Black Dahlia
Setup Walkthrough
System Specifications:
Pentium 60
4x CD-ROM
PCI or VLB graphics card
mouse
DOS - 8 MB RAM
Windows 95 - 16 MB RAM
The General Drill
First let's take a look at the "General Drill"
Whenever I start a new game, especially an "older one"; I have always made it a habit to make sure my system is clean. (So let's clean house) Our cleaning products?? No, I'm not talking about special Orange Sprays or Pine smelly disinfectants! I'm referring to the "3 Musketeers" of WINTEL Systems. They are:
"Disk Clean Up", Check Disc (the old Scan Disc in pre XP Windows based systems) and
Defrag.
First, Let's do a Disk Clean Up (Don't know how?)
GO to--> Start-->All Programs--> Accessories-->
System Tools-->Disk Clean Up. Empty out what you don't need ( you'll be surprised at what you can accumulate!) Shut down all extra programs. (for those of you who know how to do this part...just skip onto the next area of the "Setup".) For those of you who don't, the easiest way to terminate your
TSRs (terminated but staying resident programs, also known as
"background applications") is to right click on each of the little icons in the lower right portion of your "Tool
Bar" (located near your clock), As you right click on each of them you will get the option to either "exit", "close" or "unload". Do this for each of them. Then, if you have a
Screensaver go ahead and disable it.
If you haven't done the "Ole' Scan Disk"...(in XP it's called
"Check Disk") and Defragged recently here is a good time to do it. Go
to-->My Computer-->Local Disc "C" ("C" is mine but your Local Disc maybe assigned another
letter)-->Right Click-->Properties-->
Tools-->"Check Now..." ->Make sure that both boxes are checked--> 1.)Automatically fix file system errors and
2.)Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.-->Click Start. You can follow this same path to locate your Defrag program as well or use
Start-->All Programs-->Accessories-->
System Tools-->Defrag Hard Drive.
Check your system by doing a "Ctrl, Alt &
Delete", this will bring up "The Task
Manager", If you have closed out all Windows Programs, the field under "Applications" will be blank.
(Leave the field marked "Processes" alone. Yep, I know there are lots of interesting files in there...but your really better off not touching
anything in there unless you really know just what you are doing.)
You also might want to set your Display and resolution to
800x600/16bit/100Hz. Right Click anywhere on your
Desktop--> Properties-->Settings-->Advanced-->Adapters-->List all Modes-->
Then choose your preference from the cascade menu. Click -->OK
-->OK-->Apply-->OK.
You might want to check on your Video and Audio Acceleration
at this time, make sure you set the video at the 1 notch from the right --> and audio should be set to the
1 notch from the right as well (I find that this is the best setting for this adventure on MY system. Yours may be different, but this is always a good place to start and you can increase or lower them as you see fit after the game is installed.)
I know this seems like a bother, but if you take the time to make sure
your system is sparkling on the inside, you'll have less headaches later. Remember a healthy XP is a happy one.
You will need a patch for this game. "Black Dahlia V.1.10 Update" which you can still find here. The Patch addresses the following issues:
-
1. Unsupported RGB Mode error.
-
2. Random crashes (associated with setting music
volume to zero).
-
3. Rune (gem) puzzle bug. Note: type the word 'RESET'
while in the puzzle interface if the puzzle is currently 'broken'.
-
4. Trouble with people not returning objects to you.
-
5. Load file error when restoring game (after CD 6).
- 6. Full subtitle support. To enable, edit the BD.INI in the directory where you installed the game. In the [options] section, edit the line: 'subtitles = 0' to read 'subtitles = 1'.
and Possibly a "Slowdown Program" such as
"Turbo" or "CPU Killer". You can find information and download access to these utilities
here.
The Setup:
The BD version that I have contains 8 CDs, and is supposed to run in
WIN95 without autorun. Its very important not to install from the
auto launch. BD does not like WINNT and XP happens to be WINNT
Based.
-
Place the CD into your Default CD Drive. If the autorun begins just cancel out of it.
-
Go to-->My Computer-->Your CD Rom Drive which holds the CD in
it-->Right Click-->Locate the file called: "SETUP.EXE" and The file "AUTOFIX.EXE-->Right Click on each of them in their turn -->Choose Properties --> Compatibility. -
Following from the Table below, adjust the parameters:
| Compatibility--> | Compatibility mode--> | Win95 |
| Display Settings--> |
|
|
| input settings--> | check-->turn off advanced text services for this program |
-
Click Apply Click OK
The Install
-
Double Click on SETUP.EXE -->Do not install DirectX5 if you have a higher DirectX version. (Just Click Exit)
-
Once the game is installed-->Locate the patch which you downloaded earlier. (All my patches are always downloaded to the same place so that I may find them easily***My Documents--> My Game Patches***)
-
Unzip this patch to "C:\BDAHLIA" game folder. Go to-->
My Computer-->Local Disc "C"-->BDAHLIA-->Locate--> BDAHLIAPATCH.EXE-->Right Click-->Properties-->Follow Table:
|
Compatibility--> |
Compatibility mode--> | Win95 |
| Display Settings--> |
|
|
| input settings--> | check-->turn off advanced text services for this program |
-
Click Apply Click OK
-
Double Click on BDAHLIAPATCH.EXE-->Click "Install"-->once installed -->Click Exit. Locate -->bd_win.exe-->Right Click-->Properties-->Follow the table:
|
Compatibility--> |
Compatibility mode--> | Win95 |
| Display Settings--> |
|
|
| input settings--> | check-->turn off advanced text services for this program |
-
Click Apply Click OK
-
Before you begin this game, I strongly suggest you utilize a slowdown program. It will help with voice synchronization. I'm using "Turbo" set at 75%.
-
To play the game Go to Start-->All Programs-->Take2
Interactive-->Black Dahlia-->Right Click on the Black Dahlia Icon --> Properties --> ShortCut --> Make sure that "Run ~ Maximized" is selected. Click Apply Click OK. -
Double Click on the ICON to play the game.
Enjoy!!!
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