Re: Windows XP Problems WITH Solutions
Hi all,
I recently found Star Trek Generations game and i can't get it to play. It will install but when i launch the game, a message saying it has encountered a problem and needs to close. Any help would be gratefully received, thanks
I recently tried to play "Generations" in XP, but as always, this is the case.
The problem is with "C++" and a bit of coding which is non-standard, it seems. I can't quite identify the code, and frankly, the game wasn't THAT good.
So, I tried something else, and it's worked passably well. I installed Microsoft VirtualPC (there are other emulation programs out there you can use which might be better, or worse, but this is the one I have to work with right now). I installed Windows 98SE into that virtual machine.
Now, I mainly set up this VM for the various Simon & Schuster items which are based upon older versions of Quicktime and cannot run in conjunction with newer versions of Quicktime. So, in this VM I can run the "Star Trek - The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual" just fine, and the "Captain's Chair," and the Encyclopedia (all three versions, the first Omnipedia, the Omnipedia Update, and the Encyclopedia with episode guides). Oh, yes, and also "Starship Creator" (Again, three versions, all installed in this VM).
I also have some non-trek items installed there... basically, anything that is not hardware-accelerated graphics, and which won't run in WinXP but would run in Win9x, I run in this VM.
Well, I tried Generations. It works perfectly fine in the VM, with one exception. It doesn't like my keyboard. (I have a logitech G110 "gaming keyboard, with a few extra features.) MOST of it works, but for some reason, I cannot TURN... which, as you can guess, makes the game rather unplayable! But if I plug in a basic (PS2-based) keyboard this isn't an issue, so that's what I did. (And yes, my current motherboard has a single PS2 port which can be used for either keyboard or mouse, if desired, though I use neither most of the time.)
SO... that's my recommendation. Install your old OS (assuming you still have it), either Win95, Win95OEMSR2 (which is much superior to the first release, but was never available in stores, only to OEMs, strangely), Win98, or best of all, Win98SE. Find the final version of Quicktime 2 (in both the 16-bit and 32-bit flavors) and install both. Do not let it "check for old versions) either time. Then install your various Simon & Schuster items (decline to install Quicktime each time). And install Generations.
Generations will install DirectX 3.0 as part of the installation. You'll want to re-install the later version of DirectX 8 (the final version which supports Windows 9x) to make sure that everything is OK.
Now, realize that you won't be able to run ANY "hardware-accelerated" programs in this virtual machine. BUT... Generations did not use hardware-accelerated graphics, nor hardware-accelerated sound, so this is a non-issue.
Generations was a... "challenging" game to enjoy. Bits of it were really quite fun, and it WAS the first actual "Star Trek First Person Shooter." But the user interface is pretty horrible, some level design is overly frustrating, there are bugs which cause you to get stuck (literally... as in "my character can't move") in a number of locations, and so forth.
The GOOD of "Generations" is being able to go in and, if you play well, get a whole series of new outcomes. Including, for example, SAVING THE ENTERPRISE D, keeping Kirk alive, or having Kirk fighting on board the Enterprise's secondary hull post-separation.
The graphics are, by modern standards, "terrible," but they're pretty much what was common at the time... along the lines of what you'd get in low-resolution rendering in Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. And there are lots of voice-overs from the various Trek actors (including "your own voice" since you're playing as Riker, or Data, or Troi, or LaForge, or Picard, or Kirk, or Dr. Crusher, throughout the game), which is sort of fun.
It was nice to actually get it working again, even if the only way to do so was with a "Virtual PC" setup.
