Problem with resolution changes in old games.

[Shay]

I've tried googling this problem but I must not be wording my search terms right because I'm not really coming up with anything relevant. So I figured I'd ask here.

As you probably know, older computer games would run on much lower resolutions than are typically used on computer screens today. This usually isn't a problem because when I run the older games the computer just switches to the lower resolution and then switches back when I exit the game and everything is fine. However with this one game I'm trying to play, when the resolution switches back to my normal settings, I find that any other windows I had open at the time are resized smaller and moved out of the position I had them in. So I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to prevent this sort of thing from happening when playing older games?

I'm using Windows 7, and I don't know if it's important but the specific game I'm playing is Journey to the Wild Divine: The Passage, but I doubt anyone here will have heard of it. It's certainly not a mainstream game. It's a biofeedback program for training meditation and breathing exercises.

I hope someone has some suggestions. I really like my browser window set to a certain size, and I'd rather not have to exit out of it every time I want to play this game to prevent(hopefully) it from having it's window size changed.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Blah!?]

I do have one solution, but it's more of a work-around than anything. I don't think you can actually fix this, but I've found something that will limit the problem.

If you minimize all your other windows before launching the game, they won't be resized at all and you can just bring them back up when you're done. It's a pain, but it's the only thing I've found so far that works.

[Shay]

Yeah I did think of trying that. It didn't really work. My window was closer to it's original size if I minimized than it would have been if I'd left it up, but I still need to fix the size of my browser after exiting the game. So far it seems like the only thing that works is closing the browser before running the game.

It's just really annoying, I should be able to pause the program and go do other things on the computer without having to completely exit it. Other old games I've played, the computer will change back to the original resolution if you switch to another program, but this one won't, so if I want to look something up online or do anything else on my computer it will all be way too large on the screen until I actually exit the game.

I'm really surprised the game is having all these issues considering I'm not even using the original installation discs I purchased years ago, but downloaded the lasted software version. Well the latest version of the software looks like it was done in August of 2010, but still...

Anyway thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it.

[Blah!?]

It's less an issue with the game and more that modern graphics cards just aren't compatible with most older programs. As impressive as your average GPU is, there's only so much they can do.

One other thing you could potentially try is running a game in compatibility mode for an older version of Windows, such as XP or even 98 or 95. However, if the program doesn't support the same maximum resolution that you keep your desktop at, this probably still won't change anything.

[Shay]

Yeah the game seems pretty set to run in 800x600 resolution. The sequel game is meant to run in that same resolution but seems to support higher resolutions. It's kind of a shame that while the sequel game seems to run better in more ways than just that, I actually prefer the content of the first game.

I gave compatibility mode a try. For Windows XP, it really didn't seem to make a difference. I really don't remember having this kind of problem when when I ran this program on Windows XP, but that was so many years ago that it's hard to remember. I know on my previous laptop the resolution was lower than it is on current one, but pretty sure I had it set to higher than 800x600.

I also tried compatibility for Windows 98, but that didn't work at all. It kept giving me errors. Seems like it didn't like the newer versions of Quicktime despite saying that anything above 6.0 was fine...

Maybe I'll try contacting customer support about it. In the mean time I can play the online version without any problems. Just the sucky part is that the online version doesn't have the "adventure" mode. They just have a list of activities to do which is something that might be more preferable if someone has completed the "adventure" mode a number of times, but since I haven't played in years I want to be able to explore and get the full game experience. I guess if customer support can't help then I'll just have to resign myself to only playing during times when I'm not going to want to be chatting, web browsing or doing anything else on the computer.