Happy New Year guys!
Know this has been a topic here and other places via Google, but I'm trying to find one good way to try and install the oldie Black Dahlia. I'm running a Win 10 x64 OS. I've tried using compatibility mode for XP, etc, turning down the color and anything else I could see in the compatibility box, but always hit an error after the opening word scroll (generic setpiece?)...I'm supposed to "disable
visual themes and Disable desktop composition", but don't know where to go to find/adjust those...
Any help on that score would be great, of course! Or alternatively, any way anyone's found that will let this puppy run.
The suggestions on the web have been all over the place-even checking run as admin at first, then unchecking it later. Very confusing...I even ran into the 'memory was all used up' one time, but don't recall what tweaking I'd done to produce that, lol!

Have you seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Hi5UMhkuQ

It wasn't 100%, but it's likely to be the best you can do on a modern computer -- unless you want to try getting VMware working with Windows 95/98 on Windows 10.

Another possibility here, using a virtual machine and disabling hardware virtualization (VT) in the computer's BIOS.
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=48302

I think a lot of people who enjoy old games from the 1990's have an older computer from that time, which makes it MUCH easier to run the games. I know Mad and I both have old computers from the 1990's.

There are two patches available for this game. Patch 1.10 seems to be an official one that fixes bugs in the game. The "no-CD v03" patch claims to patch the game for use with dual core CPUs and can "remove" ie. convert the screens from the old laced horizontal lines to a solid screen. Personally I prefer the original graphics.
Now the no-CD is a misnomer as you don't need a patch to prevent the need to change CDs (8 in the game.) All you need to do is do a normal install and then copy ALL of the P#L directories from each CD into the directory where you installed the game. Once done, you make a slight change to the bd.ini file.

While this may not be relevant for Win10, here is what I do with a WinXP system to get the game running correctly.
1)Insert CD1 into a drive.
2)Set compatibility mode for setup.exe to Win98 and install the game.
3)Copy from CD1 the P1A and P6B directories to the installation directory.
4)For the other 7 CDs, copy over the P#L directories.
5)Use the v1.10 patch to correct bugs in the game.
6)Change some lines in bd.ini.
[DRIVES]
drive1 = d:\
drive2 = d:\
drive3 = d:\
drive4 = d:\
drive5 = d:\
drive6 = d:\
drive7 = d:\
drive8 = d:\
become
[DRIVES]
drive1 = .\
drive2 = .\
drive3 = .\
drive4 = .\
drive5 = .\
drive6 = .\
drive7 = .\
drive8 = .\

[options]
spin edges = 0
spin vres = 15
spin hres = 25
become
[options]
spin edges = 1
spin vres = 2
spin hres = 2

7)I reduce hardware acceleration for my sound card by two clicks. It will then read:
"Basic acceleration: use this setting to enable only the required acceleration features."

Yes, as Jenny100 said, I play this game on my old Win98SE machine - but am fervently hoping GOG will decide to offer it at some time

Having said that, I AM now going to copy those instructions from you (Robert Gault) just in case I ever get the nerve up to try them !!

Thank you for the instructions, Robert.

For Vista and later you won't have to reduce hardware acceleration for your sound card because there is no hardware acceleration for the sound card in Vista and later. Any audio effects like 3D positional sound have to be implemented in software, but I don't know of any adventure games that used them anyway.


I wonder what this does, and whether the values would need to be adapted on a current generation computer. For example, if "spin vres" and "spin hres" are for panning speed, you might want to set them lower than 2 if panning is still too fast when set to 2. I have no idea what "spin edges" would be though.

I don't remember if Black Dahlia used QuickTime or not. If it did, that's something else to worry about on later versions of Windows.

Black Dahlia uses Smackw32.dll and DirectX not QuickTime. It has provisions for 16 and 32-bit systems and may or may not work with 64-bit systems.

The changes to the spin values prevent you from getting dizzy when the cursor is moved to the edge of the screen and the scenes start spinning.

But if panning is still too fast when values are set to
spin edges = 1
spin vres = 2
spin hres = 2

would it help to change the values to
spin edges = 2
spin vres = 1
spin hres = 1

Jenny,
I haven't a clue. Looks like it should be you need to test it.

OK! Here are the results of testing and my conclusions.

The ini value for "spin edges" acts as a boolean; 0=NO 1=YES. The values for "spin vres" and "spin hres" seem to be speed controls but also seem to interact with "spin edges". The slowest reliable spin seems to be with
spin edges = 1
spin vres = 2
spin hres = 2
I can make the spin faster by increasing v and hres but not slower.

Now normal game operation does not spin merely by moving the mouse cursor to the edges of the screen. This is turned on with the above changes and for me is convenient. Normal action requires holding down the left mouse button while moving the mouse away from the center of the screen. This can get so fast that after about 5 spins, the main character gets dizzy, sees stars, and complains to you about it!
When you change
vjoy res = 20
to
vjoy res = 1
the spin is slowed down to something reasonable.

I don't have a joystick on my system so don't know what "vjoy control = 0" does. It might also be a boolean so that you can spin without pressing a joystick button.

Thank you for doing further testing.
Black Dahlia doesn't seem like a game that would play very well with a joystick, but it's interesting that "vjoy control" option is there.

Looking on the web I found an article HERE

Which says :

Here is something i do to make my old games work on newer faster computers.
1) Run the game
2) hit the windows key so that your desktop comes up (your game will minimise)
3) right click the task bar and click on Task manager
4) under processes find your games process
5) right click and select 'Set Affinity'
6) you should see a number of processors in the new window
7) untick everything apart from CPU 0
8) close the window
9) from the taskbar click on your game.
This should now slow down your game enough for you to be able to play it.

Do you think it could be feasible ??

Black Dahlia is on our list of
***games that are negatively affected by hyperthreading and multi-core processors***.
So setting affinity to a single processor has some use.
However setting affinity is not going to reduce the speed of a multi-gigahertz processor to the 120MHz Pentium recommended (on the game box) for Black Dahlia -- or anything close to that.
You're still going to have the way-too-fast panning unless you do something else.

Right

It's just so hard to believe that someone, somewhere, hasn't "dealt with" Black Dahlia by now - considering how many people hanker after playing oldies on their modehrn machines these days and considering all the brainy folk out there who probably could deal with it if they put their mind to it

Wow! Tons of good info to go through and try out...big thanks to Jenny & Robert for the tips and directions. Thinking of trying the youtube video first (and applying patch 1.1) to see how that might work!

Perhaps this is one that I need to take a look at since I do have the game.

Wow !! How brilliant THAT would be !!

Fingers crossed then

That would be just great if you could find the time to do that, Collector!

I tried working through with the video, but would always crash as I did before tweeking with DxWnd-at the end of opening scrool/before first FMV...genericSet error or the like. Now I was using a newer version of the DxWnd, but I pretty much just followed the checklist. I'm wondering if my install procedure is correct? I'm running Win10 on an Asus GL502vs with GEForce GTX1070.
1) should I install just regularly to win 10, or use compatibility for install? (I've tried XP-no luck. Also tried within VirtualBox running XP-nada.) 2) assume I apply patch 1.1 after install (any change to make there?) 3) have seen board comments elsewhere where after install, you change compatibility setting (uncheck something)...any thoughts? Happy to be lead by hand, lol, since there have been a variety of methods I've seen proposed, none easy or with mixed results. Thanks!

According to the YouTube video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Hi5UMhkuQ

1. Do not use Windows compatibility settings when you install.

2. Install the patch from 1998.
If you download it from Patches-Scrolls, it will be called bdpatch.zip.
It will unzip to BDPATCH.EXE
Copy the BDPATCH.EXE file to the game folder before running it.

Don't use the Windows 10 compatibility mode.
Only use the compatibility in DxWnd.

Follow the YouTube uploader's instructions for setting up DxWnd.




1. This was not an XP game. Even Inferno had to tweak settings when she ran it on XP, and that was an early version of XP on a real computer, not VirtualBox which doesn't fully emulate every aspect of a computer -- especially not an older one.
***Inferno's XP Setup for Black Dahlia***


If you're trying to use a virtual machine, be sure to disable virtualization technology (VT) in the computer's BIOS/Setup if possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_VT
VT is to make the virtual machine run faster, which is absolutely not what you want with a game from 1998.
You may want to try Inferno's suggestions for XP if you're using an XP Virtual Machine.

Virtual Machines used to work great, especially with Windows 98, but not so much anymore. Unlike DOSBox, VirtualBox and VMware don't control for speed.


If you want to use Windows compatibility, don't use DxWnd.
If you want to use DxWnd, don't use Windows compatibility.

You may have to "Run As Administrator" on Windows 10 to get the game to install at all. Best not to if possible.

You may want to install to a location other than C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86)

You find a lot of "solutions" online. They won't all work for everyone's computer. What worked on a computer 5 years ago may not work now. You have to experiment and see what works for your computer.

Thanks ever so uch, Jenny, for the specificity...Given the hinkiness of the game, I'm happy to try setting this in DxWnd, now that I have a touch of familiarity with it. If I'm reading your note correctly, you suggest not using any compatibility within DxWnd-just leaving it as whatever it defaults to?
Thanks also for the patch info also-I had not seen/missed copying it to game file before running!

No, it's Windows compatibility mode that you don't set.
In DxWnd you set

Follow the DxWnd settings the YouTube guy suggested.
I quoted them in my previous message and they're also on the YouTube page in the area under the video.

I am also a BD fan and would love to replay it, so I follow this thread closely. I on the other hand still use Windows 7 and I'm going to try this aswell. I presume that DxWnd will work under win 7 IF I should need it...?! Please tell how you progress in your quest!

Well,after noodling around with it (and taking time away when it crashed, hehe), I did get this running through DxWnd. Yay!
Making allowances for it being an old game (graphically), it seems to work ok. It runs a little slowly, and is somewhat slow in panning around, or responding to commands. I'm hesitant to do much tweaking without guidance, as I could muddle through as is...
I took note of the comments re changing the .ini settings, which I take have to do largely with spinning cursor issues, etc. My query would be how to get to where you change the .ini settings? From a quick googling, I took this to be a configuration item-would this be a change impacting just this program? And how would you get there in Win10?
Cheers all!