SP:WAW reverts to menu (even with DirectX)

[swift_4]

I'm trying to run SPWAW 5.01 on a low end machine. When I try to run the game from the menu, it displays the opening titles, then reverts to the menu. I read that this happens when you don't have DirectX installed, so I installed DirectX 8.0a. It still happened. I reinstalled SPWAW and it still happens. I wondering if my low end machine is the problem. Here's the specs:

P133, Win95, 64mb RAM, Cirrus Logic 5436 video card (I'm guessing it's cheap), SB Awe64 sound card.

Is anyone running the game on a machine this old/slow? I'm guessing it's either that or my cheap video card.

[Paul Vebber]

My "low end test machine" is a Micron P166 (non-MMX) 64MB ram, Win ME stealth 3D 2000 OEM 4MB video and OEM onboard sound chip. It actually doesn't run half bad (speed wise)

The standard causes of failure to load (returning to main menu) are:

Sound card not supporting an SB emulation mode (sometimes reffered to a "compatibility mode" on SB products)

Insufficient RAM - if you sound card shares RAM as Video memory - 64MB may not be enough. OR you have memory gobbling software like OUTLOOK running in the backgroud. THe game needs at least 48MB available RAM, we recommend 64 for the MC, or larger scenarios may cause problems.

Insufficient HD swap space. You need your swap file configured to at least 256MB or you will see a higher incidence of crashes.

A corrupted steel.prf - just delete it and let the game create a new one at run tme.

Try running the game directly from the mech.exe file and see if that helps, if you are on the razor's edge of RAM, not loading the menu program may put you over the top.

There are quirks with specific combinations of hardware that some games just don't like, and the ancient Watcom compiler the game uses is likley to blame for some things.

Other than reload the OS and change out individual componants, there is no way to figure out easily just what the cause is, if none of the above usual suspects.

[swift_4]

Problem solved!

I missed a step in the troubleshooting. I didn't have the latest drivers for my video card.

Of course, the "latest" drivers were from 1998, but they're better than the 1996 drivers that were on there.

I don't know how many of you are trying to run this game on old/slow machines, but it does work. Maybe next time we get a bunch of ancient machines from the scrapheap, I'll grab four or five and make a little Steel Panthers network war room in my basement.

[Paul Vebber]

Great to hear! Thanks for reporting back your success! IT really helps for folks to see persistence pays off <img src="smile.gif" border="0">