Oh I also forgot to mention that when I was using thr decoder card successfully and updated to 1.04 it also didn't work , I had to fall back to to 1.0 to get it working again, I could try patch 1.03 but I only found a German copy of it and not the international one.

Running multiple video cards on 98 is a bad idea. Probably related to that

Yeah I just tested the patch on 86Box last night to compare to my real hardware and indeed it worked on that so the mystique must be causing some sort of conflict or seizing control specifically with patch 1.04. I guess I'll try pulling it out of my system and see if that helps.

Welp i disabled all the extra cards in device manager (SLI V2s and drx2 plus matrox mystique) i managed to get into the game in 1.04 , I tried different software decoders but none worked except for DVDExpress which would freeze after the access software intro was done.

So I uninstalled all that and tried to go back to the dxr2 but now it turns out the dxr2 cant see my dvd drives and I'm not sure what's going on , I removed the matrox mystique and tried running 1.04 but now even 1.04 wont work , so i basically can't play the game with any mpeg2 now.

Man the DVD version of this game is a massive pain in the ass , but I'm stubborn if nothing else so ill try and keep mucking about till I get it working.

Btw does anyone know which combination of software would let you play the overseer DVD edition with software mpeg 2 on a 800 mhz 440bx win98SE system running a canopus spectra 7400 Geforce256 DDR GPU?, if anyone can I'm all ears.

Overseer was indeed a massive pain in the ass. It can be forgiven though, since the DVD version was offered as an extra when very, very few players owned a DVD drive. Installation was a headache and I haven't kept the instructions but I've kept all of the software needed to run the DVD version with software decoding.

First off, you want to install the latest 1.04 patch after installing the game.
Afterwards, you'll need DVDExpress from Mediamatics, as well as Elecard MPEG Decoder 2.0 (which is small enough in size that I've attached it to this post) and K-Lite 3.4.5 Full. After installing everything, pick the DVD Express option from within Overseer's settings menu and you should be good to go.

This is the way I beat the game again a few years ago.

Does it have any extras making it worth playing on the DVD, other than not having to swap CD:s?
(I have the CD version only, but I've seen you can combine them into a DVD for ease of use - but I figure it's not the same as the bundled DVD)

Yeah those community installers for eliminating disc swapping on the CD version are not the same thing. The DVD version actually features MPEG2 video at 30fps and much greater quality than the CD version (which runs at 15fps). It really is a massive leap in image quality.

It's also one of the first games to do so on the PC platform (it was supposed to come out in late 1997, but the launch slipped to March 1998 I believe), as such when it was released it only supported a few MPEG2 decoder cards and this is where the issues with running it today (and at the time honestly) reside.

Garrett W wrote on 2024-05-09, 07:54:

Yeah those community installers for eliminating disc swapping on the CD version are not the same thing. The DVD version actually features MPEG2 video at 30fps and much greater quality than the CD version (which runs at 15fps). It really is a massive leap in image quality.

It's also one of the first games to do so on the PC platform (it was supposed to come out in late 1997, but the launch slipped to March 1998 I believe), as such when it was released it only supported a few MPEG2 decoder cards and this is where the issues with running it today (and at the time honestly) reside.

Eyy thanks so much for the help I've got it working , turns out I needed the klcodec to work , the one you suggested was a bit too new but I managed to find version 234 , I already had DVD EXPRESS and Elecard.

After all that the game still refused to get me to the main menu so I could set the mpeg device to dvdexpress , but I did manage to do it in 86box , and then what I did was copy over the files from my 98 install on 86box and overwrite the pentium 3 systems copy of overseer , then it managed to run.

I adjusted some settings and so far I got to the office. So hopefully that should be it.

Phew I guess that's part of the fun with retro pcs you need to fight your system every time you want to set up a game the way you want. Then the reward is being allowed to play the game.

Glad to hear you got it working! Enjoy!