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Laser Arena compatibility issue(s)

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  • Laser Arena compatibility issue(s)

    Hello everyone.
    Laser Arena is an old game (runs on modified quake 1) that has a special feel to it and I would like to play it again. However, I am running into a crash when trying to run the game in hardware renderer mode (where the game doesn't look like minecraft and has non-stop-motion animations).
    I'm on a Lenovo thinkpad yoga running windows 8.1, intel 4400 graphics. Windows crash report says that the error is BEX (Buffer overflow) and error code is c0000005, which is memory access violation. Figures.
    What I got this far:
    Ran in compatibility mode (applied to all executables) - nope
    Disabled Data Execution Prevention (took more time than it should have) - nope
    Ran in winXP/win98 emulator in VMware - runs, but graphics are an anti-aliased glitchfest running at 2 FPS max
    There's probably some more stuff I might have forgotten about
    Currently trying Microsoft Application Compatibility toolkit, but the fact LA_GL.exe must be run via launcher is making this extra difficult. I think the launcher simply feeds the LA_GL with a bunch of launch parameters, that I do not know and if they are missing, simply displays a window saying "Please run LaserArena.exe". Is there a list of launch parameters for Quake somewhere?

    I also tried to run the game with nGlide and checking the Voodo1/2/Banshee in video settings, but got some specific errors that I will try looking into later.

    This thread may seem like I just want some launch options, but the ultimate goal is to get this thing to run on new hardware. Any help is apreciated.

  • #2
    vanilla glquake crashed when drivers reported more than 1024 bytes of extension data.
    I can't speak for intel, but nvidia avoids advertising so many extensions when running specifically 'glquake.exe' (and presumably a few other names, but I've no idea which).
    (you may be able to use taskmanager to see the commandline, and use that in combination with a renamed exe, if your drivers recognise glquake.exe specifically but not laserarena's exe name)

    even assuming that is the issue you're getting, the source for laser arena was never released (iirc) so its not like anyone can give you a fixed build.
    Some Game Thing

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    • #3
      Ok, this will probably make me look retarded, but since it worked, I will report on it.
      Previous attempt of running nGlide gave me some Voodoo errors, that someone could probably troubleshoot. No idea why. That was in an instance of "installation" where I had tried all the things, including trying to run the game in quake1 as a mod (didn't work).
      Now I tried to run the game with nGlide in a somewhat unmodified setup (I did have the enhanced mod) and it worked. It seems it's best to have 1024x768 resolution in windowed mode, you get decent size HUD and nGlide runs the game neatly in full screen. The hud is still a tad too big, but higher resolutions make the game be placed in lower-left corner with nGlide. Tried on 2 computers with same results, the other runing win7 with Asus GTX 650 graphs.

      Originally posted by Spike View Post
      vanilla glquake crashed when drivers reported more than 1024 bytes of extension data.
      I can't speak for intel, but nvidia avoids advertising so many extensions when running specifically 'glquake.exe' (and presumably a few other names, but I've no idea which).
      (you may be able to use taskmanager to see the commandline, and use that in combination with a renamed exe, if your drivers recognise glquake.exe specifically but not laserarena's exe name)

      even assuming that is the issue you're getting, the source for laser arena was never released (iirc) so its not like anyone can give you a fixed build.
      Thanks a bunch for your reply. I think there is a compatibility fix for something like that in MS ACT (EmulateEnvironmentBlock - supposed to help with buffer overflows, but not sure if relevant), but didn't really get to test it. The game works very well with nGlide.
      Last edited by DZHEX; 04-22-2017, 06:14 PM.

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      • #4
        Make LA great again!

        Now that I've gotten LA to run, I'm getting some people interested in the game and have set up a discord server for this game. If you need help running the game or want to find people to play with (hamachi) then you can join and see of anyone's up for a game. Currently have 6 members + self.
        http://discord.gg/Qzd777F

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