Not sure which is the problem ...

[grimjaw]

I've got a laptop I recently changed over to linux. I'm running VMware's Player and I have a Windows 2003 server install running on 1GB of memory and 20GB of hard disk space, with plenty of room left over. I've got the most recent version of DirectX available for W2K3 server (I think it's 9.0c), and everything seems to be functioning fine, except ...

I don't know that AACW was ever supported on this OS, so I don't know if that's the issue out of the gate. The video driver for VMware is a kind of general "SVGA" driver. It works at any number of resolutions that the game normally works on, and there's no video corruption under either bit depth available (16/32). I can play movies on Netflix with no issues, and I know sound and video on the laptop are both working.

I was able to install AACW with no errors and patch it (1.16rc4). When I run it, it doesn't even make it as far as creating log files. It loads up to about 8MB max, and then exits. If I try to run it in any of the compatibility modes, the result is the same.

I know it's not the hardware on this laptop, since I was playing AACW on here previously under Windows XP. I am willing to believe it's driver-related, but unfortunately there are no other drivers available for this virtual setup that I'm aware of. Any suggestions?

jm

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[grimjaw]

Thanks Gray! I knew there was a DirectX diagnostic somewhere but I couldn't remember how to get to it.

It is 9.0c, but on the video tab it showed that DirectDraw was not enabled. It had an option to enable it, which I did and ran the DirectDraw tests successfully. Direct3D was not an option, and I don't know if that's required for AACW so I don't know if that will do the trick. I'm attempting to do a fresh install now and run before the patch before I give up.

I also found this thread on the VMware communities forum, which mentions people are playing Age of Empires using a similar setup to mine (emulating XP in a VM). So it should be *possible* to play some DirectX games in a VM, although not specifically this one or this setup.

jm

[grimjaw]

Well there I go, trying to make things harder than they have to be.

I consulted every oracle I could find in a reasonable time frame to get Direct3D enabled under my current setup and none of that works. On a whim I tried Wine.

Jeez. It took a fraction of the time, not nearly as much disk space required as an entire Windows install, and is so far working with AACW with only one error. That error was on initial load and hasn't repeated.

Obligatory screenshot:



Now to fight off the northern aggressors with open source!