Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,
I've just bought the game through DD and didn't notice the system req's : on the product page it says "Win 200 or XP", and I still have W98 !!
The installer warns about the OS, but still installs the game ... and the game works (or really looks like it does [8D]) ! [:'(], though I've just played the 1st tutorial. The only weird thing is that the game is choppy and the music "stutters"when music is on, but this can be caused by the fact I've turned off sound acceleration due to drivers problem ( I have those since my last W98 reinstall...it looks unsolvale..). Well, I just put music off and all is smooth !

And now I'm reading the manual, and W98 is allowed under system req's (p 6).
What is (or not) the problem with W98 and this game ? [&:]

The systm specs in the manual are obsolete, this is due to the fact that it was allready in production when we had last minute system spec changes. What counts is the official system specs as on the website, store or retail box:

- Windows 2000, XP
- Direct X 9c
- Video: 1024x768 or higher, 32 Mb Video RAM (128 Mb Recommended)
- CPU: 800 MHz Processor (2 GHz Recommended)
- Memory: 512 Mb RAM (1 Gb Recommended)
- 8 x CD-ROM
- 500 MB free Hard Drive Space
- 16 bit Direct Sound compatible Soundcard

The installer warns about the OS, but still installs the game ... and the game works

It can possibly work on Win98SE, but it is not supported by us.

Pascal cease to play games with this bugs nest... [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Pascal cease to play games with this bugs nest... [:'(]

Ahhh, you again [X(] ! Ok, I can change my bugs nest OS for another newer one, but for the moment I've to do and play GGWaW with ! [:'(][:D]
I wonder why the game specs changed to exclude W98 quite later after the coding was over [8|] - I suppose from other threads than video support was changed late to WMP10 (XP only) instead of WMP9.
And in fact I now realize I didn't get any video, not even the intro ones - I didn't notice because I didn't know in the first place they existed [:D]. If the only problem under W98 is inability to see the videos it's no big deal (and even beneficial for the intro vids [;)]).

Still I think that such a game should have remained compatible with W98, even if now not many people still have it, this is the first wargame that didn't support it and making it uncompatible just to play videos "better" (maybe) isn't fair IMHO [:-].

It´s not because of the Videos. Keith would be the man to explain this further.

Its hard for software developers to support an OS, that isnt even supported by its creators any longer.

Well, after some more hours of play I confirm the game WORKS under (my) Win98 [:D], without videos (they don't launch at all, no errors reported), and music has to be turned off else the game is slow and choppy.

What's fun (sort of) is that many players with up to date XP SP2 report hosts of CTDs, while I've yet to see one even after my personal "crash tests" - clicking everywhere, try all features/buttons, play blank turns, change the prefs/settings and back to game, etc...
Thanks Bill ? [&o] [:'(]

Pascal,

I'm glad it's working for you, but I want to clarify one point - we are having very, very few problem reports considering copies sold. Since the game officially supports 2000/XP, it's not surprising that most problems are reported by XP users.

With that said, I'm very pleased that you got it working on Windows 98 but my guess is that the problem report rate would be much higher if most people were running Windows 98, which is technically unsupported. There are a lot of poorly configured, low spec Windows 98 systems out there that would faint when asked to run GGWaW. [;)]

Regards,

- Erik

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Pascal,

I'm glad it's working for you, but I want to clarify one point - we are having very, very few problem reports considering copies sold. Since the game officially supports 2000/XP, it's not surprising that most problems are reported by XP users.

With that said, I'm very pleased that you got it working on Windows 98 but my guess is that the problem report rate would be much higher if most people were running Windows 98, which is technically unsupported. There are a lot of poorly configured, low spec Windows 98 systems out there that would faint when asked to run GGWaW. [;)]

Regards,

- Erik

Erik, I didn't want to imply the game had many problems/issues/bugs, the situation just seemed funny to me [:'(].
I'm very happy too it works - in fact buying on the Net via DD is so simple and fast I didn't even look at the specs [8|]..

Still out of curiosity I'd like to know why Win98 was ruled out relatively late in the game production [&:] : is that due to real "fundamental" technical issues, or rather (and your explanation could be understood this way) because you were unsure the game will work properly on the majority of Win98 systems and decided not to support it officially, even if it "should" work on properly configured systems (so guys can try, but at their own risk) ?

It was more the latter, as some late testing found that some Windows 98 systems tended to have more problems than we were comfortable with and with the lack of support for the OS (on everything from updates to drivers), this can be problematic when it comes to trouble-shooting. The game was developed for and optimized to run on the newer Windows OSes, so that's what we support.

Many Windows 98 systems run on older hardware as well and are limited to drivers from 2002 or older, which causes issues of its own. If a customer like you is intrepid and feels their system is well configured, there's nothing preventing an attempt, but we didn't feel comfortable listing it as officially supported.

Regards,

- Erik

Ok Erik that's clear !
Maybe you could change the specs to indicate "game should/could work on Win98"but is not officially supported" ? That could maybe entice some intrepid W98 users [;)] to buy the game [:'(]

W98 users are vicious weirdoes. The proof is here, PDF uses it. [:D]