Playing the Life Is Strange series on Windows 11 24H2

All games of the series play considerably well on latest Windows 11 24H2, however 2 games require a little bit of care to get them working right:

Life is Strange 2

The problem here lies in the Auto-HDR feature: If your main monitor supports HDR, when Auto-HDR is enabled, it will try to “improve” the game by applying HDR to it, which will results in the colors being over saturated.

The solution to this can be found in this reddit post, as follows:

going into Display Settings -> Graphics -> Select the game you want to change Auto HDR for and hit Options -> then tick “Don’t use Auto-HDR”.

Life is Strange: True Colors

the game has some weirdly broken elements to it.
The DLC “Steph’s ‘Wavelengths'” has been delisted, but the link in the main menu to the non-existing Steam DLC remained.

Instead they added a scroller on the bottom to explain that the DLC is now a separated “Deluxe Edition” instead:

Also, while the game supports resolutions bigger than 1080p Full HD, those resolutions are not selectable if you don’t set a compatibility mode for the game .exe to ignore Windows controlled DPI settings:

Getting Lemmings Revolution to work under Windows 11 24H2

Next Lemmings game thrown into the ring:

This one works fully after you did what I described, except I never got the music playing. And neither SFX. The only thing that keeps working are the Indeo FMVs

  1. Insert the CD into your drive and install it. The CD has to be inserted at all times as a full install to HDD/SSD is not available.
  2. During installation you will get if you have other games using Indeo video installed, getting an error about DLL conflicts of other versions already installed on your system, and it will be updating your Software list for uninstalling, but it will most likely not break or overwrite anything:


  3. Install the patch to fix the bug of  level 11-11 (Tanks a Lot) is glitched. Water lemmings fall to their death and you can’t prevent it.
  4. Download  dgVoodoo2
    Unzip the archive and copy “dgVoodooCpl.exe” along with the contents of MS/x86 folder into the “Lemmings Revolution” folder.

    Launch dgVoodooCpl.exe and set the settings like on the images below (make sure you added a new running instance / config folder setup for the game beforehand!):

Setup everything as in the above screenshots (except the Resolution should match yours)? Good! Enjoy the game! 🙂

Running Pendulo Studios point&click adventures in Windows 11 24H2 and fixing censorship and sound bug issues!

The traditional Spanish point and click adventure game studio running a promo know for a bundle of all of their point & click adventures (minus “Yesterday Origins”), let’s look some at the titles which need some tweaking to get them working on your newest OS.

Let’s start with “Runaway: A Road Adventure” & “Runaway: The Dream Of The Turtle” .

Simply enable Low-Res graphics mode, as the default Hi-Res mode does display the games only in B&W.

Another interesting contender is “Yesterday“, which actually has been censored for the digital storefront releases of Steam and GoG, in contrast to the original DVD 2012 release which came uncensored when originally hitting the shelves, which unfortunately also introduced some sound bug.

Luckily, the almost 1 Gig that had been removed can be patched back in, more info about this can be found in the archived article of Steams Play Gamers.

Last but not least, beware of fail positives for the “Plugins” folder of “Yesterday Origins“.

For me it was Comodo Internet Security 2025 Premium falsely reporting the 2 files “MAU.DLL” and “dbdata.exe” from the game’s subfolder “YesterdayOrigins_Data\Plugins” as malware.

When I restored them from Quarantine and added them to the excluded files list, the game ran flawlessly!

It’s time to look at Lemmings! Under Windows 11 24H2

Back in April 2024, I have started my research on how to get Lemmings games to run under modern hardware and Windows 11 24H2. I did however halt it in favor of other pressing issues! Now is the time to resume it and write down my findings for the afterworld!

My research started with finding the wonderful RGB Classic Games Lemmings Page!

Especially the availability chart really helped me out big time!

Let’s start with:

“Lemmings Paintball” from the “Let’s Go Crazy With Lemmings” collection.

The hint from 11 years ago to change the desktop resolution to 640 x 480 is no longer viable in a world where the minimal resolution for Windows is now 800 x 600. There are more elegant solutions nowadays.

There is also no “No CD Patch” so keep your original copy handy when the desire hit to play this game.
Actually, the very viable DXWnd community broke off a whole discussion about running this issue, and despite research on this issue, stopped on  2022-01-16, there is a config available that does let you play the game stretched.

However, in Win 11 24H2 particularly, the solution is very finicky, as it does not work as soon as one of the avi videos of the game plays (e.g. the intro!) at which point the main window stays in windowed mode and only when the intro is skipped in the right moment and the missing permission dialog of DXWnd is prompted well in time, I could get the main window to run in borderless Fullscreen. It worked for me 4 times, after which it always resulted in one of the following two error messages:

The solution in Win11 24H2 is considerably straight forward and easy indeed!:

Setting the compatibility settings of “LEMBALL.EXE” to the following:


Next up is “Lemmings for Windows” from the “Let’s Go Crazy With Lemmings” collection.

This 1995 Windows release based on the original DOS release is installing and working just fine out of the box, it also scales nicely on my 2K screen resolution with no hiccup, nothing to see here, time to move on.

Hold on, there is one little thing: The online help does not work anymore as the .HLP format is no longer supported in Windows 10 and 11. The solution here is to copy the old “winhlp32.exe” from a Windows XP installation (as newer versions require Internet Explorer to be present to work). I took one from a WinXP 64bit installation I have on another HDD. Use Unlocker to rename the old Windows 11 version to something like “winhlp32.exe.bak” and then copy it from the root of the Windows XP installation to the root of Windows 11’s folder.

Next up is “Lemmings 3D“, this can be either the standalone version or the one from the “Let’s Go Crazy With Lemmings” collection.

This config is based off the latest DOSBox version to date, i.e. 0.74-3

Common places on the internet describe specific cpu cycles to be used for certain CPU speeds and using CD Audio in combination with General Midi.
This is no longer the case.

Instead, the currently best config for DOSBox 0.74-3 for Lemmings 3D is:

CPU Cycles=max
sbtype=sb1

In the game setup, select CD Audio = No

Any other config will cause the sound to stutter and the game to run slower than necessary

Next up is “Lemmings 3” from the “Lemings 1-3 neon edition” collection, also known as “All New World of Lemmings” in Europe.

This requires the same DOSBox configuration as Lemmings 3D above, quote:

CPU Cycles=max
sbtype=sb1

However, CD Audio cannot be disabled or else you have no music.
Take note, that the game has a long history of not running well in DOSBox at all. It is playable, but you will have some crackling noises during gameplay.

Next up is “Lemmings 1” from the “Lemmings 1-3 neon edition” collection, which unfortunately I could not get to work with working music, not even by lowering CPU cycles. It is a known fact that some versions of this game do not work with music in DOSBOX. It worked when I tried it with another version of the game!
Also, the official DOSBox has a graphic glitch after the main menu of Lemmings. For a glitch free experience, I highly suggest using DOSBox SVN DAUN instead.

As for “Lemmings 2” from the “Lemmings 1-3 neon edition” collection, the following sound config was required for the sound to work:

sbtype=sb1
oplemu=compat

For the game itself, it had to be installed and as sound hardware, soundblaster had to be selected for music.

for CPU cylcles

cycles=max

was required, or else the game would crash during the intro.

Getting the Still Life Collection (especially Still Life 2 and Post Mortem) to run in Windows 11 24H2

At the moment, Steam offers the 3 games in a pack pretty affordably.

While Still “Life itself” does run without any hitches and modifications even in the correct aspect ratio on my 2K 16:9 monitor, “Still Life 2” and the first part of the series from 2002 aka “Post Mortem” are a different beast.

For “Still Life 2” to run:

I’ve actually used the guide of Steam user Factualvermin intended for “Still Life” to get it working.

However, since this guide is 5 years old, even in the Extended Mode, some options are missing or changed.
Hence I am providing here the updated version to the guide featuring current screenshots!:

  1. Get DXWnd from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/
  2. After installing DXWnd, you can go ahead and from the edit tab on the top of the page on the starting window, click Edit > Add.
  3. You will be brought to a new window and to the first tab called Main. Here you can name the DXWnd profile and set the paths for the executable as shown below. Also ensure that your window looks like the one below:

4. in my case of using a 2K monitor, the picked resolution is my best bet for getting the most out of the screen here

5. we’re gonna have the game run in 4:3 with vsync which will fix animation bugs and picture quality

btw don’t try and launch the game through DxWnd just save those settings and leave it running, then run the game though steam


For “Post Mortem” to run:

I’ve actually used the guide of Steam user DarkSide but modified it a bit so it plays nicely on my 2K monitor (else the game window will be the size of a postage stamp!).

  1. Download  dgVoodoo2
  2. Unzip the archive and copy “dgVoodooCpl.exe” along with the contents of MS/x86 folder into the Post Mortem main folder:

3. Launch dgVoodooCpl.exe and set the settings like on the images below (make sure you added a new running instance / config folder setup for the game beforehand!):

In the “DirectX” tab:

The game will run in 4:3 screen aspect ratio with V-sync on (no tearing), antialiasing and anisotropic filtration. 

How to fix “A Vampyre Story” to work on Windows 11 24H2

While the game has been fixed for Windows 10 with a patch released by the developers in September 2023, it still crashes on Windows 11 24H2.

The first part of the workaround has been posted by Cíphęr廾awK on the Steam forums, while the 2nd part is based on my own troubleshooting.

  1. Download dgVoodoo2
  2. copy all DLLs from the ZIP’s subfolders 3DFX/x86 and MS/x86 and the “dgVoodooCpl.exe” from the root to the “game” subfolder of where the game is installed.
  3. Config dgVoodoo2 according to this screenshot https://share.getcloudapp.com/qGuDyGmx (GIF)
  4. – Under Config folder/running instance make sure to add the games location that you pulled earlier and make sure it is selected.
    – You want to make your changes to the configuration and then click on “apply”
  5. Switch to the “DirectX” tab, and make the following settings:
    Particularly important is to disable the options “dgVoodoo Watermark” or else you have a watermark in the game, and “Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state, or else you will never be able to switch the game to fullscreen mode.
  6. Set the following compatibility settings for “game.exe”:

Fixing Police Quest – SWAT 2 to run on Windows 11 24H2

This has been performed using the GOG release of the game, works for the Steam version as well, however:

There are 2 errors you will run into on Windows 11 24H2, especially when you run the game on “HD, 2K or higher resolutions”:

-MFC RESIZE ERROR
-“SWAT MFC Appliaction has to close”

The first is happening due to the mission briefing FMVs being in Indeo movie codec which is old and obsolete and no longer updated. Hence installing an old codec presents a security risk.
There is however a mod that can be downloaded, tocompletely replace them all with re-encoded versions that use the popular XVID codec.

Download the replacement movies from The Mod Database:

http://www.moddb.com/games/police-quest-swat-2/downloads/swat2-xvid-movies

The 2nd error happens once characters and weapons have been selected and you want to start the scenario!

ou need to skrink the screen.

It should look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/3OLvf20.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GtWgkPN.jpg

After the scenario is successfully running you can put the window on fullscreen again and reposition and resize the elements within the window to your liking!

Credits for both fixes go to users Max Payne and Slippery_Jim_ in the Steam forum thread MFC Application ERROR

Fixing Wing Commander III to properly working on modern machines in Windows 10 / 11 (GOG Release)

Despite the game itself works pretty well, the fmv videos have audio pauses due to the timing being set wrong in the DOSBox settings.

´The solution can be found in the GOG Forums posted by user Flash-Nine:

I post this for future reference of people who have this problem, because I had the same problem. After searching the internet, I found that it is a known issue that that the WC 3 video sound stutters with cycles=max setting, can be found on the dosbox compatibility page. Unfortunately, that is the setting in the GOG version.
Setting cycles to 70000 fixed the problem for me.

In November, 2024, Gog updated the game, hence the CPU settings differ a bit now:

cycles=fixed
core=dynamic
cputype=auto
cycles=50000
cycleup=10000
cycledown=10000

I run it on:
Windows 11 24H2
on a Nvidia GeForce 1070 Katana
on a AMD FX-8370 Eight-Core Processor@4.00 GHz

I also highly suggest using an analog joystick instead of a gamepad, as the thumbsticks have a different movement pattern (round instead of a rectangle), which means the deadzones are not correctly and correct calibration will fail!

Running Bully: Sholarship Edition (Steam version) on Windows 11 24H2

To run the Steam version of the game, you need the following 3 patches:

  • The SilentPatch to fix the memory leaks and crashes of the game
  • The Autosave v2 mod to allow saving anywhere in the game (most reasons of failure in this game is failing to save when needed).
  • The Widescreen Fix (Albeit it is suggested by community members to only apply it on ultra widescreen monitors as the game supports 16:9 natively, in Win 11 it will overlap if you minimize the game once or start the game the next time. With the widescreen fix, you can simply re-select a 4:3 resolution temporarily in the main menu and then switch back to your desired 16:9 resolution, without the widescreen fix, this will fail to fix the aspect ratio!).

How to fix the game:

  1. Download and install the game on Steam
  2. Download all mods
  3. Install the SilentPatch (there is a .txt file with installation instructions if needed)
  4. Install the Autosave 2 mod (do not forget to also download and install the mod loader from the same site, beforehand)
  5. Install the widescreen fix.
  6. Start the game for the first time
  7. Afterwards you will receive two popups, one by the modloader and one by the DirectShow filter and Video for Windows codec:

answer the prompts in the following order:

A) modupdater: select “INI files: replace all and keep settings.
Then click on “Download and Install updates now”
B) ffdshow compatibility manager
untick: Report this exe file name via internet anonymously.
untick: Don’t ask me again.
Select: use ffdshow. (always)
Click: OK
C) modupdater: Restart Now

After that you can select the resolution as you please and all the other graphic options via the main menu. take notice about my comments regarding widescreen aspect ratios above.
Furthermore, enabling the compatibility setting in the properties of Bully.exe “Disable fullscreen optimisations” might help further improving the situation.

Also, you have to go into SilentPatchBully.ini and change CustomMemoryMgr=0 to =1 to properly fix the configuration.

Running Arctic Baron / Transarctica on DOSBox

They are several traps when trying to run Running Arctic Baron / Transarctica on DOSBox:

(as hinted by the DOSBox Compatibility List comments)

  • When you copy over the files from the CD to HDD (because the Batch installer won’t work), do not forget to remove the read-only attribute to the files!
  • The game will freeze randomly in the default setting of the DOSBox config. I do suggest to use a separated config file for the game. There adjust the CPU cycles from “auto” to “max” as suggested here.
  • If you use the European version that asks you to pick a language, use the NUM block number field for this input!
  • If you want to use a joystick, use a real analog joystick, analog gamepad sticks may not work.

If you need help to win the game, Scenario: how to win in Arctic Baron might help.

There is also an open source remake called “Transarctica Remake”.

Hint: As you cannot setup your details of where the soundblaster is located, it will fall back to PC Speaker if it isn’t where the game expects it to be.

To fix this, set the following values in your DOSBox config file for the game:

sbtype=sb1
sbbase=220
irq=5
dma=1
hdma=5
sbmixer=true
oplmode=opl12
oplemu=default
oplrate=44100

This will give you ingame music and sfx at the same time! \o/

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