Gaming The Untouchable (PC) graphics problem

[DarkArmadillo]

So today I found this game that I really enjoyed 10 years ago. It's a game made for Windows 95/98, but thankfully it installed.
When I start the game it shows an opening scene that displays perfectly fine, but once in the game the visuals are very weird. Everything has diffrent colors (for example the main menu's yellow is green/purple and some blue random lines are visible). I tried every compatibility option there is; 256 bit, run in 640x480, run as win95, etc. Nothing works.

Now the weirdest thing, when I record some footage with fraps it shows everything perfect! I don't get it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geylFCEB6SE[/youtube]

Does anyone know this problem?

 

[OmegaVesko]

Once it's launched, alt-tab out of the game and quit Explorer.exe. You'll need to launch it again manually once you're finished.

 

[DarkArmadillo]

Once it's launched, alt-tab out of the game and quit Explorer.exe. You'll need to launch it again manually once you're finished.

Best idea ever. I also didn't try to quit System yet, maybe that will work too.

 

[YayMii]

Windows Vista (and newer) has issues with having incorrect 256-color palettes on legacy programs. I remember having this issue in Age of Empires 2 on Windows 7, where the grass would be red and the water would be purple (the community has dubbed this issue as 'the Mars effect').

After a bit of googling, I found this fix. I haven't used this (I just settled for the batch file fix that kills Explorer.exe and then brings it back after the game closes), but give it a try, it might work.

EDIT: I really, REALLY doubt that ending the System process would benefit you at all.

 

[Minox]

Once it's launched, alt-tab out of the game and quit Explorer.exe. You'll need to launch it again manually once you're finished.

Best idea ever. I also didn't try to quit System yet, maybe that will work too.

It may sound like a really strange thing to do, but it actually does solve the issue with colors in older games. After exiting the game later you can always relaunch explorer.exe from the task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc, File->New Task (Run...)->explorer.exe).

 

[Celice]

There's a lot of strange fixes for Windows 7... another is to leave the 'Change Screen Resolution' window open and these garbled colors are sometimes fixed in-game.

Hopefully you can figure it out mate. It's right annoying at times.

 

[DarkArmadillo]

Well, I tried the explorer.exe fix but the screen goes black when I alt-tab back into the game. I still don't see why it would work anyway.
The fix in Yaymii's post also doesn't work, or I am doing something wrong. Maybe the game is just being a dick.

 

[Chhotu uttam]

Windows Vista (and newer) has issues with having incorrect 256-color palettes on legacy programs. I remember having this issue in Age of Empires 2 on Windows 7, where the grass would be red and the water would be purple (the community has dubbed this issue as 'the Mars effect').

After a bit of googling, I found this fix. I haven't used this (I just settled for the batch file fix that kills Explorer.exe and then brings it back after the game closes), but give it a try, it might work.

EDIT: I really, REALLY doubt that ending the System process would benefit you at all.
I made a batch file for running AoE 2 on win 7(same color problem like yours)

CODEtaskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe

@DarkArmadillo-1.)Make a notepad file(.txt)
2.)copy the above code into your .txt file(This one is for AOE2 so,change the second line with the name of your .exe file name )
3.)save the file
4.)add a suffix .bat in place of .exe

Maybe it can help.