Need for Speed 5 and W2k Problem

[Sitting Bull]

Hi all,

I have a problem with the Need for Speed 5 demo. It seems to install correctly, but when I try to start the game it gives me the following error message:

You have DirectX 0. Please install DirectX 7. Could not load ".\drivers\registryz"
[Files=\real\patch3\pc\set3d.c, LINE=273]

It then says it could not initialize the video card.

I am running Windows 2000 (which comes with DirectX 7 by default) and the Matrox G400 video card with the latest v5.04 certified drivers.

Anybody have a solution?

[seven]

HOW!
ha ha i hope u see the funny side of that
anyway i don,t have win 2000 but i did get the demo and i can remember it said u need d x 7 A ok direct 7 A well i,m not sure about your demo but i got mine from 3d files
played it a bit loved it and got the full game two days later yes it is worth it
looks great on my system
p 3 500@ 620 g 400 max no o/c 128 megs sblive be6 r 2
anyway i hope this helps
by the way i only had to get the small update
to go from dx7 to dx 7a
cya seven


------------------
hell yeah i love this g 400 max

[Gurm]

I'll download the demo tonight and try it out... and let you know.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Nuno]

NFS5 demo installs and runs fine (after the dx7z.dll hack after all) in my win2k setup. Don´t really have a clue what´s going on there. Have you run 3dsetup and choose "Matrox G400"?

[Sitting Bull]

Hi Nuno,

Yes, I've run the 3D setup option but it just brings up a blank drop down list from which I can't select a single thing. Grrrr!

[Nuno]

Now definetly there´s something wrong there. I´ve just finished a fresh win2k install, reinstalled nfs5 demo and all is fine, in 3dsetup the 3D graphics renderer defaults to "Matrox G400". Do other 3d apps work? Try to uninstall the demo and install it again.

[Zypher]

Theres another post about NFSV being too slow or something with g400.

To kill two birds with one stone...

This morning I installed the Fairlight, er, Full version of NFSV.

Works fine, though I noticed 3Dsetup in the menu, and its ABOVE .exe shortcut, which is a BIG HINT to run it first so I did. It picks software rendering by default.

It works fine on 98 and W2k AS. I did have to 're'install it for w2k, but they can share the directory fine (so far anyway ) as long as you run the installer on each OS and configure it as well. (they DON'T share much prefs, if any)

Its not slow by any means with all the whiz-band options enabled, though neither am I It may have a computer speed utility that runs sometime during install or whatever, because nearly all of the HQ options were already set for me.

One thing I hate bout driving games is that the keyboard controls are never enough to let you play halfway decent...steering wheel, joypad or joystick is pretty much mandatory to achieve non-insanity-inducing control of the car. Damn keyboard/mouse in all driving games I've yet to play always is an all-or-nothing affair and generally sucks complete shit.

[Sitting Bull]

ALRIGHT!!!

I have got the demo working! Eureka!!

What was the problem, you ask?

The darned colour depth! ARRGGGG!!!

I have my desktop set to 24bit colour and the game apparently only reacts to 16 or 32bit colour depths. Once I dropped down to 16bit I could run the 3D setup fine (Matrox G400 came up right away) it started just like that.

Why oh why must these things be so arcane?

Now I'm concerned whether the full game will run properly. Anyone had problems going from the demo to the full game on their W2000 setup?