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I'm trying to play a 3D hunting game known as Carnivores 2. It was launched in 1999 and I have bought my laptop in 2008, so you'd think that I should be able to run that game as easy as possible, right? Well, turns out its not the case.

Everytime I try to play the game in 'Direct3D mode' (which is where all the shadows, buildings, blood, etc can be seen), I get the following screen:

http://i44.tinypic.com/359ej3b.png

I'm using Windows XP, my graphics card is Intel 945 Express Chipset family, which is supposed to be compatible with DirectX etc. I'm also using a laptop.

What should I do? Is there an external/USB video card that I can buy which will work, or do I need to buy a new laptop to play this game?

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Why would you BUY new hardware to play an ancient game like this? Its not even worth it... – Jakub Oct 28 '11 at 0:04

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Google indicates a lot of people with trouble running this under Windows XP with DirectX - remember, XP is /newer/ than this game is, so that means all bets are off as far as compatibility. If anything, upgrading your laptop is likely to make things worse.

There don't seem to be any official compatibility patches or anything like that...I see links to some unofficial ones, but they're all dead. You may be out of luck, at this point.

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A lot of people have been able to run this on windows xp though, so I think there must be something I can do. I think the issue is with my graphics card. – Click Upvote Oct 27 '11 at 23:32
I think that's entirely possible, but it's not that your card is too OLD, it's that there's an INCOMPATIBILITY. What I'm trying to convey is that newer != better in these situations, necessarily; something else isn't any more likely to work. (That's not to say that it may not work anyway, just that you can't count on it.) – Shinrai Oct 27 '11 at 23:42
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Also, fwiw, I've played Carnivores and it's not worth buying new hardware over even if it WAS likely to help. ;) – Shinrai Oct 27 '11 at 23:43
you must have a crap choice in games :P. Its one of the best games I've ever played. – Click Upvote Oct 28 '11 at 2:44
Did you run it in direct3d mode btw or software mode? If direct3d, which video card did you use? – Click Upvote Oct 28 '11 at 4:26
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I solved this using the patch that allows OpenGL to be used, and then using OpenGL, it works great and has everything direct3d has.

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