Just got Windows 7 and started doing some Bishojo game testing…
Title Parameters
Brave Soul -Set in Windows XP compatibility mode
(Used to make the intro movie Play Correctly)
Princess Waltz, Family Project, LWR I, Amorous Professor Cherry
-Since all these were recently released within the last 2 years they can run Native…
(More titles to be added when I get to them)
I’ll also try some eroge on Windows 7 when I get my new laptop (probably friday).
First thing to do : install Family project.
(It will also be a good aportunity to try Hearth de roommate which didn’t work on my last computer).
If you have any of the VMate games (at least the digital download ones), they will not work on a 64bit Windows 7 (or any 64bit OS I imagine), since VMate just doesn’t work with it (even though the game itself does). I really wish they’d patch that protection out from the old games already, it’s not like it’s going to curb any piracy this late in the games’ lives. Although I guess it might be a contract thing with the Japanese, since they are supposedly pretty insistent on using DRM.
Edit
Just tried Private Nurse (CD version) and it works. One annoying thing (which may or may not be related to the OS) is that the intro is only skippable for the first few seconds after starting a new game; after that you’ll have to sit through the entire thing. You might get a “This program may not have been installed correctly” message from Windows, but that can safely be ignored since it’s very common with older games. Also, full screen mode produces a small box in the middle of the screen with huge black borders around, like a lot of the older games do. May or may not be an Nvidia thing, I don’t know.
Just tested a couple of more games I have lying in my shelf. This is on a 64 bit Windows 7 RC1 client, but it shouldn’t make any difference from the full version.
Heart de Roommate (CD): Works. Starting the game from the CD executable/autorun will cause the game to crash when you try to start a new game, also the main screen music does not work. Starting the game from the harddrive solves both of those issues. Same boxed look in full screen as Private Nurse (again, might just be an Nvidia thing, I can’t test that).
Kana - Little Sister: Installer crashed after completing the copy process, but starting the game from the harddrive normally worked just fine. Music and video works, full screen worked properly (but intro video was horribly pixelated, in-game it was much better).
Kango Shicyauzo (Voice Plus, CD): Works, but was already installed so I can’t test if autorun from the CD is borked like with Heard the Roommate, as it was installed on my XP partition so there’s no registry info for it (hence manual executable start required). Full screen gets the same box look as Private Nurse and Heart de Roommate, otherwise it seems ok.
Kango Shicyauzo 2 (CD): Works, boxed full screen look. If you have the same CD version as me, remember that something went awry in the disc pressing and the CD check info is actually on the INSTALL disk. So in order to start the game, when it tells you to insert the game CD, you need to insert the install disk instead, then after it repeats that it wants the game CD, swap them. Then it works.
Tokimeki Check-in! (CD): Works. Installer took a long time to start, might just be my CD though. Full screen looks ok. Game is EXTREMELY sluggish unless you disable music or switch to the CD-DA one that is on the second CD. On a side-note, when I picked CD-DA and it told me to insert the second CD, Winamp came up and started playing an MPG file that was on the second CD with an advertisement for Brave Soul all by itself >_>. Also, after you’ve switched to CD-DA, you can swap back to midi and the game will behave normally (and play the midi music) until you enter a different area (or something else happens, didn’t test much) at which point it will be sluggish again. Not that I can think of why you’d want to play midi instead of CD-DA music.
Come See me Tonight (CD): Works. Boxed full screen mode. Annoyingly, it seems that somehow music and voice volume in this game is somewhat connected, so you can’t really make voices louder while at the same time making music quieter, since lowering the music slider affects voice volume as well, even if you crank up the voice slider to max. So in some cases it’s pretty hard to make out what some of the more quiet girls are saying over the loud music. I seem to recall having this happen in another eroge too though, but I can’t remember which one. In any case it might be unrelated to the OS. There’s also a slight delay between music tracks where the game seems to hang a little bit, but it’s not really a big issue.
Tsukishite Agechau 4 (CD): Works. Boxed full screen mode, yadda yadda. Same voice/music slider issue as Come See me Tonight, so I think it might be a generic G-Collections title thing (as the two games are from different Japanese developers), or at least prevalent in multiple of their titles. Intro music (after you’ve returned from the US Lab) doesn’t play unless the game is minimized and opened again or the screen moved around a bit.
Anyway, that’s all I had time to test tonight, got work in the morning.
Family Project
The installation works.
When I launch the game, I get an error message telling the sound won’t work… strange since it works perfectly.
to ag3:
the boxed window in full screen is not limited to nvidia cards. my ati radeon hd 4200 has the same issue with im gonna serve you 4. a way to work around is to drop your resolution to 800x600 and then play the game in window mode. you will get the biggest window for the game. if you go full screen everything will revert and you get a small picture in the middle of the screen.
also anybody with an hp. this is now my third hp. one desktop and two laptops and i have the same issues. all the games that use cd-da all don’t have a looping function for the games background. everythime the bgm stops i either have to click my desktop and then click the game so my dvd drive starts up again or turn off bgm and turn on bgm from the games properties.
is anybody else haveing this. this is not an os issues. i have had this problem with windows xp home premium, windows vista home premium 32bit, windows vista ultimate 64bit, and now with windows 7 home premium 64 bit. i remember i tried different dvd drives (i bought an external) hooked it up to my laptop and pc; probem remained. i bought a sound card and installed it on my desktop and problem remained. what gives with this cd-da and hp? im not returning my new laptop because bestbuy will take 15% and thats a $100 i will loose.
Yin-Yang X-Change Alternative
Placed in Windows XP compatibility mode, and Run as Administrator, So Far hasn’t had the odd game crash that would occur after playing awhile, like it did in Vista.
edit: I just had the odd Crash running the game like it did on Vista. Might be do to the fact that I was CTRL skipping the text.
Tottemo Pheromone
-Runs fine in native mode. Those with save files will want to put game with Admin Privileges. Some weird quirk in Windows won’t allow the game to see the old save file unless the game is in Admin mode, also make sure to uncheck the read only box on the save file’s properties.
If only we had a thread like this, but for getting games to run under Ubuntu.
Transfer Student
-Game ran fine no problems. Make sure you have the patch (updated ts.dir file).
-Also make sure that the save file (ts.ini located in C:\Windows) is not read only. (Especially if you transfer an old save)
Critical Point
-Couldn’t get the Limited Edition to Install. Probably the disc went bad. Installer hung on the Chip.arc file, just spun the CD like it couldn’t read it. However The regular Edition Installed no problems. If you have problems with the installer run it under Win 98 / ME or XP Compatibility settings. Game itself ran native, no problems.
Limited Edition? What’s the difference?
The Limited Edition had the mosaics. PeaPri printed some to release the game a bit early. Then released the regular edition that had the mosaics removed later. Was used to test and see if the English market could live with mosaics. (Guess we couldn’t, because it’s the only title they did this on)
Kana - A bit of difficulty getting the installer to run correctly. put it in 98/ME Compatibility mode where it stopped working. Copied the files from the Disc to the PC directory, and ran Kanaus.exe in 98/ME Compatibility mode due to my ATI card creating a weird double image in XP Compatibility mode. game runs fine but no sound. XP Compatibility mode has sound but it has that weird Double image effect.
I want to thank all of you who have done testing up to now. The components for my new machine arrived today, and I should be up and fully running tomorrow (hopefully) in Windows 7. There are a few games I have that haven’t been tested, and when I install and test them I’ll let you all know how it turns out. As insurance though, my machine will dual boot XP as well (especially given some of my older non-bishoujo games).
Anyone test the X-Change series?
Tested Yin-Yang, but haven’t got around to the Regular X-Change Series yet.
Raidy II works. At least the Japanese demo anyway. But the Full American should work too
Jast USA Memorial Collection
-Runs native in Windows 7, The Exe file needs to be put in Admin Compatibility mode for the Save Games to work Correctly.
-make sure you use the 1.19 patch.
Fate / Stay Night
In English Windows 7 you have to have non-unicode programs to run in Japanese.
put the install Program and the fate.exe program in Win XP Compatibility mode.