Diablo II broken for W9x since Patch 1.14b?

[ragnargd]

See:

http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11599

(in german)

It basically shows a sceenshot after D2 crashed, showing a dependency to a w2000-DLL.

I have the same phenomenon, and will start a research. Hopefully just a small problem. Any ideas welcome...

[jumper]

KernelEx.

[HarryTri]

Or just don't play this game (diablo=devil you know!).

[ragnargd]

@jumper: Well, worth a try. Will take a bit of time, but I'll report.
@HarryTri: Worth trying. I did. Well, I did not. But THAT I did. Wait... AAAAAH!

[LoneCrusader]

17 hours ago, ragnargd said:

See:

http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11599

(in german)

It basically shows a sceenshot after D2 crashed, showing a dependency to a w2000-DLL.

I have the same phenomenon, and will start a research. Hopefully just a small problem. Any ideas welcome...

I wouldn't be surprised. One of the patches for WarCraft III broke my Windows 9x installation of it several years ago. (I think it was 22b? I'd have to check.) Needless to say Blizzard support was useless on the issue at the time. I never got around to examining it further. I seem to never have time to spend playing my old games anymore. I've had a "new" 9x gaming system under construction for years now that never gets finished either. I planned to dig into the issue further when I set up all of the games again on the new system. Now I know I'll have to watch out for D2 patches (later than the 1.12 that's on my old systems) as well (I've never really liked D2, I LOVE D1, but a friend of mine likes to play D2.)

[ragnargd]

@LoneCrusader:

Most games "made for W9x" in fact run better when running on a dual/quad CPU, and this is true for D2 as well.

But some just don't run at all, or only with serious problems.

I just played "Jedi Knight", and it ran fine on W98SE, but on the same machine with XP, it was glitched beyond repair. Same with a Harry Potter game (part one?) my daugther played.

Inspired by your idea, i just played D1 again. Oh my, it made me remember why this game was called "mouse killer No. 1"...

[rloew]

The number of CPUs has no effect on performance or compatability with old games.
Any improvement is due to architectural improvements in modern Processors such as Cache or reduced Instruction execution time.

[ragnargd]

Games will not run faster, of course, on the same machine with the same CPU and same GPU - but my impression is, with a second core active, some of them run smoother, FPS being more constant.

This is even more true with games that have sound (i.e. music) running in its own thread - "Jedi Knight" being a good example.

Other games, then, make no difference.

Well, unless i use my 1920x1200 screen with maximum details, for games like Half-Life 2 - that is unfair, in a way, as i run them on a faster card on the same machine, but, hey, who said life is fair?

[rloew]

If you are running on 9x, no other core would be active. My post refers to 9x.
If you are running on XP or later, multiple cores would reduce system overhead, improving performance.

[pangoomis]

Well, 3DMark03 version 360 is broken under 98SE, and works only if you remove SystemInfo, install KernelEx, and use the -nosysteminfo switch. You won't get the pretty system summary anymore.

3DMark03 version 350 on the other hand, works out of the box without KernelEx or any tweaks, the SystemInfo works fine on this version too, showing pretty system summary.

So yes, patches made for 9x compatible software can screw up 9x lovers.

Of course, new patches are only needed if you want to play on the battle.net, ranked preferably. If single player, just use the older patch.

Edited March 14, 2017 by MrMateczko