Windows 7 difficulties (gaming and hard disk space)

52paddy

I bought a new PC yesterday with Windows 7. I've been having difficulties running a handful of games. Maybe some of you can offer solutions in order to get them to run correctly. I'll list the games and problems associated with each one.

Colin McRae 2: I think it's a graphics problem or something. The game works fine right up until I begin the stage. When it goes to the start line, the screen suddenly turns blue-green (menu colour) and I can't see the car. I tried it on high and low detail settings. I also tried changing the resolution from 800x600 to 1360x768 (within the game) which is my moniter's resolution. On top of that, I switched the compatibility to "XP Service Pack 3," but all to no avail

GT Legends and TRD3: After the game installed the components, I clicked on the icon. A prompt appeared saying "You must have administrative privileges to run this game." But I am the administrator. I've only got one account on the PC, the admin one! At one point, they accepted me as admin and said I needed to reboot the computer to complete installtion (both games did this.) When I rebooted it, a setup fixing menu appeared saying that something needed to be fixed on the system. I let it do its automatic fixing and when it restarted the games were gone. In fact, it must have done a system restore because all of the latest programmes I installed just disappeared off the system.

Richard Burns Rally: Initially, it would randomly crash to the desktop during play. Then it stopped for a while but happened again much later. No reason was given. A windows prompt appeared telling me that rbr.exe stopped responding for an unknown reason.

Other than that, I've only tried Mobil 1 Rally Championship, which didn't pose any problems. Though, I wasn't playing it for too long anyway.

Here is some specs to go on:

OS: Windows 7
Processor: AMD Phenom II - 3.1x2GHz
Memory: 4GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9800GT w/1GB RAM
Moniter: Samsung something-or-other. It has resolution of 1360x768 (or something like that) and contrast ratio 50000:1

Maybe the problem is that Windows 7 isn't being recognised, but I have changed the compatibility for some of the games to "XP Service Pack 3."

Another problem worth noting is that I was told the PC came with a 500GB hard-drive but in the "My Computer" screen, I'm being told its full capacity is 107GB

Sorry for going on, but this is beginning to bug me. Any help is very much appreciated.

52paddy

Or even point me to another thread...

cance

first problem sounds like graphics driver, have you tried the nvidia site for latest drivers?
second problem, have you tried right clicking the shortcut and "run as administrator"? It may just be a compatibility issue with 7.

Ginger

On the hard disk issue is it partitioned?

All my disks were correctly recognised by Win 7

To your disks, click the start button enter diskmgmt.msc and run it. You will need admin rights so you may get a UAC prompt.
Looks the same as this http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/harddrive2.htm

Also on your games shortcuts, right click and click properties and then click Compat and there is a tick box called run as administrator to ensure it always runs as admin

IN Vista and 7 just because you are admin doesnt mean your programs run as admin unless you specifically tell them or turn UAC off

52paddy

Ginger wrote: »

On the hard disk issue is it partitioned?

All my disks were correctly recognised by Win 7

To your disks, click the start button enter diskmgmt.msc and run it. You will need admin rights so you may get a UAC prompt.
Looks the same as this http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/harddrive2.htm

Also on your games shortcuts, right click and click properties and then click Compat and there is a tick box called run as administrator to ensure it always runs as admin

IN Vista and 7 just because you are admin doesnt mean your programs run as admin unless you specifically tell them or turn UAC off

On the partitioning issue, you seem to be correct. The free space on the D drive is 350+GB which makes way more sense now. I never bothered assuming anything in relation to the D drive because i figured it was a disc drive with no relevence to the hard drive.

Ginger

Go an download the latest nVidia drivers for your GFX card from http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Also how old are the games?

ScumLord

Windows 7s automatic backup can easily eat an entire hard drive in minutes. I had to turn it off.

kaizersoze

Where did you but a pc with win7 on it?