Shivers 2 - Harvest of Souls

Modified for Windows XP/Vista

• XP/Vista installer.
• XP/Vista windows executable.
• Scales to use entire screen (Direct3D bilinear interpolation).
• Eliminates black lines in cut-scenes.
• Per-user save games (Vista friendly).
• Fixes exceptions and script errors under XP/Vista.
• Fixes panning speed on modern CPUs.

Requirements

• Windows XP or Vista.
• DirectX 9c (Direct3D).
• Shivers 2 CD set (not included):
  • English

Download

• shivers_2_install_20080704.msi

Changes to the original game

XP/Vista Installer

• New installer created to be XP/Vista friendly.
• The installer will install the files normally included by a Sierra install.

XP/Vista Executable

• Modified version of the original Sierra Windows 95 executable.
• Fixes SP alignment bugs causing script errors under XP/Vista.
• Fixes div-by-zero exception causing game to fail under XP/Vista.
• Fixes panning speed on modern CPUs.
• Eliminate black lines in cut-scenes.
• Use hardware support for mouse cursor.
• Upscale to full screen resolution while maintaining aspect ratio.
  • Dirext3D hardware accelerated bilinear interpolation.
  • On a widescreen monitor black bars are added left/right to maintain correct aspect ratio.
• Store save games per user to work under Vista. Default APPDATA locations:
  • XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Sierra\Shivers 2
  • Vista: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Sierra\Shivers 2

Common problems

Occasional horizontal line glitches in some cutscenes: Some cutscenes have occasional horizontal line glitches. These glitches are present in the original game.

Mouse cursor is a large black box:
1) Download and install the latest Windows drivers for the video card.
2) Check that the color-depth is set to 32-bit in the Windows display settings.

Crashes during gameplay: If you find a repeatable crash, please post on the SquirtTheCat forum and include the steps to reproduce.

Change log

• Fix bug in hardware cursor support causing corrupt cursor and/or crash.

• Use hardware support for mouse cursor.

• Fix problem causing long startup time.
• Improve cutscene upscaling quality.
• Improve handling of captions over cutscenes.
• Cleanup dead code paths.

• Fix panning speed by using a real-time reference.
• Fix interactive animation timing.
• Fix 100% CPU load during normal gameplay.

• Rescale panning speed adjustment to allow user to select a slower panning speed.

• Render mouse cursor as seperate Direct3D object to improve mouse performance.
• Improve Direct3D handling.
• Improve cutscene handling.

• Fix Direct3D error message when Ctrl-Alt-Del is pressed.
• Improve to Direct3D handling.
• Improve cutscene handling.

• Fix possible privileged instruction crash.
• Fix possible SP alignment bugs.
• Fix not-enough-memory error under 64-bit Vista with >= 4GB RAM.
• Improve error messages.

• Fix captions in cutscenes.
• Fix black line glitches in cutscenes.
• Show error message if Direct3D initialization fails.

• Improve cutscene handling.

• Initial XP/Vista release.
• XP/Vista installer.
• Fix div-by-zero exception causing original executable to fail under XP/Vista.
• Fix handling of paths containing spaces.
• Eliminate black lines in cut-scenes.
• Upscale video to use entire screen (Direct3D bilinear interpolation).
• Store save games in user-specific APPDATA directory to work under Vista.