http://www.squirtthecat.com/games/amber/index.html

Feel free to test it out. This is the first version, and for some it may not run perfectly yet, but for the truly adventurous among you, feel free to check it out. Feedback is welcomed by the programmer.

I wish I still had my copy of the game.
If anyone tries it please let us know how it works for you.
Thanks for the link Marian. I wonder if you still need quicktime to play it. I try to avoid it as much as possible.

I am in the process of testing this patch under WinXP. It works but has some audio sync problems, some missing movie effects, and some sequence glitches when opening doors and draws. Just getting into the game so there could be more problems.

Quicktime is still used but .dll files are placed in the game directory rather than Windows. Quicktime has not been a problem for me under WinXP or Win98SE regardless of the number of versions installed. Can't speak for Vista.

Did this patch really not work so well? did you finish the game using it? ( i played it before - long time ago on my older pc-great game!)

I've been in contact with the author which resulted in two updates. However, there is one major unresolved issue that prevented me from completing the game.

Nick was going to work on that problem but Test4 has not appeared on the squirtthecat site. I've assumed he is too busy with other things to return to work on the patch. Hopefully he will finish it in the near future.

I've been stuck at the water portion of the game, but could go on after restarting. So, I chose to do the crazy gardener. I was able to do finish that one and the one about Margaret. The game also plays very well (except for doors appearing to reopen or reclose after you just opened or closed them.)

Well I am in game heaven! I just installed Amber on my Vista PC and so far so good. Now I can finally retire my Windows 98 PC. I wonder if the Wimmers (and staff) know their game has stayed so popular and now has new life. Thank you Marian and a big thank you to the programmer.

Don't assume you can retire your Win 98 PC if you have other Win 98 games to play -- especially if the games require 3D video acceleration and can't be used in Virtual PC.

Most definitely, Jenny knows whereof she speaks~!

I still can't play Arthur's Knights, as Virtual PC doesn't support graphic acceleration.

Amber was really the only one I kept it for. But thanks for the info. This is really a great site.

VMware will - but there are caveats (I'm still perusing the docs)... Still, I'd hang on to the hardware solution for awhile longer.

Let us know if you ever get Arthur's Knights working in VMWare, Inland. I had no luck at all when I tried a 3D game in VMWare with either VMWare Player or VMWare Server... and I didn't want to buy VMWare Workstation just for a test.

Oh oh - I think I may have just made a BIG mistake. PC techie asked me if he should install Windows XP over my Windows 98SE - and I said yes! I have lots and lots of old games, so I should still stay with this system? I presume I can just revert back on my PC?

I don't think you can "uninstall" XP once you've "upgraded." You'd probably be better off reformatting and reinstalling Windows 98SE. You may need a utility like Delpart or AEFdisk to get back to FAT32 if your tech changed your partitioning to NTFS -- You can get AEFdisk and Delpart here: http://bootdisk.com/dostools.htm
If you decide to reformat/reinstall, be sure to back up anything you want to keep before the reformat. If you decide not to reformat, check Inferno's site for installing older games on XP.
http://home.earthlink.net/~angeldancer27/XpGameList.htm
Some games require more tweaking than others.

Thanks Jenny - I will take your advice - I think a format is imminent and a reversion back to Windows 98!

Would Virtual PC help me get over this problem, without the need to reinstall Windows98??

Rosaboobie,
If you have the room, consider installing another hard drive. You can format the drive as a FAT32, install Win98SE on it, and dual boot to either WinXP or Win98SE.
Even though Microsoft and most people say you must setup Win98SE before WinXP that is not correct. You can install Win98SE on a WinXP setup if there is a FAT32 drive.

There are some caveats to consider when choosing the above over Virtual PC. You must make sure that your audio and video cards have drivers available for Win98SE to dual boot. If the new hard drive is too large, installing Win98SE becomes much more complicated. Virtual PC will be much slower than Win98SE and is limited to video emulation of a very old card.

Which is exactly what you'd want for an old game like Amber.


Virtual PC only gives you a virtual computer, not the operating system. So you'd have to install Virtual PC and then install Windows 98 inside the virtual computer.

To see what's involved in installing Virtual PC with Windows, check here
http://www.gameboomers.com/Members/virtual_pc_2004_faq.htm
or here
***Virtual PC 2007 at Metzomagic's website***

Thank you both - Lots of reading to do over the weekend!!