Return to Startopia

Submitted by drink on Sun, 2011-03-20 22:41

I decided to revisit Startopia, a nifty Windows XP game. I had trouble because they don't use Direct3D correctly; they make assumptions about your card. I had to teach it about mine to prevent a bluescreen every time I ran the game.

Startopia uses a file called "CardID.tom" to describe video cards which are identified by PCI ID. The Vendor is specified, then the device, and some characteristics are given. I just copied the top GeForce entry and changed the device ID. This is what I added to the file under the nVidia section:

Device:0CA3 GeForceGT240
Tweak:SRT_Z_BUFFER_USE_SAME_DEPTH 1
Tweak:SRT_Z_BUFFER_USE_SAME_SIZE 1
Tweak:SRT_Z_BUFFER_DONT_USE_BACKBUFFER_Z 1
Tweak:SRT_POLYGON_SUBRECT_CLEARS 1
Tweak:SRT_ENABLE 1
Tweak:IMPOSTOR_ENABLE 1
Tweak:RENDERSTATE_STATE_BLOCK_MACROS_ENABLE 0

It has completely fixed my problem.

HAHAHA

Submitted by drink on Tue, 2011-03-22 07:56.
OK, no it hasn't. The game is still bluescreening the driver every time I run it after using Direct3D for anything, including running Startopia. If I quit and go back in, it fails. I also have to disable cursor acceleration in advanced properties or I get a smear of the accelerated cursor across my display. Classy. Other titles work great on both XP and Linux, for example Battle for Middle-Earth on XP...

1.02 patch

Submitted by drink on Tue, 2011-03-22 08:06.
P.S. The 1.02 patch at least lets me get in and play; more than half the time 1.01 just bluescreens on startup.