sorry I lost track of what was already posted.