Well, I knew this was not going to be easy and I haven't been disappointed.

I followed the instructions shown on the Win7 and Games thread and actually got RealMyst to install.

The game introduction starts fine but the trouble starts when I click on the book. The book never really loads (it just looks like the pages are flipping and flipping eternally). I get a little blank box in the book (which I know from playing before that I'm supposed to click on); sometimes I get to the game, sometimes I don't.

BUT, once I get into the game, the game crashes afer a while, and not in the same spot each time. I've got an nVidia GeForce GTS 240 video card and have the "anti-aliasing" box checked.

Outside of saving my game every 5 minutes, what else, if anything, can I try?

Check the tweaks suggested by Namur and jaelkthompson in ***this thread***.

Jenny, I think I've done everything I read in that thread.
I've discovered something else: the save slots are not all available to me, and it appears that I have to "erase" an old save because the game will not let me just save "over" a previous save (but maybe it was the same when I played it originally).

I would so LOVE to replay this game, but it takes a lot of the fun out of it if I'm constantly saving and hoping it doesn't crash every time I make a movement.

I don't know if this will help, I read this elsewhere as a possible way of it working with 64 bit systems:


RealMyst Good Old Games - this is the best edition to go for

This edition of the game is now the patched version which presented problems for people who ran the original version. Two problems surface on initial attempt to start the game: either the book has no movie in it whatsoever (a bad start) or the movie is there and the game starts, but the framerate is so slow and poor that the game is unplayable. BOTH these issues I solved by changing compatibility settings. Both the new realMyst launcher (yellow icon) and the game executable need to be changed. The compatibility settings that work for this version seem to be different to the original realMyst and are as follows:

* run as Windows XP Service Pack 2
* run as Administrator

I also recommend NOT ticking the DirectSound tick-box in realMyst's options. With this ticked, I experienced a never-ending series of crashes to desktop when in the Selenitic Age. Once I'd unticked this box, the game ran flawlessly.

Make sure you installed the game to My Documents or somewhere other than C:\Program Files

Also make sure you don't have an antivirus interfering with the game.

I can't remember what the save system was like -- whether or not you had to delete a save if you wanted to save in the same slot.

Starcome,
I will try your suggestions tomorrow; they're worth a shot.

Jenny,
The game is in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
Should I download it to My Documents?

I'd forgotten about the antivirus; will try disabling it while I'm playing.

I'll be back tomorrow and update.

If none of the other suggestions work.

Mary, that's exactly how the game behaved for me. I had already tried all the compatibiity modes, installation location etc. with no luck - this was the last part of the fix that finally made it work for me.

I am using win 7 64 & it works for me,
check that in gog graphics setup you have not selected direct 3d T&L hal as it doesn't work, use only 3d + hal. capabilities shoulds be win xp sp2 disable visual themes & use administrator.

That's it exactly, plumgas.

I'm back! I reinstalled RealMyst. I found that originally I had it installed in Program Files (x86)so this time I installed it to Program Files (no x86)and I can actually see what goes on in that little box in the linking book now! I can't wait until I get some time to spend with the game and see if it's going to still crash on me.
Now I'm getting excited!

For some crazy reason, GOG's remedy for running RealMyst (partitioning the XP SP3) will fix almost ALL the problems with the game...IF you are using the Big Fish version! Big Fish takes FOREVER to find a fix (actually both do) but GOG gave me this fix for their version (which I had gotten frustrated with and uninstalled. I do not know how well it works for their version) but got the Big Fish version for free hoping it was better. They still haven't helped, but I used GOG's remedy when it came, and so far I have had only 1 freeze up, no crashing and have progressed well into the game. The library part is still slow, but it plays.
Excitement, yayyyy.

I have tried the Big Fish version and find that it downloads and installs okay-plays the opening cyan music and icon, then I get the book and the whole thing freezes.
I have tried all the suggestions and get a message:
win_init.dat is missing install again. Have installed three times and get the same result.
I have Win 7 32bit. Any ideas folks?

I think the game's win_init.dat is supposed to be generated during the install. Something about your configuration seems to be blocking it.

If you haven't tried installing RealMyst in a folder other than C:\Program Files try doing that. You can adjust where Big Fish installs games using the game manager.
Open the Big Fish Game Manager
Click "Options" at the bottom of the Game Manager
Where it says "Game Directory Location" type the new install location in the box. For Windows 7, the location of the Documents folder is
C:\Users\<whatever-your-username-is>\Documents

Temporarily disabling UAC while installing the game might also help. Instructions for doing that are ***here***.