Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

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Xenomoose
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Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Xenomoose »

I've searched these forums to see if there were any other topics about this, but if there are they're very old and I think this is something that deserves a topic on it's own. If I'm wrong, feel free to close or move this thread.

So a while ago I made a thread about how I couldn't even run Trespasser because it kept going straight to a Fatal Error. What was determined was that my computer's hardware was too "new" to be compatible. Part of me was resigned to the horrible fate that I was looking to, but another part didn't want to give up, and every now and then I would try to find a way to get the game to run. Recently I was inspired to try running it on a virtual machine running Windows XP. It works. There are a few kinks you should be aware of if you want to try:

* If you use Windows Virtual PC, or another program that has Integration Components, don't install the Integration Components (or, have them installed for the duration of installing Trespasser to make getting the Patch and ATX easier without having to redownload them from the virtual machine itself). Somehow that makes the mouse cursor refuse to go away when you load up an actual game, and moving the mouse just a little causes Anne to spin in circles.

* I don't know if this is true for all Virtual Machines, but Virtual PC lacks a means to utilize Hardware Acceleration, so using the TresCom-created mods that require Hardware Acceleration is out of the question (unless another virtual machine program can use that stuff).

* The FMVs don't play well on the machine I use. The opening "My name is John Parker Hammond" fmv is choppy and stuttery in particular. The FMVs aren't that important to me, but if you like seeing them, I'm not exactly sure how to fix that.

* Just to let you know, Virtual PC can come with WinXP, but only if you have Win7 Professional or Ultimate. If you just have Home Edition (or worse, Vista! *shudder*), either upgrade (yeah, right :P ) or hope you have a WinXP disc somewhere at home.

Anyways, those are all the problems I've encountered so far. I guess I should make updates to this in case I run into any more problems over the course of playtime (although I'm sure that any other problem I may run into will just be one of Trespasser's usual quirks :D ). But anyways, if you have trouble running Trespasser on a computer with newer tech, hopefully this will be a sort of impromptu guide to getting back to that goodness! Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to have a tearful reunion with a game I miss very much!
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Dragonlord »

Tresspasser plus Wine
Works just fine

;P

Otherwise I prefer VirtualBox though as it's not closed source.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by lardman »

Interesting, do you have a link to that thread, I'd like to know what classifies as a 'new' pc?

(mine is pretty new: Core2 quad, Win7 64bit, GTX470 and it all works fine)
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by awesome24712 »

Not so much a thread, but a subforum: viewforum.php?f=30

However I think running Trespasser on a virtual machine would be fruitless, because all you are changing is the operating system (never mind you're running on a foreign operating system), so all the hardware bugs would still be there. Would make it more difficult to mod too.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by lardman »

Ah, I didn't realise you were talking about running under WINE. Ignore my previous post as I'm running under Win7.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Dragonlord »

awesome24712 wrote:However I think running Trespasser on a virtual machine would be fruitless, because all you are changing is the operating system (never mind you're running on a foreign operating system), so all the hardware bugs would still be there. Would make it more difficult to mod too.
Not correct.

Under Wine you don't access the hardware directely using DirectX. Instead the calls are re-routed through OpenGL which the host system can run already. Other hardware is provided in generic form to Trespasser. Maybe multiple CPU could be a problem but Wine usually tells apps only about 1 CPU and not multiple cores. So in general hardware doesn't affect apps under Wine as it's a layer in between.

Under VirtualBox this is even less a problem since VirtualBox fully virtualizes a CPU. Not only the host system is the same there the entire hardware is the same... albeit virtual one. Thus with VirtualBox the PC looks exactly the same for an app inside no matter what real PC you run it on.

So in a nutshell in VirtualBox hardware issue is 100% impossible and under Wine is next to impossible.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Xenomoose »

I just use Virtual PC, which doesn't allow for hardware virtualization (to the extent that I can use Hardware Acceleration, that is), but I'll be sure to check out Wine or VirtualBox.

Anyways, I just finished my test run with Virtual PC. I have problems loading saves (it makes the game crash, but I'm just filing that under the "usual Trespasser quirks" folder for now), but if you dedicate enough time for one playthrough, there aren't any problems (except the aforementioned lack of Hardware Acceleration).

In short, I'm back in business, brosephs!
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Dragonlord »

Xenomoose wrote:Anyways, I just finished my test run with Virtual PC. I have problems loading saves (it makes the game crash, but I'm just filing that under the "usual Trespasser quirks" folder for now), but if you dedicate enough time for one playthrough, there aren't any problems (except the aforementioned lack of Hardware Acceleration).
In Trespasser this is actually not much of a problem since each map is self sustained without items taken over. So you can make individual play throughs of each map using the map selector screen to start whever you want. Unless I misunderstand your plan there that is.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Xenomoose »

No, that's pretty much what I did when I ran into a save issue. "Oh, I can't load this save? Well, I wasn't that far into that level so I'll just Ctrl-Shift-Q-W and select it from the level list."
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by awesome24712 »

Well whatever works. :P Glad to hear that you could get it working.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by lardman »

Hmm, seems I may have spoken too soon and have also run into a Fatal Error under Win7. Will retest and do some forum searching.
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Re: Trespasser on a virtual PC: For those with PCs too "new"

Post by Dragonlord »

lardman wrote:Hmm, seems I may have spoken too soon and have also run into a Fatal Error under Win7. Will retest and do some forum searching.
Try Windows 98 or Windows XP compatibility mode. Trespasser can be picky about certain API behaviors.
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