I had played this game on an older computer, no longer active. I've just tried to install and replay the game on a newer but hardly current system: WinXP SP3, nVidia 7600 GS, DX 9.0c.

The game installs and "plays" but with problems. The menu screen looks wrong with multiple images of Options. Click on Quit, hit the Esc key, and the game will crash.
In the game, hot spots and a mouse right click give a "menu" too small to use with pointer action nowhere near the obvious choices.

The game comes with DX 9.0, four versions earlier than what I have installed. My video card probably is newer than the game. All Google entries for this game talk about bugs. There is a 1.4 patch but it does not solve my problems.

Has anyone been able to play this game on a recent system?

I haven't played it since it was first released. I played it on two computers, both with Windows 2000 and single core Athlon processors. Could some of your problems be due to hyperthreading or a dual core processor?


Are you using a widescreen monitor? What happens if you decrease the monitor's resolution before starting the game? The "too small menu" sounds like the game was made for a lower resolution, or that it's using a default desktop font that's too small on a high resolution monitor.

Jenny100,

My system uses an Athlon XP2500+ which is a single core processor. The monitor is not widescreen and it does not seem to matter what resolution the Desktop uses. The game switches to whatever it wants, probably 1024x768 32-bit color.

So much for those ideas then.
Are you able to reduce graphics acceleration on your computer?

Reducing graphics acceleration does not help.

I have found an answer but it won't help most gamers. I still have an nVidia TI-4200 AGP-8x card and used it to replace the 7600 GS. That also forced me to revert to the 93.7 driver as newer drivers won't support the older card.

With the older card installed, the game no longer has any graphic problems. Clearly the game needs a patch for new graphics cards but that won't likely happen.

I wonder if the problem was with the card or with the newer drivers that the new card used.

Using the same 93.71 driver set with both nVidia cards TI4200 and 7600GS, the game works with the TI4200 but not the 7600GS. Settings are the same for both cards.

I can't think of anything I could change about the settings for the 7600GS that would satisfy the game. Sometimes newer drivers are not backwards compatible but that does not seem to be the problem here. My guess is that the game plays tricks with DirectX that work with DX 9.0 but not DX 9.0c.

At least if I continue to use the 93.71 driver, I can swap video cards at will and can play the game.

Lucky the 93.71 drivers worked with both your video cards. Hope the game continues to work for you.