Homeworld 1 assorted errors

[P4r4b014]

I dug out my old homeworld disk, wanting to really play it for the first time (I never really appreciated games as an art form kid, now I do, especially with the crap being churned out now). It apparently won't install on windows 7, but it could be a DVD drive error, it has been a bit of a problem, I'll admit. I tried it on an old XP machine but no dice there. I then installed XP mode on Win7 to try it there. There I get an error saying "couldn't initialize default render mode" (might not be exact message, but close)

All my Win7 and XP mode updates are installed, nvidia drivers up to date, I'm out of ideas. Please help? I'd really like to enjoy this game as an adult now that I can appreciate it.

[mailpup]

One of my PCs has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and Homeworld runs just fine. I've installed the patch and changed the compatibility mode to Windows NT but I had no trouble installing it to begin with.

Make sure the disk is clean.

[ajlsunrise]

This should be moved to the Classic Games Technical Assistance forum.

PM'ing a modmin for you.

[Chrome]

Thread moved.

I think your biggest issue is that the compatibility mode has to be set to NT. XP dates later than 1999, which is when HW1 was made. Windows 95/97/NT were the big Microsoft OSes at the time, if I'm not mistaken. HW1/Cataclysm won't always agree with XP machines, and XP compability mode on Win7 definitely won't do anything if it won't run on WinXP to begin with... (Had to do this on my machine, HW1 refuses to run on my XP without NT compatibility set. Cataclysm I think ran okay on my XP for some reason, but it's always HW1 that does this.)

Something to note about your rendering error - the default render mode for when you start up Homeworld or Cataclysm is "software" (meaning rendered by the game itself) which is really, REALLY crappy. And of course, if your software's disagreeing on point of compatibility, the rendering also wouldn't agree either. (I'm not an expert, but common sense points this out to me pretty clearly.)

Once you get the compatibility issue sorted, go in and reset rendering to OpenGL. You'll be wanting to do this anyways even with the compatibility mode fixed - I forgot a couple times after reinstalling HW1 and Cataclysm, and had to wonder "Why the hell are my graphics crap?" then remembered that. It's much nicer on OpenGL, and if my best guess means anything, probably won't cause that error either.

[TON_Viper]

I dug out my old homeworld disk, wanting to really play it for the first time (I never really appreciated games as an art form kid, now I do, especially with the crap being churned out now). It apparently won't install on windows 7, but it could be a DVD drive error, it has been a bit of a problem, I'll admit. I tried it on an old XP machine but no dice there. I then installed XP mode onWin7 to try it there. There I get an error saying "couldn't initialize default render mode" (might not be exact message, but close)

All my Win7 and XP mode updates are installed, nvidia drivers up to date, I'm out of ideas. Please help? I'd really like to enjoy this game as an adult now that I can appreciate it.

Good advice has been given so far, but I'd like to add that you probably won't get it running on XP Mode. XP Mode is not made for games. It does not allow programs direct access to your computer's hardware, and so just has a shitty default graphics card driver available. This is most likely why you can't get it running on XP mode.


What you can do however is to move or copy the game folder from your XP Mode virtual machine to Windows 7 and run it directly from there. That solves your problem of not being able to install the game on windows 7.

[ajlsunrise]

I think it's really funny that everyone has problems running these older games on newer systems.
I'm running HW1/Cataclysm on my Win7 64-bit laptop with no compatability issues.
I guess I'm just lucky.

(and hence why I didn't offer any advice earlier, because I haven't had this issue )