Hi i have recently brought windows vista premium which is fine. the only problem is that i can not get Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic to work at all. Which is a shame because the game is a classic. I have tried running compatibility mode but it doesnt work. If any one could help it would be greatly apreshated. I really need to play that game.
It's an awesome, kind of 3D point and click adventure game type thing, very cool. As for getting it working on Vista, I don't know anything myself but you could try google if you haven't already, if you can't find anything then my advice you to do dual boot Vista with XP, if you find something that doesn't work on Vista, then you can switch over and install onto XP, not an ideal solution though.
Did you try compatability mode in conjunction with limiting the game to 256 million colors or whatever option that is? I find thats what I need to for most pre -xp games.
thanks for having a go but i have done all of the above befor please any one else with any ideas please please please please please let me know this is killing me not being able to play the game cos its a classic P.S dual boot Vista with XP IS A NO GO
Install the program in Compatibility Mode (you may first need to copy the CD-ROM to HDD for this, and install it from there, as you cannot change a program's --in this case the installation .exe's-- properties on CD-ROM). Hey, it works for Sentinel Returns...
tried that and most of the obvious solutions i really need something good when i load the game up i get the first sreen then it just shuts down its killing me it really is
I've had complete success by installing the DVD version (1.00.42.c) by installing without any change to the compatibility (straight Vista). This then ran without any moving video but with still images and sound. I then copied the video codec .dll pasted below into the 'starship titanic' program folder and it runs perfectly on vista home premium. Note for installlation: deselect direct x5, fraunhoffer mp3 and codec. http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/faq.html#1.7.1
This worked brilliantly for me and did everything you asked. I've never played this game before today and I too have a vista pc. The problem I am experiencing is once I have put the CD in the computer and the ship has crashed into the room I am in, the robot comes up to me (after repeating tidy as you go twice) and then the screen goes black. well not the whole screen but a large section in the middle of the screen where I am guessing a menu of some description pops up. Could anyone help me at all, I am a recent fan of Douglas Adams and would love to see his insight into this game. Thank you so much. I have just noticed that I should have a toolbar of some description at the bottom of the screen from looking at pictures on the back of the box. I have been exiting the game thus far by pressing the windows button on my keypad and know that this should not be the only way. Then to close down the application I have to start windows task manager and end task. I'm sorry for the long thread but I have wanted to play this game since I found out about it and now I have it right in front of me but alas it won't let me near it...!!! Please help...!!!
ARGHHH Please help me with this, I am dying to play this game but I am still having problems with my menu/toolbar. Could someone point me in the right direction please? Thank you.
Did you have it working under Windows XP? Extracted from this FAQ's page:: It might be worth trying that for Vista The only other thing I can suggest, is visiting the various forums suggested on this page? But I have to ask: Why is playing a 10 year+ old game so important to you, that it's worth all this hassle
I love Douglas Adams' style of writing. I enjoyed reading The HitchHikers guide to the Galaxy and many of his other works. Then he sadly passed away and his last book was published, The Salmon of Doubt. This was a great insight to his mind and I then found out about this game. I would like to see what this is all about, I'm all for classic games that are more about the content rather than the graphics. I have never seen this game in its glory and just wanted it to work. Hope that answers your question. I am in the process of trying your method out but I have a feeling I have tried before and had no such luck. But thank you for your help, I'm really at a loose end.
Success at last!!! I have just got Starship Titanic running on my ASUS W7S laptop with Vista Business OS. Heres how... I didn't need to use any of the compatability mode stuff. Install the game and try to run it. Depending on which version you have you will probably just get the splash loading screen for a few seconds before it shuts down and returns to the desktop. However this loading screen tells you what version of the game you have, 1.00.42, or 1.00.42a, b, or c. You need version c so go to http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/patches.html and download the appropriate patch to upgrade yours to version 1.00.42c. Unzip and run the patch in the Starship titanic folder. You should now get past the splash screen and into the game. You will notice the bottom of the screen is blank with no controlling toolbar (called the P.E.T. in this game), don't worry about this at this stage. Next you will probably find when you click on the TV in the room, which should have a video of Douglas Adams telling you to get on with it, you will get no video or no sound, and similar problems if you go to the computer in the room and put in the disk. What you need to do is the XP cinepac codec fix as detailed here: http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/faq.html Download the codec and put it in the Starship Titanic folder and the video wll now play properly. The next problem will be the middle of the screen blanking out as described above by Skandalus. This was happening for me with a basic install with direct x5, fraunhoffer mp3 and codec deselected. I uninstalled and reinstalled with a full install so it doesn't need to run from the disks and this time I also selected fraunhoffer mp3 and codec. I redid the above patches and in runs fine now. Once you get past where the srceen was blanking after the robot comes down the stairs he give you your PET toolbar, so the bottom of the screen being blank before this is not an error, its part of the game. So in summary: 1. Full install with Fraunhoffer mp3 and codec selected. 2. Patch to version 1.00.42c 3. Paste cinepak codec into Starship titanic folder (ICCVID.DLL ver. 1.10.0.11) enjoy.
what worked for me... I had the same issue, gnawed at it for about 24 hours... then gave it up due to its lack of protein. Then I went into task manager to remove some spyware appz that my computer must have given birth to, found a small little program I use for batch photo resizing called QuickSize open (but not in use). Not thinking much of it I clicked it and hit end task and Voila!!! every attempt to open the Starship Titanic installer popped open simultaneously! After installing it and running the video patch everything played perfectly... EXCEPT... The gondolier's chest is black, and every time I try to hang the Maitre D's arms on it I get a Mem_Point error. Which means it's impossible to get Titania's mouth, and therefore impossible to finish the game. Though I'm sure there's a way to overcome this, I haven't found it yet. It will not run at all if you put it in compatibility mode for any other OS. Tried 256 colors, 640x480, disable visual styles, and removed any and all unnecessary programs (and a few necessary like anti-virus) to no avail. Now I don't suppose you use QuickSize, but it seems apparent it was tying up a .dll used by InstallShield, so perhaps there is a similar issue with some obscure app you're running. Try shutting down all non-vital OS related applications and see if the installer will open. Hope this works, and I hope you don't get the "Gondola-bot Black Lung" I have encountered.
update I found the issue with the Gondolier, and it's not Vista related. c300.avi in the assets folder is corrupt, if I try to open it in Media Player it crashes the player, and if I open the assets folder on the CD it crashes Explorer when it tries to generate the thumbnail. So I likely just have a bad disk, and you should have nothing to worry about.
Updating my update: My previous thought was corrupt video files. I have spent 2 days downloading the DVD version in order to replace them. Unfortunately they have the same problem. c300.avi is the one that prevents me from beating the game, I have no idea where the other files even show up during game play, but here is the list of everything that crashes in Vista: a329.avi a331.avi c47.avi c300.avi c352.avi z128.avi z187.avi I hope nobody else has encountered this problem, but it seems likely you have. If you have, perhaps you've worked around it... and if so, I'm sure we'd love to hear how! I installed XP on Virtual PC and was able to open the file successfully, so I know its a codec problem in Vista.
