Support for W98 PC games??

[MPTech]

A few years back, my favorite PC games were the Need for Speed series (I bought like the first 7, as they came out).  I also bought a Wingman Force feedback Steering wheel and pedals and loved it.  When I built my MAME cab 1 1/2 years ago, I always had it in the back of my mind to modify it somehow to attach my Wheel and Pedals.  I even configured the PC as a dual boot system with Win98, so I could someday play my Need for Speed games too.

Well, this weekend, I decided to see how much work it would be to modify the cab / Control Panel so I could attach my Steering Wheel.  To my surprise (and I could kick myself for not trying sooner) all I had to do was lay a 1/2" board on the front of the Control Panel so the wheel didn't squish the buttons, and it attached in just a couple of minutes.  I truly overthought this and was convinced it wouldn't work.
Now, unfortunately, getting Need for Speed to run on the cab is another issue.

Here's my problem.  My PC is an AMD (I think 3200 or something, I'd have to check again) with 1/2 gig of Ram and connected to a 25" TV with s-video. When I installed NFS 2, the game started up, but the video is all broken up with pieces all over the screen.  I could barely read it well enough to exit out.  I tried changing the resolution, but no luck.  Then I loaded NFS3, it started to load the game and allowed me to pick the car and race type. The video looked fine, then it dropped out of the game completely and now I can't get it to restart.

Any suggestion on what I might try??  I'd prefer to run them in XP, but I remembered when I built my family PC and tried that about 5 years ago, I couldn't get them to install in XP, so I was able to get them run in Win98. 
back on my Cab, I tried changing the resolution to 3 or 4 different configurations, but no improvement.  I'm guessing because these are old games that there was some particular video cards that these would support, and guessing that mine is too new.  Any ideas?


OK, the wheel IS working great other than that and I installed Win98 and WinXP drivers and tested it and it seems to work just fine.
So my question is, can I use this for my MAME driving games?
I've never tried any of the driving games because they were silly (and hard) with a Joystick.
Any MAME driving games suggestions for trying?
I used to love the Cruzin' USA games, but I thought I saw that they required a very high performing PC to run. Do any of them work? (I haven't tried yet, been spending all my hours trying to get the NFS to work) I need something that is a no-brainer so I don't get further frustrated.

Does anyone know a site that could tell me how to run w98 games in XP?

Thanks!

[ahofle]

Have you tried setting the 'compatibility mode' for NFS2?  Right click on the shortcut/executable and go to the 'compatibility' tab and select Win98.  If that fails, maybe try DOSBOX: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

[Flip_Willie]

If that fails, maybe try DOSBOX: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

  I'm pretty sure DosBox doesn't support windows applications; however, it says on the website that it can support some of the earliest games.

 http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/comp_list.php?letter=N&search=Need+for+speed

  Before I tried Dosbox,  I would try compatibility mode, like Ahofle mentioned. Unfortunately, this rarely works... Atleast for me.

  If that doesn't work, try to find any patches for the game.  There might be an Xp patch for it.

Just as it is,
Flip Willie

[SGT]

I used to love the Cruzin' USA games, but I thought I saw that they required a very high performing PC to run. Do any of them work?

If you have a slower PC, you can run the N64 version of Cruisin' USA using Project64.  Works real well, IMHO.

[MPTech]

I did some searching and found this for running Need for Speed on XP scroll down a little, looking for "NFS 3 to run on windows 2000 and XP":

http://nfsgb.nd4spdworld.com/news.html

thanks guys!

I also want to try the N64 version of Cruzin' (good idea!)

[MPTech]

DOH!   
I tried installing NFS 3 in XP and it worked BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!!    Video worked GREAT and played a couple quick rounds.

When I tried this on my family PC with XP a couple years ago, it didn't work at all and I had to resort to the dual boot and install it in 98.  I just assumed it wouldn't work in XP on my Cab too (u know what they say about assuming!)

WOW, I couldn't be happier!

Now I need to remember how I ran it without inserting the CD each time!

[tikbalang]

you need to copy the AUDIO and MOVIE folders from the cd into your gamedir then apply a crack. search for the torrent.