Zanzarah and 64-bit Windows 7 success!

Krystal_Ray, a new member, posted a somewhat unorthodox fix for playing Zanzarah in the Dark Side forum.

She installed the game to a 32-bit Vista computer, copied the folder to a flash drive and simply moved the file into the Program Files x86 folder on her Windows 7 computer.

I have the game installed on my XP computer, so I copied the Zanzarah file to my EHD and moved it into an existing THQ folder in Program Files x86. The game starts and plays perfectly. I moved the program icon to my desktop and simply changed the target to indicate the new location and it works perfectly. I've spent about a half hour in the game saving and exiting and going back in. I did have to slow down my mouse, but that was it.

One of these days I'm going to have some extra time to have MaG open up that Windows 7 and Games thread so I add this and some games Uncle Reg got to play.

I told my brother about this. He liked Zanzarah and is thinking about installing a 64-bit operating system on his next computer.

If this works for Zanzarah, I wonder if it will work on other games that won't play on Win 7?

Thanks for posting this! I can copy the folder from my XP machine and try it on the Windows7. If it works, I can put the XP back in the garage on the shelf...freeing up some space in my room.

I got to thinking about this game, as I never finished it waaaay back.

Installed it on my Win 7 64-bit.

Installed in my documents, runs as administrater.

Fired right up, plays without a glitch.

8.5 hours played so far ,no problems.

Go figure ?

Dunn

Going to finish this time around

I thought I had tried that, but it could be I didn't. Besides "go figure," all I can say is yay! I will definitely give it a go to see what happens.

Anyone else try any other games that way?

Hey, flutist, since no one else has answered you, I'll pipe up. I have had problems with games which were resolved by moving them out of the default install location and into My Documents. I see I have Zork Grand Inquisitor installed there but I'm not sure now why. It's been a while since I played it.

I'm positive that Tale of a Hero would not behave itself until I moved it to My Documents but that's a relatively new game and you may be thinking only of old ones.

Gil.

'You are not the boss of me'....heheheheh.

Edit: Traveler, are you an Eric perchance?

I've been called a lot of things but never that. What's an Eric?

Gil.

sorry Gil, I thought you might be Traveler from www.runtimedna.com. He creates product there and is part owner.

I moved Zanzarah over to my Window7 64 bit and put it into Program_files(x86) and it fired up fine but there must be an issue with my video card.

I then moved it over to MyDocuments and it fired up fine again but I still had video problems.

The start and save screen were fine but inside the game the images were staccato, slowly clicking one frame at a time.

I had issues with another game like that (think it was a Tomb Raider) and there was a fix for it that worked for me. I don't recall anymore what it was though.

I have an onboard NVidia card. When I bought the computer they told me it wasn't onboard but they were mistaken. I kept the computer anyway. don't know if that has any bearing on my problem.

Well, shucks. I can play it on both my XP computer with low-end integrated Nvidia graphics and my Windows 7 computer with an Nvidia GTX 260. I just put the game file from my XP computer into the Program Files X86 folder where I already had an existing THQ folder and it worked.

Maybe Inland or Jenny will have some suggestions.

The problem may be with the drivers. The Windows 7 drivers may not be working so well with the low end card. Also make sure the onboard card has enough RAM assigned to it if it doesn't have its own discrete RAM. Most onboard cards allow you to borrow different amounts of system RAM to use with the card.

If you have an antivirus running in the background, that may also slow things down. It's very unlikely that we'll see an update for Zanzarah the way there were updates for Tomb Raider because Tomb Raider was much more popular.

The best solution might be to get a separate video card with adequate RAM -- assuming the computer's power supply has enough wattage to support one.

I am thinking the Tomb Raider fix was updating the drivers for my graphics tablet. I know that sounds weird but it worked. I know I had to do that to fix something.

I probably need to update my drivers. None of my older games will work on W7. I also tried Grim Fandango and it did the same thing as Zanzarah.

Many of my photo and 3D programs have been crashing so I defragged today. Been a long time since I did that. I'm now backing up my computer. Taking forever. Hopefully it will make a cleaner computer for when I update the drivers.

I got Grim to run in Windows 7. Did you check the Windows 7 and Games thread for how to do it?

Yaaaay,

51.5 hrs into the game & it is finished.

No glitches ever.

Insane leveling up

Dunn

Nicely done, Dunn!

Thanks, I left it on the computer,to play the ending when my daughter gets home on leave.

That's where we quit, years ago. she watched me play it then.

Dunn

I had to come up with a new method to get it working on my system (I had both win 7 64 bit problems and NVIDIA compatibility issues, so if I loaded the game - even if copied from a 32 bit machine - it would freeze at the kitchen).

It's all running perfectly at highest settings now - here's how:

For my fix, you will need the setup disk for an older copy of windows (windows 98 or above) or the .ISO from a legally purchased 32 bit OS from Microsoft's website.



1) Download VMWare (a virtual operating system. I've tested out several with Zanzarah, and this is the only one that works well). You can find it here:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=player



2) Install the player and create a virtual machine. When asked for the installation disk, either point to the CD drive or your .iso . If you have an upgrade disk of windows 7, give your system 20 gbs. If anything else, 15gb will cover it. If you want a more exact number, allocate 1gb for the gamestop client and game, plus whatever the minimum specs are for your OS of choice (google the system requirements of the OS of your setup disk, such as 'Windows 98 System Requirements'). As for ram, overshoot the OS minimum requirements by 256 to be safe, by 512 if you want to use the machine for more intense games other than Zanzarah (like Rogue Squadron 3d). If you have a quad cor processor or higher, give the virtual OS a second core processor. Otherwise, leave it with a single core.



3) Run the virtual machine and install the OS onto it.



4) Go to impulsedriven.com/about and download the gamestop app.



5) Sign in and download Zanzarah. It should run perfectly in the virtual machine, even on 64 bit OSs.





My System Specs

Host Operating system (my actual machine)

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

6 gb RAM

NVIDIA GEForce GTX 460M (4gb VRAM)

DX11

8 core processor



Guest OS (the virtual machine - VMWare)

Windows 7 Professional 32bit

1.5 gb ram

Default virtual card - 256mb VRam

DX 11

2 core processor





Although it's possible to do the same thing with virtual pc or virtual box, these don't work well with Zanzarah (10 fps - unplayable, and 15-20 fps - unplayable in combat).



Hope it helps!

(And if you see this posted elsewhere - like gamestop, it's because I spent enough time on this fix that I figured I'd put it out everywhere).

Thank you for posting instructions for running Zanzarah on 64-bit Windows 7 using VMware. The instructions should also work for the CD version, only you wouldn't need the gamestop app to download the game.

In Step 2, I'd recommend leaving the VM with a single processor if you want to play any older games because some of them don't handle dual processors well. Or you could make two VM's, one with a single processor and one with a dual processor.

In case someone comes looking for Zanzarah support again, I've succeeded in getting it running in Windows 8.1. The installer needs some patience - just wait for it, it'll get to 99% on the initial setup, then vanish for a while, then eventually pop-up as normal.

Once you're in the game, you MUST choose a 32-bit screen resolution; the 16-bit ones cause everything to go go really slow and glitchy (especially the sound and the mouse). Other than that, if you've a vaguely modern PC, you can whack the graphics resolution up to the highest settings just fine.

In other words, no need for Virtual Box or VmWare solutions in Windows 8.1.

That's great news about Zanzarah and Windows 8.1.

Gotta try this - I had to luck at all on Windows 8... the game would simply freeze and the graphics go all crazy when I tried to move Amy.