thanks

Many games tend to fail for other OS compat issues than DirectX. If a game
uses DirectX 5, it is probably written for Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0. As
such, it probably needs a compatability mode enabled before it will run. I
believe the oldest version of Direct3D supported by Windows Vista is
Direct3D version 3.

A rare few games use Direct3D Retained Mode which was deprecated after
DirectX 5, and that is not available on Windows Vista. This would manifest
itself by getting an error about missing "D3DRM.DLL".

--
Chuck Walbourn
SDE, XNA Developer Connection

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I know some "legacy" Direct3d operations were removed from DirectX10. I
suspect you have encountered a game that used them.

According to:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/lib....aspx#ID0ETIAA

DirectSound was updated to expose the capabilities of the new Windows Vista
audio driver stack, which supports multi-channel software buffers. The
legacy Direct3D Retained Mode API was completely removed from Windows Vista.
DirectPlay Voice was also removed, as well as DirectPlay's NAT Helper.

A possibility may be to install a virtual copy of XP or win95 inside of
Vista and run the game in that. Check the Microsoft VirtualPC website...you
never know, it might work ;-)


Mark



"Tobias" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> During a fit of nostalgia, I've tried to run an old game (Dark Omen, ca.
> 1998), but get that error about missing the d3drm.dll file.
>
> I've tried installing the latest DirectX, I have the d3drm.dll file in
> both my system32 and game directory and I've ran it in a number of
> compatibility modes. All to no avail. The system is up to date, of
> course.
>
> If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be grateful - I've gotten a
> bit stubborn about it now. It's a matter of principle
>
> Thanks,
> Tobias
>
>
> --
> Tobias

On Apr 16, 6:34 am, "Jeremy Priest" <lan1234...@satx.rr.com> wrote:
> I think that most of the games problems have theDirectX 10architecture,
> and it's no-DirectX8 compatibility.

One other thing that may cause trouble (at least it did for us on
Company of Heroes) is that a game may auto-detect and select Direct3D
10 as the shader (maybe because of running in Vista). It took me
quite a bit of experimenting before I realized that this was the cause
of the abysmal frame rates we were getting, even with other options
set to "low" or "off". After I set the shader to "High" instead of
Direct3D 10, the graphics became excellent. It's strikes me as
peculiar that the game (at this point) had this setting available at
all.

> One other thing that may cause trouble (at least it did for us on
> Company of Heroes) is that a game may auto-detect and select Direct3D
> 10 as the shader (maybe because of running in Vista). It took me
> quite a bit of experimenting before I realized that this was the cause
> of the abysmal frame rates we were getting, even with other options
> set to "low" or "off". After I set the shader to "High" instead of
> Direct3D 10, the graphics became excellent. It's strikes me as
> peculiar that the game (at this point) had this setting available at
> all.

The latest Company of Heroes patch is the first commercial game to support
Direct3D 10. It defaults to Direct3D 10 if it is available. Drivers are
still being actively optimized for Direct3D 10, so please try the latest
driver for your board.

--
Chuck Walbourn
SDE, XNA Developer Connection

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.