Any 3-D Ultra fans?

[Collector]

I am not seeing anything wrong. I have a new build with some minor adjustments. Try uninstalling it and reinstall with the new build.

[gat]

Done, and it works this time as long as I run the shortcut as an administrator. Thank you. As always, your work is very much appreciated.

[Collector]

it works this time as long as I run the shortcut as an administrator.

Thanks, I was wondering if it might have something to do with the UAC. I might be able to do something about that with the installer.

[fireravenv]

Hello! I'd love to get 3D Ultra Minigolf working on windows 7 64 bit. I get an error complaining about my system being 64 bit.

Thank you for your hard work preserving these great games.

[Collector]

I have looked at it and got it to run on my Win7 x64, but only erratically. If I get a chance, Ill have another look.

[fireravenv]

That would be great thanks! When I try to run the installer it immediately gives me an error saying its not compatible with a 64 bit OS. At some point this weekend I'm going to try it in windows XP 32 bit mode and see if that helps.

[juanitogan]

I came here looking for a solution to installing 3-D Ultra Minigolf on 64-bit Win7 but decided to give the Creep Night installer a try because I'm a fan of pinball (especially the DOS simulators by Amtex of the classic machines). I'm in the US and had no trouble with the new installer on 64-bit Win7 Home Premium. I put the CD in the drive and allowed it to run the autoplay. It then asked me to install and I selected yes only to see one of the usual 32-bit/64-bit version errors. I then launched the new setup program (3DUPBALL2Setup.exe) from some random place on the hard drive and it found and installed Creep Night without any trouble.

Creep Night runs okay in Win7. The sequence after the Sierra logo doesn't display -- you get a black screen with music -- but this is a small thing that you can click through. The game runs with most of the preferences turned on except for "Use Ambient Sounds and Animations" which is unfortunate as I enjoy the extra depth the animations add. Also, "Use Digital Music" cannot be turned on (and it tells you so). "Voices" can be turned on. The preferences you turn on do not stick and must be reset with each run. The INI doesn't seem to be read or written for these settings. Fortunately, however, the keyboard settings do stick.

The problem is with the Ambient setting is that is appears to work (you see the animations at first) but when you pull back the plunger the game crashes. It breaks this way every time regardless of other settings.

Regarding Collector's comments about Minigolf not running, have you tried shutting down the explorer that seems to help some games? Probably not the issue here but easy enough to try. Put the following in a bat file:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
(Put your app.exe here)
pause
start explorer.exe

I stole that from this thread about 16-bit games on 64-bit Windows:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 74c0b1f1d/

Anyhow, my vote is for getting Minigolf working next since I can't seem to find an XP license for running XP in VMLite.

[Collector]

The new installer meant to be used in place of the original installer. Besides addressing certain issues, it also allows for full HDD installation for CD-less play.

The issues with Minigolf were not with some other process stealing focus, so killing Explore probably would not help. It is also something I would normally like to avoid. While it would be easy setup, if the user had anything open with unsaved work, depending if the program is started as a child process of Explore, it would close too, without warning and without saving the work. I could have the game executable write a VB script to throw up a warning before closing Explorer, but this is not the best solution. I don't know when I can get back to it. It will probably take trudging through the Application Compatibility Toolkit or someone with better debugging/hex editing skills than I have.

[juanitogan]

Yes, I understand what the new installer is. Thank you very much for that, it works great. My comments on the other issues with running Creep Night in Win7 were just for information in case anyone finds it useful.

That testing was done before I tried any compatibility modes (which I don't normally have much luck with). This time, however, setting the compatibility mode on PINBALL2.EXE to "Windows 95" fixed all the issues I pointed out earlier. That is, the opening video now plays and you can turn on all the preferences except Digital Music (although, it seemed that digital music also worked if you have the CD in the drive -- but I didn't test that much as the music sounds fine) and the settings stick between runs. Turning on compatibility mode, however, did add another minor annoyance where Windows gives a UAC prompt before running: "Do you want to allow the following program from an unknown publisher to make changes to this computer." Some say a reinstall may fix this but I don't know.

Yeah, Minigolf, hmm. I agree that killing the explorer is not a good solution. I just threw it out there in case it helps in debugging something. It doesn't sound like it would affect Minigolf. I have some good skills for working these things out but no time for it anymore. My last big fix in this area was years ago: How to run Mobil 1 Rally Championship on XP. If you have an install for me to test, however, I'll be happy to look at it when I can. I enjoy keeping old games alive. Much more fun than my regular work.

[wb8tyw]

I have Pinball Madness 3 and recently the CD drive on my older W95 Laptop where it was played died.

I am now trying to install Creep Night Pinball from it on Windows 7 64 bit or (Windows 7 32 bit on VirtualBox).

The new installer for "Creep Night" will not recognize the Pinball Madness 3 CD-ROM, so I can not use it.

Any suggestions other than to set up a W98 VM?

[Collector]

Pinball Madness 3 was published by Encore Software, Inc. The installer is intended for Sierra's 3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night developed by Dynamix. It will not work with other Pinball games. I do not have the game you are referring to and am not familiar with it. I don't know what to suggest to you outside of the usual things like compatibility mode settings or searching the web for Vista/Win7 patches for it. If you can't find anything, you may have to go the route of a VM. Even this may not be so easy if the game relies Direct Draw or Direct 3-D of its era. If you have Win7 Pro or Ultimate, you can try XP Mode.

[wb8tyw]

According to the fine print on the CD-ROM, Sierra's 3-D Ultra PinBall: Creep Night is a component of the Pinball Madness 3 CD.

The CD-ROM also contains "Slam Tilt Pinball" from Redoubt Ltd.

The Win7 on the new laptop is 64 bit and the installer immediately rejects it. I can get farther with Win7 32 bit VM, it passes all the tests for compatibility and then the installer fails with error messages about incompatible dlls. The research on the error messages brought me to this forum, as it indicates that it may just be the installer that is failing and that If I can get the game installed, it should work.

The research indicates that those error messages will show up with anything after Windows 98.

[Collector]

The installer is not made for Pinball Madness 3. It expects to see the 3-D Ultra PinBall: Creep Night CD. It will not work with anything else.

[Expack3]

I've got the original 3-D Ultra Pinball, 3-D Ultra Pinball: The Lost Continent, and 3-D Ultra Minigolf. If you need help testing installers for any of these games, I'll be happy to oblige!

[Collector]

I have already taken a look at Mini Golf, but it has erratic problems that are hard to track down. Don't look for an installer for this one any time soon. When I get time, I'll will eventually take a look at the other 3-D pinballs.