Can anyone help with Industry Giant II?

[100percentMambers]

Salutations!   I'm new to the forums, although I've been watching playthroughs here for about a year.  Anyway, upon watching Skorch82's new Off the Shelf of Pharaoh, I had an insatiable urge to play Industry Giant II.  I've been trying off-and-on to get the game working on this laptop for the last three years.

Sadly, Industry Giant II has known issues with almost every video card EVER, but especially with the NVIDIA series.    A couple of hours ago, success!  I'd gotten the game up and running!  However, it crashes to desktop whenever the build menu is opened...   I'm afraid I'm terribly ignorant of programming and such things, so I'm not sure how to resolve this issue.  Would it work to alter the picture files that are in the program's folder?

Any help would be greatly appreciated LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

--DaMambers

Sorry!  I originally posted this somewhere else, but I think this kind of question should be here, right?  

Edit: I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) with an Intel Core2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40 GHz.  I also have 4 GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT.  I hope this helps!

[Maceman]

I've never heard of the game before, but here are a few things you can try which usually helps to play older games.

VirtualBox w/ Windows XP (not for the non-tech savvy).
Windows XP Mode (works in Windows 7, not sure about Vista).
DOSbox.
Change the display adapter to use onboard video (if your mobo has it).

[100percentMambers]

I've never heard of the game before, but here are a few things you can try which usually helps to play older games.

VirtualBox w/ Windows XP (not for the non-tech savvy).
Windows XP Mode (works in Windows 7, not sure about Vista).
DOSbox.
Change the display adapter to use onboard video (if your mobo has it).

Thanks for replying, Maceman! 

Those solutions seem rather daunting for someone who's never programmed anything more sophisticated than a tic-tac-toe game...  However, I'm determined to get this thing working!  I'll let you know if something works (or if nothing works) ((or if I prove too inept to make anything work)).

Also, on an entirely different topic, you were the first LPer whose videos I ever watched!  In winter of last year, I was looking for some hints as to how a druid would fare against Baal in DII, and I caught your walkthrough with Skorch82.  Totally by accident!  Well, to make a long story short, that was my gateway drug, and now I watch at least one LP episode every day.  It's like reading a good article or talking to a friend, you know?  Anyway, though, enough of my rambling!!  Thanks again for your answer, and wish me luck!

[nosferatoon]

There is also Windows 95/98 compatibility mode. Also looking into the game I found this thread which is your exact graphics card

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=44826

[100percentMambers]

There is also Windows 95/98 compatibility mode. Also looking into the game I found this thread which is your exact graphics card
[link removed]

Thanks, but threads like that abound on the internet, and most of them are more than five years old, making them noting but collections of dead links.  If anyone knows of a way to get ahold of the files those links reference, I would be eternally indebted. 

[nosferatoon]

All I can find are the patches, still might be worth a try

http://ig2.jowood.com/main.php?rid=698&lang=en

[100percentMambers]

Thanks again to everybody who replied.  Nosferatoon, that last link you posted is useful for other problems, but it doesn't necessarily work for the Nvidia graphics cards.  Sad panda.  However, thanks to your encouragement I spent about six hours a couple of weekends ago trying to get the damn thing figured out.  Turns out, it does have something to do with certain picture files being difficult.  I finally stumbled upon a message board on which a person had fixed all the files and uploaded a torrent of the fix.  However the link was dead.  I rooted around on the other links, and finally got sent to the Pirate Bay.  So I searched there, and finally got the fixed files!  Long story short, I got the darned thing up and running, but it was such a convoluted process that I wasn't sure I could remember enough of it to make a posting.  If anyone reads this and wants to get your copy of IG2Gold up, I'll do my best to post some links!  Let me know!

--Da Mambers