ToEE won't run on my new Laptop

Hey everyone,

I'm back from a 2-year break of real life, and hoping to get my butt in gear and finish my module once and for all. I've put so much work into it, I'd hate to see it all go to waste. So I'm going to take a few months and spruce up what I have and hopefully release something playable by Christmas.

To help with my own morale, I just bought a new Lenovo laptop (specs at bottom), and everything is running perfectly with one exception. You can probably guess.

The Temple of Elemental Evil won't run.

Immediately after the game is launched, it fails. No part of the game ever appears on the screen. I can tell the computer IS in fact launching the game, because the icon flashes for a split second on the taskbar. I've never had a problem running this game on any computer, including three with Windows 10.

In two days, since getting the laptop, I've installed over 40 pieces of software, and they all work perfectly. They range from current apps like Photoshop, Audacity, iTunes, Beyond Compare, to older programs I still use like Office 2000. I also installed a bunch of older games from the same era as ToEE, and they all work fine.

Running ToEE is literally the only problem I am having with this computer.

I've gone through the usual list of suspected issues (reinstall, anti-virus, drivers, etc.), but nothing fixes the problem, or changes the nature of the failure. I've tried each of these fixes over and over, in the hopes that I missed something. None of this has worked. I've Googled it to death, and the suggested fixes were telling me nothing new after two days.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be very grateful.

Here's a list of what I've tried:

1. Started with a fresh install from Good Old Games.

• Installed at C:/Temple of Elemental Evil.
• Also tried installing under the GoG Galaxy area.
• Uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times in both places, and with different names.

2. Copied over a working copy of ToEE from my old computer.

• That computer is an HP Envy, Intel i7-7500, Windows 10 version 21H1.
• Once copied to the new computer, it also failed to launch.

3. Anti-virus.

• Uninstalled Mcaffee.
• Turned off all aspects of Windows Defender.
• Added toee.exe and all .dll files to the W.D. Exclusions list (just in case).
• No other anti-virus is running.

4. Compatibility settings.

• Went through every possibility here for many hours.
• Ran as Administrator.
• Ran as XP, 7, Vista, 8.
• Reduced color, reduced screen resolutions, etc.

5. Windows Updates.

• All possible Windows Updates are installed.
• Version 20H2 was delivered with the new computer.
• Upgraded to 21H1, in desperation, after a few days.

6. Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card.

• All drivers up to date. (Driver version 27.21.14.5749)
• Disabled the card in Device Manager many times to see if that would help.

7. Installed Co8 8.1 with Temple Front End (TFE).

• Temple Front End works fine.
• But when I click PLAY, and TFE runs toee.exe, the same failure occurs.
• The last four lines of TFE-X.log:

Jul 19, 2021 11:19:48 AM org.co8.jtfe.logging.TFELogger log
INFO: Command line: [C:\Temple Co8\toee.exe, -maxlevel:20]
Jul 19, 2021 11:19:48 AM org.co8.jtfe.logging.TFELogger log
INFO: Closing ToEE Front-End X (the game process was successfully started)​

• Also tried disabling movies. No help.

8. DirectX (don't even know if this matters)

• Ran dxdiag.
• Confirmed the version as DirectX 12.

9. Intel 10th Gen CPU problems. (https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019775837?product=gog)

• This looked like a promising lead at Good Old Games website, but the the fix didn't work.

In System Properties --> Advanced --> Environmental Variables, paste these values:

Variable Name: OPENSSL_ia32cap
Variable value: ~0x20000000​

At this point, I fear the problem is something deeper than the usual suspects, and beyond my depth of understanding.

Thanks to anyone who can help me out with this.

Marc



SYSTEM INFORMATION:

I didn't want to dump 30 pages of stuff here, so I took what looked important.

Spoiler

From System, About:

Device name LAPTOP-SUOD7P1G
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 64.0 GB
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 21H1
Installed on ‎7/‎17/‎2021
OS build 19043.1110
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3530.0


From System Information:

System Summary:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Version 10.0.19043 Build 19043
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name LAPTOP-SUOD7P1G
System Manufacturer LENOVO
System Model 81Y8
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU LENOVO_MT_81Y8_BU_idea_FM_Legion 5 17IMH05H
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date LENOVO EFCN50WW, 4/15/2021
SMBIOS Version 3.2
Embedded Controller Version 1.50
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer LENOVO
BaseBoard Product LNVNB161216
BaseBoard Version SDK0R32862 WIN
Platform Role Mobile
Secure Boot State Off
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View

Display:

Name NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1F15&SUBSYS_3F8D17AA&REV_A1\4&278FFBE4&0&0008
Adapter Type GeForce RTX 2060, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
Adapter RAM (1,048,576) bytes
Installed Drivers C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvlt.inf_amd64_01ef36ba3f9e7237\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvlt.inf_amd64_01ef36ba3f9e7237\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvlt.inf_amd64_01ef36ba3f9e7237\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvlt.inf_amd64_01ef36ba3f9e7237\nvldumdx.dll
Driver Version 27.21.14.5749
INF File oem4.inf (Section153 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1920 x 1080 x 144 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xB4000000-0xB4FFFFFF
Memory Address 0xA0000000-0xDFFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xB0000000-0xB1FFFFFF
I/O Port 0x00004000-0x0000407F
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967273
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\NVLT.INF_AMD64_01EF36BA3F9E7237\NVLDDMKM.SYS (27.21.14.5749, 31.54 MB (33,069,976 bytes), 7/16/2021 5:19 PM)

 

Would this be your first 64 bit Windows-10 PC?

I never managed to get pure ToEE to work on my now elderly 64 bit games pc.

However do not despair; you can install Co8 and run Templeplus on top on a 64 bit machine.

 

My two other laptops are both 64-bit, as is my Dad's computer. ToEE runs flawlessly on all three, either in the vanilla version or with Co8.

I'm coming to think that it's the 10th Gen Intel chip. But what do I know...

 

I'll second trying to run with Temple+ . At the very least you may get some more info through the logfile.
You can also try the OG log by adding a command line switch, "toee.exe tigdebug=file".

Another thing that might point out the issue if the above do not is checking out the windows Event Viewer log.

 

Well, wow, the tigdebug was most revealing. This explains the immediate crash at launch. Apparently it's a display issue.

Code:

C:\Temple of Elemental Evil\ToEE.exe
Tue Jul 20 00:27:05 2021

3D: Creating Direct3D8 Object succeeded.
Video.c : d3d_init_fullscreen : unable to find a suitable video mode for 800x600x32
Error initializing TIG init_func 5 (video.c)

Unfortunately I still can't get it to run. I've set up a custom resolution of 800x600x32 60Hz, but no dice. At least I've excluded 95% of the problems at this point. I'll pick it up tomorrow and see what I can find.

 

Hmm, does it work in windowed mode perhaps?

 

Yes it does! First time I've actually seen the game run on this laptop.

Code:

toee.exe -window

Now I have to get it going full screen somehow. I hope it's not an issue of the display just won't support that resolution.

 

That's a heck of a laptop just for modding ToEE btw

Are you using an external monitor? If so, try running without it, or switching which one is the primary display.

 

Yeah, Photoshop was running terribly slowly, especially with some very large files I have with 1000+ layers. Some would take over 5 minutes to open and really lagged when I was editing them. Now they open in about 15 seconds, and the editing process is lightning fast. I think it was mostly the lack of RAM, which I boosted from 12 G to 64 G. But I figured I'd get highish-end specs all around. It had been 7 years sine my last new computer.

I'm not using any external monitor, it's all contained on the laptop.

At this point I have it running in Windowed mode, but ToEE won't run outside of windowed mode. Even when I set video_width and video_height in toee.cfg to something other that 800x600 it still fails with that same error (unable to find a suitable video mode for 800x600x32). So ToEE must look for that video mode before checking for the specified resolution in toee.cfg. Dunno.

Every other laptop I've run it on just jumps into full screen 800x600 when the game starts, and then jumps back to it's main resolution after I quit. Very nice. That also happens when I run old games fom that era on the new laptop. It jumps to 800x600 when running, then reverts back. Prince of Persia games, Dragonsphere, others. As I said above, ToEE is literally the only game that won't do it on the new laptop.

I'll keep looking for answers, because running in Windowed Mode is very frustrating without the mouse scrolling, and for other reasons.

 

Yeah that's strange.

You could try changing the resolution in the nvidia/intel integrated gfx (do you even have one?) settings as per the steps outlined here:
https://en.teknikmark.com/166-ways-to-fix-the-error-cannot-find-800x600x32-video-mode

 

Unfortunately, I tried that near the beginning of this whole process, and it didn't work. But it struck me when you asked if I had an integrated Intel CPU. It turns out it doesn't come up in Device Manager, and I never really noticed. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think it may be turned off at a deeper level, I need to explore this. Maybe 10th Gen chips, or some of them don't have them, which would be a shame.

But I did learn something very interesting...

I went to my two old laptops, and my Dad's laptop (both fairly new, Windows 10). All three have both a Intel and Nvidia under device manager.

When I disable the Nvidia GPU... ToEE.exe still runs just fine.

But, if I disable the Intel integrated GPU, and leave the Nvidia enabled, the game crashes upon launch just like my new laptop. (unable to find a suitable video mode for 800x600x32). So I was able to recreate the error, which is progress.

So apparently, the game looks for and relies on the integrated GPU, and not the fancy high-end one. I'm getting way out of my league here, but I think if I can turn on the Integrated GPU (assuming it actually exists), then maybe I can get the game running.

 

Hmmm, about that. I have a vague recollection that my old laptop also had GPU related issues running ToEE, and that I had to set something in the power consumption profile to make it work.

In the nvidia panel there should also be a per-program setting to choose integrated/gpu accelerated, maybe try that as well.

 

I like using windowed mode on my laptop. I can minimize to answer emails, or other tasks, and then jump back to the game.

I like using the arrow keys to scroll around the map - they are right near the touchpad, so it isn't much of a bother. I like it better than using a mouse.

 

So do you keep the mouse in your right hand for attacking and clicking on things, and then reach over to the arrows with your left hand and the same time to move around? Or are you jumping between the touchpad and the arrow keys with the same hand continuously. I'm asking, because I find it a very awkward setup. Unfortunately, that's what I'm stuck with now, because I can't get full screen to work, so any tips would help. Thanks.