Arabian Nights PC GAME to make run in Windows10 64bit

[RaymanForever2007]

Hello all.
I am one of the loving-old-game fellow, and trying to run "Arabian Nights" PC game in Windows 10 64bit.
First of all, I began to search which version is good to start.
I found two versions in eBay but not sure the latter one really works in Windows XP.
So I would like ask forum guys have any experience to run this game in WINDOWS XP 32bit and how was ? any problems?
Here is the box images and the link for them;

1 SEEMED OLD They say published 2002 same as the other one.

LINK: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arabian-Nights- ... 0862357917

Item specifics said "Platform: PC" and lower part of page "System Requirements Windows 95/98/Me"




2 THEY SAID WILL WORK 98/Me/XP See? bottom of box art "98/ME/XP" printed released in 2002!!

LINK: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arabian-Nights- ... SwAvJXBuW4

Item specifics OS-PC: Windows 98/ME/XP

[RaymanForever2007]

I got the solution for this issue, using the former game package in Windows 10 64bit.
The key is "HARDWARE ACCELERATION" of the program along with nGlide v1.03.
Here are the steps I took.

1 Install the game normally ignoring 3 complaints about missing wave file ( My OS could not handle letters of EXTENDED ASCII code such as French accent circonflexe!!.)
2 Set the compatibility of the file "_st_3dfx.exe" to "Windows XP/SP2".
3 Start the game with the desktop shortcut icon and set the hardware acceleration to "3Dfx[Glide]" and save the setting.

see the image;




4 Now from the site, get nGlide v1.03
http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
5 Install nGlide v1.03 and copy glide3x.dll from C:\Windows\SysWOW64 to the game installed directory.
6 You have to understand that Window 10 will not allow Securom V4.51 anymore so you need No-CD crack definitely for _st_3dfx.exe.
7 Start the game from _st_3dfx.exe. booyah !!

My PC is equipped with Geforce GT330M graphic card and with DirectX9c + DirectX 11 having no problem with other games so far.
But this old game "Arabian Nights" could not use the hardware acceleration correctly.
So I needed another measure to make the game use hardware acceleration beside current setting.
The clue is nGlide, for the starter of the game _setup.exe has this choice other than Direct3D.

OK now I can paly this game in Windows 10 64bit with nGlide !!
Hope this helps other forum guys that this game still gives us fun in Windows10 64bit.

[Andrew]

Good, so you used a Glide wrapper. But why nGlide 1.03 specifically instead of 1.05?

What options are shown by _SETUP.EXE for hardware acceleration besides "3Dfx (Glide)"? Perhaps _START.EXE will also work if you use a DirectX wrapper.

[RaymanForever2007]

Good, so you used a Glide wrapper. But why nGlide 1.03 specifically instead of 1.05?

What options are shown by _SETUP.EXE for hardware acceleration besides "3Dfx (Glide)"? Perhaps _START.EXE will also work if you use a DirectX wrapper.

_SETUP.EXE shows two options for hardware acceleration , Direct3D and 3Dfx[Glide].
And selecting Direct3D , _setup.exe will launch _start.exe while 3Dfx[Glide] do _st_3dfx.exe.
On my PC, selection of Direct3D had no luck just got black screen, so I changed my mind to select 3Dfx[Glide] as hardware acceleration along with nGlide v1.03. It worked as I posted.

As for nGlide version, yes v 1.05 the latest one WORKED IN MY METHOD like as v1.03.
Thank you for your suggestion on the latest version of nGlide.

BTW launching the game from _setup.exe which is the desktop shortcut pointed made the error 0x0000142 application _st_3dfx.exe error.
I coud not understand the cause of this error, although direct launch of _st_3dfx.exe i.e. double clicking the exe file had no problem for launching the game.
Do you have any clue for this error ?

And if you can name DirectX wrapper I would appreciate it too.

[Andrew]

Try this: Uninstall nGlide, install dgVoodoo 2 (it is both a Glide as well as DX wrapper), select Direct3D for h/w acceleration under _SETUP.EXE and try launching _START.EXE (you might need to set compatibility mode options in order to get it to work). Let me know the results.

[RaymanForever2007]

Try this: Uninstall nGlide, install dgVoodoo 2 (it is both a Glide as well as DX wrapper), select Direct3D for h/w acceleration under _SETUP.EXE and try launching _START.EXE (you might need to set compatibility mode options in order to get it to work). Let me know the results.

Thanks for naming dgVoodoo 2 for Direct3D wrapper.
I tried this and here is the results;

1 For Direct3D launch,
Yes IT WORKED with the compatibility of WindowsXP/SP2 for _start.exe.
I noticed the HUD quality is slightly poor compared to that of 3Dfx.
But it's improved selecting "ATI Radeon 8500" for my Geforce GT330M card. Had no problem playing the game. OK!!

2 For 3Dfx launch ,
The game could start up to the menu screen but could not proceed to "Credit" "New game" and some other sub-menus.
The game stopped suddenly following the click on a sub-menu.
I changed some settings in , but had no luck.



Coud you give some help for the settings ?

3. Launching the game from _setup.exe

_setup.exe shall be set to the compatibility of "Windows98/Me" to launch _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe through it , but the system nagged;



and continuing to press 'OK' ended up with starting the game by handing the control over to _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe.

So this issue still have the problem, how to eliminate the system nag on error shown above.
I still need your help.

[Andrew]

1 For Direct3D launch,
Yes IT WORKED with the compatibility of WindowsXP/SP2 for _start.exe.
I noticed the HUD quality is slightly poor compared to that of 3Dfx.
But it's improved selecting "ATI Radeon 8500" for my Geforce GT330M card. Had no problem playing the game. OK!!

That's great news. As for the quality difference, many old games that supported Glide did look better than their DX counterparts. Not sure there's anything that can be done about it, although you can play around with a post-processing injector such as ReShade for example.

2 For 3Dfx launch ,
The game could start up to the menu screen but could not proceed to "Credit" "New game" and some other sub-menus.
The game stopped suddenly following the click on a sub-menu.
I changed some settings in , but had no luck.



Coud you give some help for the settings ?

Since I have neither the game nor your exact hardware, it's really difficult to suggest specific settings. I'm afraid you'll have to try various combinations to see what works best. Just to confirm though, the sub-menus worked properly with nGlide 1.05 but not with dgVoodoo 2's Glide support?

3. Launching the game from _setup.exe

_setup.exe shall be set to the compatibility of "Windows98/Me" to launch _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe through it , but the system nagged;



and continuing to press 'OK' ended up with starting the game by handing the control over to _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe.

So this issue still have the problem, how to eliminate the system nag on error shown above.
I still need your help.

Again, not sure. The error might be due to some Windows APIs that have changed over time and are different/missing in Win10 compared to 9x or XP. Without a debugger it's impossible to say what the exact cause of the problem is. Anyway, as long as _start.exe and _st_3dfx.exe work directly, does it really matter if launching via _setup.exe doesn't?

P.S. You can contact Zeus (nGlide) here and Dege (dgVoodoo 2) here. Let me know the links if you post in either forum so I can keep an eye on them too.

[RaymanForever2007]

Since I have neither the game nor your exact hardware, it's really difficult to suggest specific settings. I'm afraid you'll have to try various combinations to see what works best.

Thank you again. As I am afraid this problem is the kind of deeply-related-machine-specification. One can do but the other can not.

Just to confirm though, the sub-menus worked properly with nGlide 1.05 but not with dgVoodoo 2's Glide support?

Ya, for 3Dfx mode nGlide 1.05 worked perfect, but dgVoodoo did not, while for Direct3D mode dgVoodoo worked perfect but nGlide 1.05 did not . Haaaaaaaaaaa------aa.

I will think over these, need some time.

[RaymanForever2007]

3. Launching the game from _setup.exe



_setup.exe shall be set to the compatibility of "Windows98/Me" to launch _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe through it , but the system nagged;



and continuing to press 'OK' ended up with starting the game by handing the control over to _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe.

So this issue still have the problem, how to eliminate the system nag on error shown above.

Work-AroundPlan for eliminating system nag

When starting the game with _setup.exe set the compatibility "Windows98/Me"
you will get the system nags like I reported in the previous post.

So I devised a work-around for that.

1. Suppose that the original installed directory is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Arabian

2. Change the folder name to Arabian-E.
3. For cheating _setup.exe when launched to sense THE PROGRAM IS ALREADY INSTALLED,
change the registory information pointing that game is in Arabian-E different from the
original one;

*****************************************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\_start.exe]
@="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arabian-E\\_start.exe"
"Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arabian-E;J:\\"
*****************************************

4. Now you can lauch _setup.exe without system nag still with the compatibility "Windows98/Me",
AND have no problem to start _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe by clicking "Play" button.

5. Taking this work-around , you will notice that the game _start.exe or _st_3dfx.exe is running
with "Windows98/Me" compatiblity, not WindowsXP/SP2 set for their property.
The compatibility for _setup.exe is carried over to _st_3dfx.exe and _start.exe because
of launching them through _setup.exe play button. Oh my!!

[Andrew]

Ya, for 3Dfx mode nGlide 1.05 worked perfect, but dgVoodoo did not, while for Direct3D mode dgVoodoo worked perfect but nGlide 1.05 did not .

nGlide of course is not a DX wrapper so no surprises there. What's strange is that I've never had dgVoodoo's Glide emulation completely fail, but maybe this game does something different that nGlide is able to handle better. You really should report this bug to Dege using the forum link I gave above. That way he can fix it and users will be able to play the game in both DX and Glide modes using the same wrapper.

[RaymanForever2007]

Ya, for 3Dfx mode nGlide 1.05 worked perfect, but dgVoodoo did not, while for Direct3D mode dgVoodoo worked perfect but nGlide 1.05 did not .

nGlide of course is not a DX wrapper so no surprises there. What's strange is that I've never had dgVoodoo's Glide emulation completely fail, but maybe this game does something different that nGlide is able to handle better. You really should report this bug to Dege using the forum link I gave above. That way he can fix it and users will be able to play the game in both DX and Glide modes using the same wrapper.

Thank you for this. I was checking the consistency of the problem with the setting of the game exe's compatibility, took some time to get myself straighten up on the issue.
Now I got error message having the same constant error generated by the game when it stopped.
I think I am ready to ask dgVoodoo forum and I will try.

[Andrew]

Looks like Dege has fixed the issue already, so let me know once you're able to test with the updated release.

[RaymanForever2007]

Looks like Dege has fixed the issue already, so let me know once you're able to test with the updated release.

Thank you this notification.
I also read his response in that site, but his HP ;
http://dege.freeweb.hu/
still has OLD one. I am still waiting for the revised edition. After I get it, I will test it on Arabian Nights and post the result.

[RaymanForever2007]

On 31 May 2016, Dege released his latest work dgVoodoo v.2.52.
This worked to "Arabian Nights" flawlessly in both Direct3D and 3Dfx mode using _start.exe and _st_3dfx.exe respectively.
This is awesome for those who are using Windows 10 64 bit wanting to run OLD game using Direct3D API or 3Dfx API.