First off, I'm honestly not sure if this is the right spot for this, but my issue is with games, so I hope someone can help me (and if there's a better section, feel free to move me)

Okay, for years I used my old laptop for everything, including games. It ran on Vista and have no qualls. Recently I replaced it (it was getting old and sluggish) with a brand new laptop, which runs Window 7.

Now here's my problem, my old games (such as Kings Quest and Dragonsphere, as well as Al Emmo And THe Lost Dutchman's Mine, will not play right (some won't play at all)

Most will load but the cursor will not move (whether I use my touchpad mouse or my external HP mouse) and if they do, like KQ7, the graphics are whacked, like Valanice has green flesh and purple hair

And Dragonsphere's menu will play load if I hit the keyboard's Windows button and get it to go in windowed mode, but then the cursor doesn't move.

I do have the KQ 7+8 download from GOG, and 8 plays fine (though proportions are bit off) but the KQ7 won't play off, but dealable

Am I doing something wrong?

I'll move to the Tech forum.

Have you checked out the Windows 7 and Games thread stickied at the top of the Glitches forum? There is a lot of information there about playing games in Windows 7.

There are several ways to get games to play if they won't just start up in Windows 7. Playing and or installing in Compatibility mode is one as is, right clicking an icon and selecting Run as Administrator. Installing in a location other than the default Program Files (x86) also is an option. However, there are a few games that just won't play, especially those created in 16-bit.

I had no issues at all with the disk version of Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine.

Another thing that might help to know is what video chip you have with your new laptop. Just because it's new and has Windows 7 doesn't mean it has a video chip that will run games well.

I have Al Emmo installed from the disk and it would load to the menu, but the cursor wouldn't move. The KQ Games I did the compatability mode thing, that was the only way to get them to load.

I'm not quite tech-savy (not a tech newbie, but not savy either) so I'm not sure what specifically you mean by chip. I pulled up DxDiag and in the display tab, under Chip Type it says Intel(R) HD Graphics (Core i3)


And since I didn't start off, let me say now Draclvr thanks for your reply

No problem, NDLVR! That means you are using the graphics that is integrated into your Core i3 processor. We don't have a lot of info to know how these graphics compare to graphics integrated into the motherboard. I've read good things, but I'm just not sure how they work in the real world. However, for gaming you really need a separate video card or chip with dedicated video memory.

The moderators here will know far more than I do, but the cursor problem could be associated with the graphics. I'm running an Nvidia GTX 260 video card and had no problems at all.

I do appreciate your help, Draclvr, and I do hope one of the mods can point me in the right direction

~Jen
-------------------------------------------------
Also, I saw the other thread and I did check (I have all Nancy Drew (mystery and dossier) games and four Agatha Christie games, and all of those play seamlessly, so my only problems are Dragonsphere, KQ 1-3 (remakes from AGDI) KQ3 (remake from Infamous Adventures, though I prefer AGDI's), KQ4-7 (I have the KQ collection from 2006, but I had a problem getting them to install, so I bought the 4/5/6 download from GOG) and KQ7 (same as the previous, though got the 7&8 download from GOG mainly for 8 when I had Vista)

And just to double check, I just installed Al Emmo and it played just fine. I let it install to the default location - Program Files - and had no issues at all.

On a plus side, I did fix the issue I was having with the Nancy Drew Games and KQ8 with the proportions. On the desktop I rightclicked and selected graphic properties and looked at the settings. I changed the resolution from 1366x768 to 1280x768 and I tested it by pulling up a random ND game (it was #16) and it's fully fullscreen (before it was fine vertically, but horizonally, there were black bars on the left and right)

Drac I have that I3 setup. It came with my new win7 Ecollege pc. I bought a Nvidia card from NewEgg at the same time. The PC arrived ahead of the card.

You know the old Sims2 game. Not exactly over the top in video demand. Well with the on board processor chip the rendering was atrocious. Three neighborhood streets were under water as the "bay, lake or whatever," Bled over flooding the houses. It was cool watching the people walking under the water.

That should give you a hint how well that setup will run a demanding game. I installed the card two days later and all is well. I know you can't do that with a notebook. Planning ahead is essential there.

oldmariner, thank you so much for posting that. I've been looking for actual gamer's experiences with those Sandy Bridge processors with the integrated graphics for gaming. I put a G620 Sandy Bridge into a computer I built for my mom and it's playing all her Pinochle games and the simple Big Fish Games the great-grandkids like. But, I've had my doubts about more demanding games.

Drac

For general surfing and the like it looked fine. I, can't say I gave it any kind of evaluation because I did not. The PC arrived on Monday. On Tuesday I loaded up Sims2 as I had everything backed up on the old system. I wanted to take a look at the graphics. When I saw the flood plane I was shocked. I did not expect much but this was beyond bad.

I played with the setting and ran it at the lowest possible demand. It made no difference. I did not bother trying another game. The next day my 1 gig Nvidia card with high def arrived and the issue is resolved with great resolution.

Here are the specs for Sims2

CPU 800 MHZ or faster
RAM 250MB or more
DirectX-9 or higher
Video 32MB or more memory
ATI Radeon 7200 or higher
Nvidia Geforce2 or higher

If Intel(R) HD Graphics (Core i3) can't handle that there is not much in gaming it can handle

It's not just a matter of what the Intel graphics itself can do. It's also a matter of the fact that Intel doesn't know how to design drivers to play a wide variety of games.

Fantastic news! I found a fix for the KQ remakes by AGDI. In the folder for each game, I ran the winsetup file, and and changed the Graphics driver to Direct 3D 9 and the Graphics filter to 2x Nearest-Neighbor Filter and those three games work now.

Which leaves my issues now with Dragonsphere, Al Emmo, KQ 4-7 (though 7's issue seams more like colors than loading/playingness)

Also, I can't access Infamous Adventures KQ3, but I usually played AGDI's more because I hated IA's part with the shark (it always took me eons to get past the shark, but that was the only thing I disliked about that part of that game)


-------------------

more good news, I monkeyed with my resolution advanced mode and was able to get dragonsphere to play (though in windowed mode not fullscreen, but play nonetheless

Okay, and oddly if I tell Al Emmo to play in a window, it'll run too.


So two down only Sierra to go and I'll be pleased as a plum.


It does look like to access those old games I'll have to go into the resolution's advanced settings and select one listed as 16-bit



And somehow I lost my progress. It pretends to load but has a thick black border and it's like the screen freezes, yet the game's opening music plays

Jenny or someone else will know more that I do, but for instance, in the case of Al Emmo, the game installed and plays in full screen with no issues at all for me. My GTX 260 has no problems at all with the game. It's got to be the integrated graphics that is your problem.

But for those who have laptops that only use the graphics integrated into the CPU, it is good news that you might be able to play some of these games in windowed mode.

This conversation does cement my previous belief that the Intel Sandy Bridge integrated graphics are not any more suitable for gaming than the Intel motherboard integrated graphics. Like Jenny says, maybe it's that they just don't provide good enough drivers.

You might have some success running a modded video driver (do a Google search for modded Intel video drivers).


I have to do the same on my Sony laptop, the OEM doesn't provide any wide screen options in their drivers, and nVidia doesn't distribute drivers for my specific video processor.

Earlier this afternoon, I was able, excitedly, to get all of my games to play right

Persistence pays off! It would be good to know what you did to get each one to play so we can refer other people who have issues with these games to your solutions.

I did try a few different things, but I did go into the screen resolution options and changed the resolution in the advanced options, also selection the Intel(R) Graphics and Media control panel tab to get the games that wouldn't go fullscreen (like the KQ ones) would then and I did have to play with the resolutions.

Also some of them, I did the compatibility thing and also while on that screen I hit the 256 colors option.

After all of that it came down to KQ7 being my problem child, and on another forum I found a link for a patch which solved it's problem, and I was also having problems getting my desktop dock (Krento) to have the icon for KQ7 and play it, but after the patch, that was solved too.

I got the patch from this website
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Misc/KQCPatch.html

Thanks for letting us know what helped, NDLVR.

most welcome I was quite excited myself to get it all sorted

Thanks, NDLVR. Life is good when your games work!

Very, and one thing that excited me is this new laptop plays The Silver Lining better than my old one. See I'm a tester for the games and I had to before turn off reflections or else it crashed everytime Graham left now I can use the reflections which also pleased me


~Jen