Steel Beasts on Vista

[Huntn]

Is anyone else currently playing this game?

I'm happy to report tentatively the original Steel Beasts from 2001, an excellent Tank Simulation will run on my MBP under Vista (see end of post).The only hickup is that a dll is missing from Vista to run the game. If you install it you will get a message: D3DRM.dll is missing, reinstalling the game might help. Except with Vista it won't help as that dll file is missing.

To correct situation, go to a D3DRM.dll site (google D3DRM.dll) such as DLLDump.com and download the D3DRM.dll file. Then place this .dll file in C:\\WINDOWS\system3 folder. You'll see a bunch of other dll files there.

One other strange thing I've noticed. It seems like you have switch out of the game window and back into the game window to get the game to finish loading (when your trying to play it).

This is as far as I've gotten. Once I get into the game, I'll check performance and report back. I've gotten into the tutorial. Fingers crossed I'm not premature with this post (saying it runs!)

 

[Huntn]

I've run into a setback with the game.

Once the mission starts, the screen is black. I've done some research online and I did find questions about running this game on Vista but there were no answers. The complaint online is that running under Vista, the screen appears black with no video.

When I first ran the game I don't remember if I was using W98 or WinXP, so my plan is to install the game on my PC (WinXP) and see how it runs there. I think I've all ready installed DX9 on Vista on my MBP, but it's been a while so I might try that again and see if it makes any difference with the game.

I did see a suggestion to go with Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition a newer version of the game which has 3D acceleration support, but I'm not anxious to spend $125 for a game. Someone made a comment that the $125 version will run on Macs but again, I don't know if that is on WinXP or Vista... for now.

 

[Huntn]

Steel Beasts, the original, plays on WinXP. If you can find this game for cheap, and think you'd like a Tank Sim, this is a good game to check out. The only critique is that considering it's age, the landscape is rather plain as compared to what you may have experienced in a game like Crysis. The atmosphere is excellent.

I first grew to love tanks in Planetside- 2 person Vanguard. Such a great environment for tank combat...

Catch a clip on UTube.