Older games not working

[Midtown2]

Hey guys! Long time since I've posted on here, but I'm having some odd issues and wondered if anyone has experienced them before.

I've had my laptop since May, and I distinctly remember playing NFS ProStreet, Undercover, and Shift on here quite frequently in the summer. I haven't changed anything on the PC, just occasionally done the forced Windows updates.

Now, those games won't start. Like I get a black screen, and it gets stuck. I thought it had to do with my new dual monitor for some reason, but I unplugged the monitor and they still wouldn't start. It only seems to affect those games (I had issues with Test Drive Unlimited last night but I fixed that, somehow).

I'm running a Dell XPS with an NVIDIA 1650GTX graphics card alongside the built-in Intel 630 graphics. I've updated the drivers on both, and tried forcing each game to start with either card, and nothing has changed. I just played the two Truck Sim games, NFS Heat, as well as DiRT 4, so I'm assuming there isn't anything wrong mechanically since those tend to be somewhat demanding games.

I've also tried disabling my antivirus, but that also did not change anything. The only thing I can think of is that I moved ProStreet and Undercover from my external hard drive to my internal SSD via an uninstall/reinstall process (Shift was already on the SSD). It doesn't make sense that it wouldn't work because of the SSD, especially with Shift having been on the SSD the whole time.

Any suggestions? I'm starting to remember why I don't like PC gaming lol

EDIT: I should add that none of these games are on Steam. The install files were copied from their discs to my external hard drive (I haven't had a laptop with a disc drive in years), but that never caused issues earlier with this XPS or with my last Inspiron.

EDIT 2: Its really odd that its just those games that dont work. Underground 2 and Most Wanted work fine. So does NFS 3 ( from 1998) and Midtown Madness 2 (although I can't get it to play on my second monitor)

[Jeremiahjobling]

Have you tried running those games that don't work on compatibility mode?

[Midtown2]

Yep, I’ve tried every compatibility mode and everything. NFS shift was working on windows 98 compatibility but it ran like absolute garbage and froze anyway. I just bought the steam version and that seems to be working. No idea why my old disc based one won’t work. Pro street is still bugging out though :/

[Jeremiahjobling]

No idea why my old disc based one won’t work.

Probably the disc was too scratched. Glad you solved it in the end though

[Midtown2]

Oh I wasn’t using the disc. I had ripped them onto my external hard drive since I don’t have a disc drive on my computer. They were working until a few days ago. Annoyed I had to re-buy the game on steam instead but whatever I guess

[Amarafarri]

This may be an inept inquiry, however do you have the NoCD-fix? I have the v3 release, and I might want to transfer mine, yet don't have a clue how to place records in this post/send documents to somebody...

I got myself a new introduce from the MM2 cd and the game in a split second slammed when I clicked "Jetzt spielen" (play now). After I introduced the NoCD-fix and duplicated the ddraw and d3dlmm.dll documents to the establishment envelope (for me C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft games\Midtown Madness2), MM2 ran fine once more.

I utilize the directdraw.dll and D3DImm.dll from this rendition https://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2_45.zip

They are both in the MS organizer. I don't have different patches introduced. I attempted that once with MM1, and flopped awfully.

For the menu running at 60 fps, I found in my fraps accounts that the menu appeared to be unique based on what is see on the screen. I see the menu widescreen, however fraps records it as a square (on the grounds that the menu is low-goal I think)... I think, this way the pc experiences less difficulty indicating high fps the menu. Likewise, it doesn't need to continously stack a guide bacause you're not driving yet.

What you could attempt, is DriverBooster to auto-update every one of your drivers (it's free) (BUT PLEASE BACKUP THE OLD DRIVERS WHICH CAN SIMPLY BE DONE BY CREATING A WINDOWS RESTORE POINT!)
Possibly there has been an update from AMD that fixes this issue.

I have a pc here which additionally has an AMD card, it's not the one you have, but rather this way I can test Catalyst and it's drivers what not. I simply need to redesign the pc to Windows 8.0 (64 digit).

Alter: I likewise have 64 cycle, so I imagine that is not the issue, but rather when I introduced Windows 8.0, that was the most derpiest, not-doing-what-I-request adaptation of Windows, so I moved directly to 8.1, which works a ton smoother (yet in addition has it's small aggravating issues).

[Midtown2]

Hey man! Thanks for the advice. Idk what was wrong with MM2 but it’s working now for some reason. I know some anti-cheat software was blocking most of the rest of my games; I’ve since uninstalled it since I don’t play online on my PC.

BUT, I will take note for the future. Random question, but I have a dual monitor setup and i can’t get the game working on my second monitor alone. Any ideas?