Genre: Third Person Shooter
Release Year: 1999
Developer: Big Ape Productions
Publisher: LucasArts
Age Rating: 12+
Playability Status: Perfect
Tested On: Windows 8 x64
Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable
While the first of the Star Wars prequels might not have pleased everyone, back in 1999 it was big news at the box office and the Lucasfilm marketing machine was working in overdrive. The now sadly disbanded LucasArts software house produced and licensed several games based on elements or characters from the movie, including the official Phantom Menace video game for PC and consoles. It may not be the most critically acclaimed Star Wars game ever released, but this movie tie-in holds plenty of happy memories for those gamers who played it first time around. Time certainly hasn’t been kind to the game and its dated graphics and gameplay are unlikely to win it any new fans. Nevertheless, with new movies in the making, many nostalgic gamers will be dusting off their old copies and filling the boots of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his friends and allies again.
Installation
The Phantom Menace should install without any issues on 32 bit versions of Windows. Unfortunately, like many older LucasArts games, the game uses a 16 bit installer and is therefore not compatible with 64 bit versions of Windows. To solve this problem, we’ve produced a replacement installer that will allow you to install the game on more modern versions of the operating system. To use the installer, simply download it here (link broken? Let me know here) and then, with the Phantom Menace CD in your computers optical drive, run the installer and follow all the on-screen prompts.
Patching
There was only one patch released for the game which fixes issues with some sound cards. We recommend that everyone installs the patch before playing the game. If you have installed the game using our replacement installer, you do not need to install the patch as it is included in with the new installer. To download the patch separately, click here.
With the game installed and patched, you’re now ready to start it. Click on the “Play The Phantom Menace” shortcut on your desktop or Start menu/screen. Before you get started with the game though, there are several options you may wish to reconfigure.
Tweaking visual quality
The years have not been kind to the games graphics, so squeezing every last bit of quality out of the old assets is highly recommended. Start by loading the game and from the main menu, choose “Options” and then “General Options”. On this screen you can set the screen resolution. The highest resolution you can choose here is 1280×1024. Most modern PC monitors should manage this resolution just fine. Later in this section we’ll show you how you can add your own resolutions too.
Once you have set the screen resolution, you should head over to the “Performance Options” menu. On this menu there is a sliding control at the top of the screen that changes the computer rating. Make sure that the “Computer rating” is set to “Superior” by moving this slider all the way to the right. Any reasonably modern computer, even a more modest spec system, should be able to run the game at this setting.
It is also possible to play the game in modern high definition resolutions, such as 1080p or 720p. Remember that these resolutions are widescreen, although the game was released before widescreen monitors were commonplace, it scales surprisingly well to widescreen modes and the graphics do not appear to be stretched or out of proportion. To run the game in a custom resolution, you will need to edit a configuration file within the games folder. If you are unfamiliar with editing configuration files, see this tutorial.
The file we need to edit is called “obi.ini”. It is in the games installation directory at the very top level. Right click on the file and choose “edit” to get started making changes. To change the games screen resolution, find the lines “screen_width” and “screen_height” and edit them accordingly. For 1080p use the following values:-
screen_width=1920
screen_height=1080
For 720p use:-
screen_width=1280
screen_height=720
Be sure to save the file when you are done editing it. If you make a mistake while editing this file and the game will no longer start, remember you can always delete it and the game will simply create a new one. You will of course have to reconfigure all of your options again if you do this.
Tweaking sound quality
The Phantom Menace supports DirectSound and EAX as well as several other now obsolete surround sound standards. Due to changes in DirectSound introduced in Windows Vista, most users will be restricted to the “Fast 2D positional audio” option. You can try the Dolby Surround options too, but there’s certainly no guarantee they will work.
On any computer running Windows Vista or later, the DirectSound3D options will not work correctly without additional software. If you have a sound card that supports Creative ALchemy, you can use this software to restore surround sound capabilities to the game. Start by exiting the Phantom Menace game and then starting the ALchemy tool. On the main ALchemy window, click on “Add”. In the window that then appears, enter “Star Wars – The Phantom Menace” as the game name and choose “Use Game Path”. Use the “…” button to browse to the Phantom Menace game folder then click on “OK”. Finally, select “Star Wars – The Phantom Menace” from the left hand side of the ALchemy window and click on “>>” to activate the profile.
With ALchemy configured, start The Phantom Menace again and go to the Options menu and choose “Sound Options”. You should now be able to select “Microsoft DirectSound3D with Creative EAX” and enjoy full surround sound in the game.
Configuring controls
The Phantom Menace has limited support for game controllers. Although analogue controllers are recognised and can be configured, they can only be used digitally, that is, you need to hold a button down on your pad in order to run. You can configure controllers by starting the game, going to the Options menu and choosing “Control Options”, and then choosing “Game Controllers”.
If you have Xpadder, we recommend disabling controller support in-game (this can be done in the Control Options” menu) and configuring the controls entirely using Xpadder. Below is the Xpadder profile we created for the game, based on the controls for the Playstation version.
With our Xpadder configuration, the controls are mapped like this:-
| Action | Xbox Controller | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Move | Left stick or D-pad | Arrow keys |
| Run | RB or fully push left stick (with distance zone configured) | Shift |
| Jump | A | X |
| Activate/Use | B | Space |
| Attack | X | Control |
| Force/Push | Y | Z |
| Dodge | LB (Hold) + Direction | Alt (Hold) + Direction |
| Dodge (Left) | Right stick left | Alt + Left |
| Dodge (Right) | Right stick right | Alt + Right |
| Previous Weapon | LT | Numpad – |
| Next Weapon | RT | Numpad + |
| Pause | Start | Escape |
| Quick Save | Back | F5 |
| Confirm menu choice | A | Enter |
To run in the game, you hold down shift. If you want your character to run when you push the analogue stick down, you will need to create a distance zone on the left analogue stick. There’s a tutorial on how to do that available here.
Troubleshooting
COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error – This error generally seems to happen on computers equipped with ATI/AMD graphics cards. Since we don’t have this kind of hardware in our test PC, we’d appreciate it if our readers would test this fix for us. Please download the zip file here (link broken? Let me know here). Once downloaded, copy ALL the files from the zip file to your Phantom Menace game directory, replacing the existing WMAIN.EXE file that’s in there already (you should definitely make a backup copy of the file WMAIN.EXE so you can undo the changes easily if necessary). Now, try running the game again and let us know in the comments if the problem is resolved.
If the fix above doesn’t work, you can also try dgVoodoo2, so long as your PC has a DirectX 11 capable graphics card or chip. Click here for a tutorial on how to install and use dgVoodoo2. When using dgVoodoo2, please use the original WMAIN.exe and not the patched version from the download link above (you did take a backup copy of your original WMAIN.exe didn’t you? If not you may need to reinstall the game).
Game crashes or glitches on startup – If you have problems starting the game, try editing the “Obi.ini” file and choosing a higher screen resolution than the default 640×480. See the instructions above under “Tweaking visual quality” for instructions on how to do this. If you cannot find an Obi.ini file in your games directory, download this one, unzip it and place it in the games folder. This ini file contains the default options for the game, except for screen resolution which has been increased to 800×600.
Problems saving games or settings – Like many older games, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace places its save game files and various configuration files in the same directory that it is installed to. This can cause problems on more modern versions of Windows as programs are not normally permitted to write to the program files directory. To avoid this problem, either install the game to an alternate location (e.g c:\Games\The Phantom Menace) or manually edit the permissions on the “The Phantom Menace” folder. If you used the default installation directory from the original installer, the games folder can be found at “C:\Program Files\LucasArts\The Phantom Menace”. If you used the replacement installer however, the default installation folder is “C:\Games\The Phantom Menace”. A tutorial on how to edit folder permissions can be found here.
Hi, I’m having some problems with this one… in the Racer post I was able to run the game with your installer, but with this one when I try to run the game, a message pops up inscreen saying COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE… I have Daemon Tools, emulated the game iso, but installed with your installer, but when trying to run, it gives me this message… have I done something wrong? or I just forget something? Please, help!
Can you post full details of your PCs configuration?
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 ( I was using 8.1 x64, but it was having some bugs, so decided to back to 7 )
Kingston 1333Mhz 4GB DDR3
AMD FX 8350 Eight-core @4.0Ghz
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB GDDR5
ASUS MB M5A78L LE
3R SYSTEMS ICEAGE 500W power supply
and you tried the Obi.ini fix as described in the troubleshooting section?
Yes, tried editing that many times, and still got the same error… that’s weird, it’s like the game basically did not recognize the video card at all, even if I check the optin in the laucher… I really wanna play this game in PC version again, any other suggestions? =\…
Hi Guys,
Did you manage to find a solution? I really would love to play the game, but it shows the same error as Jonathan. I tried the obi.ini as well.
Please try the potential fix we’ve just uploaded. Check under the “Troubleshooting” section for more information.
I tried it, no success. Same as before: ‘COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE’.
Are you certain you copied all files into the directory correctly?
I took the old WMAIN.EXE and placed it in a different folder. Then I copied your WMAIN.EXE and put it in the original directory, with the other files along with them. Unless there is a specific directory the other files are supposed to be copied into, I cannot imagine that I did anything wrong.
Ok, I’d have at least expected it to crash in new and interesting ways… Just for the heck of it can you rename the replacement WMAIN.EXE to anything else (SWARS.EXE will do) and run it, see if the same thing happens?
Yeah I was kinda hoping for that as well, hehe. Changing the name made no difference, same damned error. Is there anything else I can try?
Nothing else I can think of, sorry.
That’s too bad. Thanks for trying anyway, really appreciate the effort! Keep up the awesome.
The game opens but stop when you enter the menu (which is START, LOAD GAME, OPTIONS, QUIT). Furthermore the entire computer stops.
Setup: i7 2600K, 16Gb ram, 1tb HD, Geforce 550 ti, win7 ultimate x64.
No issues with the in-game menus here, odd!
My computer does the exact same thing, how did you fix it?
Where you able to get this fixed? I’m having the same problem.
No, I wasn’t. The way I found to fix it was to obtain an english/american version of the game and it works perfectly.
http://www.casimages.com.br/i/140711110601710068.png.html
This error occurs when passing the first stage. The previous error was corrected stirring in solving as taught.
At first I want to say THANK YOU, I’ve searched the web for a way to play this game the last 5 years now. Everything works just fine, except of those 1080p settings. Everytime I try it, everything freezes, and my screen resolution is set to 300×300, I can’t even access the task manager then. Do you know any solution to this problem? No problems with 720p btw.
Assuming your monitor supports 1080p I can’t think of any reason why 720p would work and 1080p would not, sorry!
I seem to get the same message as Jonathan.”COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE.” Been trying to play this game ever since I dug it out of my storage unit. PLEASE HELP!
ATI card too? Try setting a higher resolution by editing the Obi.ini file.
Processor: AMD A8-6500 APU with Radeon(TM)HD Graphics
System type: 64-bit operating system, x64 based processor. PLEASE HELP! :D
Windows 8.1
Seems like something in newer ATI/AMD drivers may break compatibility. You could install an older driver but then you’d loose performance/features in newer games.
This was one of the games of my childhood, the very first game I bought with my own money. I haven’t been able to play it in years, since I upgraded to windows 7. Thank you so much for making it possible to play this game again!
Hello can you help me run this game ?
I have original game.
I tried install by this way how is here written. But it doesnt work :(
It writes that cant initiliaze 3D graphics. Why ?
Hi, Thanks a lot,
I just have one question:
Everything is perfect but do you know how to put the game in French ? :)
Loved this game. Still do, but I used to, too. Having the same problem as Jonathan and others recently though. I played it just fine on an integrated ATI/AMD chipset on my old lappy, but now on an AMD r9 290 running Windows 8.1 I’m getting the “Could not Initialize Graphics Hardware” error. Anyways, thanks for contributing to the viability of this game!
Hello dear creator of this website!
First of all I wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to play this wonderful game once more, I have been wanting to do this for so long ! Thank you !
I have one problem though, I’m running Windows 8.1 and when I try to use the installer that you offer to download it tells me the CD is not inserted and that I should try again. I have inserted the CD in the CD player though. What could be causing this problem ?
Thanks in advance for you help! ;)
Good question! Are you using a foreign language version of the game, perhaps? I only had the English version to test.
Argh! Uhm I have a european version of the game, I think, it can be in French, English or German but we bought it in France.
So sad… T_T
It should work then…strange! Maybe there is another version of this game different to the one I tested.
Hey, me again ! :)
So, I tried with an .iso of the game (the english version this time) and it worked perfectly ! :D
The only downside is that it’s in english and I would really like to have it in french again… But anyways, it works ! :D
I think the reason it didn’t work with my cd is because it’s a double sided DVD version and it has both TPM and Racer on it AND a sort of a guide to the SW universe on the other side ! :)
I can give you the source code to the installer if you want to fix it for that version :) Otherwise there’s not much I can do as I don’t have access to that version of the game (sounds cool though).
Hello.
I followed all your steps and it works perfectly, the only thing wrong is that the text is in English (although the audio is in Spanish) and of course, at the time of choosing a decision, I find it a bit difficult.
Is there any option to pass the text to Spanish ¿?
Thanks a lot
This is awesome!works excellent. been waiting years for this thank you
Hi, thanks for the installer. One question, though: is there a way to run the game without having to insert the CD into the drive? That’s a bit of an annoyance, really.
You could try an optical drive emulator like Daemon tools.
buckoa51 can you email me and help me install this game to get it to work
Nope, follow the guide and if something doesn’t work post a comment and I’ll help if I can.
idk how to install it
Try reading the guide then.
no I have windows 8 and could not inisalize graphics hardware
Then judging by the other comments you’re out of luck as far as playing this game goes I’m afraid.
Finally it start. But I only hear the music and the screen is in White color. (Sorry for my english) ¡HELP!
so I spent all that money for nothing?
THANK YOU! I tried every combination of compatibility mode I could think of with no luck. This worked without a hitch :)
Hey! Its my idea or the link its not there anymore? Where its the link for the CD file?
What CD file?
It really worked! Thanks, i’ve been wanting to play this game for the past 2 monts. I had the disk but it would not install the game, i tried everything, but nope, nothing happened… Until i saw this post. This is one of my favourite Star Wars game and i can play it thanks to you.
ISO FIle ??????????????
I can’t find the Phantom Menace CD !
problem install !!!!!!!!!!!! HELP !!
This is commercial software, you will need to purchase a copy if you don’t have one.
Well im sad cuz i love this game and i did everything asked in the instruction and i still get the COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE … any solution plz
Wish I could help but it really seems there’s no workaround for that issue yet.
Please try the potential fix we’ve just uploaded. Check under the “Troubleshooting” section for more information.
The game won’t start even though i’ve tried every trouble shoot option. It just keeps being black and doing nothing.
Did you try our newest fix? The one filed under “COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error” ?
I am having the same problem that Ralf is having. I got past the “COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE” error using the newest fix, but it hangs, showing nothing but a black screen. After that, I tried running WMAIN.EXE in various compatibility modes and under dxwnd, but none of that worked either.
My graphics card is an AMD Radeon HD 8470D and I’m attempting to run the game on Windows 8.1 64bit.
Well the new attempted fix (which seems to be a bit of a failure, sorry, it works for me but then so does the original un-fixed version) has been patched to use OpenGL so is unlikely to work with DXWnd.
How long did you wait after the black screen appeared? Sometimes the WineD3D wrapper takes a few minutes to start showing the videos.
I waited about 3-4 minutes at a time.
That’s probably long enough, but try 10 minutes just to be sure.
I tried that just now and it still hangs.
for me the istaller has been stuck on coping the music for at least an hour whys this happening im using win7 ultimate
Sounds like there’s a problem with your CD.
No solution for AMD graphics cards? :(
Nothing tried so far works, no.
it runs great, and that zip file to fix the graphics issue BRILLIANT
Do you mean the fix listed under “COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error” ? I was beginning to think that wasn’t of any benefit!
Hy!
First, I wanna thank you for this installer, I haven’t played this game since I don’t have my old pc anymore, and good to have it back. It works quite well for me.
The only thing I thought I should note here is the fps and sound lagging. As for the sound, when I freshly start a game and some conversation comes in, it’s good, continuous, but when I had been playing for a while and then a conversation comes in, it happens to be laggy sometimes.
And as for the video, it has a low fps. Not too low, it’s playable, but higher would be better. It is disturbing especially when I’m turning with Obi-Wan.
Do you have any suggestions about solving this? I have a Lenovo G580 laptop with i3-2328M (2,2 GHz) and Nvidia GeForce GT 635M.
Thanks, Bálint
Guys, I was just trying to install this sweet old game of my childhood in my modern PC using an ATI card and I couldn’t make the game run. BUT… Here’s where the best part kicks in… I finally archieved it by downloading the fix in this page and also doing this:
1. Right click on WMAIN.EXE > Properties
2. Go to Compatibility and check the option that says “Run on 256 colors” or something like that. I don’t know how it’s written in english computers, I speak spanish.
Hope this can help someone else to play this awesome game, I was so excited to play it that I couldn’t give up when I noticed the game didn’t run.
Good luck and keep up this awesome page!
It works!!! Thanks a lot man!! Qué gran hallazgo, muchísimas gracias! :D
Hiya,
Just recently came back to try out your fix for AMD people.
I’m running an 3.6GHz i7 4790, 16GB RAM, and an R9 290 with Windows 8.1 x64. Patching over allows me to run the game (so that’s a giant leap in the right direction!), but I’m getting about 1FPS in the menus, and seemingly less in game.
If you’ve got any ideas for me, they’d be much appreciated!
Again, thanks so much for the effort on this game! (And Racer, too!)
For those with AMD cards having trouble using DGVoodoo along with a supplemental dll allows the game to run (almost) perfectly!
After using the installer here, follow instructions under the “Could not initialize graphics hardware” subsection.
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_I_%E2%80%93_The_Phantom_Menace
This will conflict with the existing fan-made patch, so please use the original executable if you want to try this.
Good thing to note.
Also, your Obi.ini link seems to be broken. Just a heads up!
Ah yes it is, our hosts have got a lot stricter with which file types we can offer for download, I’ll have to add it to a zip file tomorrow.
WMAIN.EXE has stopped working error. Tried all instructions including wiki instructions mentioned by LordBeverage. any ideas?
Win7 x64 on Intel Core 2 DUO e7200 @2.53GHz, 4GB DDR 3 (dual Channel), ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Extracted this from the event logger:
WMAIN.EXE
0.0.0.0
371d4700
ntdll.dll
6.1.7601.18798
5507b3e0
c0000005
0002e41b
10d4
01d08d3b52f43c8d
C:\PROGRA~2\LUCASA~1\THEPHA~1\WMAIN.EXE
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll
Hope this helps in some way
How did you install it?
What steps did you use to implement dgvoodoo?
Used the installer from this site. copied the 2 files from the MS folder to the game folder. Started dgvoodoosetup and made sure passthru to real Directx was unchecked.
Seems good. Other clarifications: I assume you’re mounting a disk image to run? It’s NOT the “Could not initialize graphics hardware” error, right? The game crashes right away?
yeah its a disc image mounted with daemon. I do have the disc, but it was too damaged to read so i found a copy online and mounted the iso. its not the could not initialize graphics hardware error. the launcher loads but when i click play the screen goes black and the WMAIN.EXE has stopped working msg pops almost immediately.
Ah, well the dgvoodoo fix is meant to get around the “Could not initialize graphics hardware” error, which seems to be borne of AMD graphics drivers that no longer work with this directX. It’s a “wrapper”.
First things first, you’ve got to get a shake of the finger for using a downloaded disc image, these installers are meant for people who are using their own legal copies. You can get a replacement for less than lunch at Panda Express:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00000IZ7Q/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1431558416&sr=8-1
Couple things to try though:
1) Did you copy the old atiumdag.dll to your game directory? http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_I_%E2%80%93_The_Phantom_Menace#Could_not_initialize_graphics_hardware
2) Reinstall?
3) Navigate to the game folder and run WMAIN.EXE directly?
4) Run as administrator/make sure the install folder isn’t “read only”?
5) Try starting the game in a resolution higher than 640×480?
6) Try forcing certain settings with DGVoodoo (In the “General” and “DirectX” tabs)?
Good luck!
Thanks for all your help LordBeverage.
Figured it out. I started fresh… the uninstaller wouldnt work so i manually deleted the game folder, start menu folder and registry entries. i used the installer provided here. without any modifying i tried starting the game just to see. and still got the WMAIN.EXE has stopped error. Never got the “Couldn’t initialize graphics hardware” error which is strange because i was pretty sure the ATI HD 5770 is an AMD chip. ok… so what fixed it was choosing Windows XP in compatibility. the WInXP with any service packs didnt work, so just WinXP. I also checked Admin as well.
sorry. wanted to correct myself… have to run WMAIN.EXE using WinXP(SP2). just realized there is not an option in WIN7 for winxp without any SP. Also it should be noted that i only ran WMAIN.EXE this way and it worked. TPM.exe didnt work until i ran it under the same compatibility as wmain.
What problems did you have with the uninstaller?
I installed the game using your custom installer, and downloaded the atiumdag.dll file listed on the http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_I_%E2%80%93_The_Phantom_Menace#Issues_fixed page, but I still get the “Could Not Initialize Graphics Hardware” error message. Why does everything hate me?
Did you try DGVoodoo2?
Would i be copying the files from the MS folder over or the 3Dfx folder?
Follow the tutorial here – https://www.play-old-pc-games.com/compatibility-tools/dgvoodoo-tutorial/
I have the image mounted with Virtual CloneDrive and used the installer on this site.
Loads perfectly but the playable character SPINS clockwise, rendering keyboard control useless. i will start all over and try again.
The installer is freezing for me.. agh, it seems like I’m destined never to play this game again.
I wish someone could upload the game for download that’s already patched out and working for Windows 8
Want the moon on a stick too? :-). I can’t go around uploading copyright games my site would just be shut down. The game /does/ work on most Windows 8 machines, just follow the guide carefully.
I figured out my problem. I had a game controller installed that was causing issues. After totally nuking the rogue controller driver, keyboard controls work great. Also, I have an SNES controller that works perfectly too. Took my about 5 mins to destroy level 1!
Hi Just followed your guide and its all working nicely on my windows 10 laptop, but after completing the first level the game crashes with this message, stdbmp.c(344): This BMP File uses a bit depth which I do not support yet.
It’s been a long time since my first comment on this game, but I finally got this game to work under my Windows 10 desktop with an AMD card (R7 265 Dual-X 2GB GDDR5).
But when I go for The Swamps of Naboo level, the game crashes, making my entire PC to crash as well… Anyone knows what can this be?
I’m trying to figure out what I can do to stop this issue.
What did you do to get it working on your AMD card? Have you tried limiting the frame-rate somehow to prevent that crash?
Well, I was about to give up, but decide to try a few more times.
I’ve tried everything in this topic, and found a solution, hope it helps the others… First I’ve installed the game normally by using the custom installer, then downloaded the PhantomMenaceWD3D.zip file from here, overwrite the original WMAIN.EXE along with the dlls and finally, to get rid of COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error and make the game start, I’ve used the dgVoodoo2 using the ”dgVoodoo virtual 3d accelerated” as the videocard with ”Force bilinear filtering” and ”Force linear mip filtering” checked and BAAAMM, the game starts!! Hahahaha xD
About the crashes, it seems that I was using the Windows compatibility mode when it was happening. Unchecking the compatibility mode (and only the ”Run this program as administrator” option checked) seems to get rid of the crashes (However I’m not 100% right if this really make the game stop crashing, but at least the game is running very well now) .
Now I’m playing the game without any problems, and about to finish Escape From Theed level!
Sorry if my english isn’t that good, but I hope it helps the others with the COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error!
Good luck to all!
Everything work good except…i’m lagging so bad both ingame and main menu and become unplayable to continue.
AMD FX-4100 HD6970 8GB W7 64bit
Hi there! Thank you so much for this – have been searching for years to be able to play this again! It install great, and I can actually play it, but there seems to be a lot of lagging issues – game play is slow to respond and the cut scenes are lagging so much that it’s almost unplayable. If you had any advice on the matter it would be much appreciated! Cheers.
This is happening to me too – all the downloads worked, tweaked a few things, once I actually get into the game I get the first few frames of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and then it freezes. Sometimes I get their dialogue when it’s frozen too, but then I have to end task the whole game. I hope someone has an answer!
Unable to launch. Used the installer provided, as well as the WMAIN patch for ati. Sadly neither worked. About to try with DXWnd and see if it works. Just throwing this in for reference on the WMAIN alternative for ATI cards. Initially tried with only the installer, got the start up error. After replacing the WMAIN, had an indefinite loading screen at launch.
Specs:
Win 10
Quad Core 3ghz
8G RAM
ATI Radeon HD 7700
Effortless. After some quick “Let’s try it this way”, I’ve gotten the game to run flawlessly. Install it using the provided installer, skip the WMAIN patch if you’re using ATI. Download dgVoodoo and drop the MS .dll’s into the install directory for the game. Launch and you’re good to go.
Yep, we do recommend trying dgVoodoo2 in the guide.
Thanks for the fix :)
For some reason I cannot use custom resolution 1440×1080 (4:3 ratio pillarboxed on my 1080p monitor). When I put that resolution in the Obi.ini file, it doesn’t work as expected: pillarboxes are thinner than they’re supposed to be, and picture looks lower res. than at 1920×1080. The closest thing I can get is 1280×1024. Aren’t all custom resolutions supposed to work? Can’t see why 1440×1080 won’t work as it should.
There’s another issue: neither fraps nor msi afterburner will take any screenshots. All I get is a black screen. I would appreciate any help.
Thanks!
Finaly works :D
with help of dgVoodoo, on my win 8.1 with AMD Radeon HD 6670 XD
Hi! I start first level but allways it get lagged. Help me please! but thank u this site is amazing
Have you tried dgVoodoo2?
Hey i made it work with voodoo2 :D also i went right click on wmain.exe and choose properties, compabilities and ‘run as adminstrator’. same thing with TPM.exe. they have to be the same :D works great! thank you so much
Great. To avoid running as admin its usually just a matter of changing permissions on the games folder or installing to somewhere outside of the program files or program files (x86) folders.
I installed the game with your installer, that worked fine.
I got the COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE error and used your file to fix that.
Now when I start the game, it remains a black screen.
I tried to edit the “obi” file, but mine is almost empty and says nothing about screen resolutions. Mine just says:
[options]
Sound 3D Driver=Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio
primary=0
3d_device=display
gamma=100
all_additive=0
Any ideas?
Had to get me a Windows 7 computer,but I can finally play this gem! Thanks for the installer
I have Pentium D Dual Core 3.4GHz, 1TB, Windows 7 Home Premium PC
I can get the game to work, but it freezes up after a few minutes every time. I tried changed the compatibility setting to earlier version windows and and it does not help. Let me know. Thanks
Hello :)
I wanted to thank you for the time and effort to create this installer. I just found my old CD of this amazing STAR WARS game and couldn’t get it to work, and my search for solutions to use a 16-bit installer with win 7 didn’t produce any helpful advice. So thanks to you I get to enjoy this game again after eleven years :D
Best wishes and greetings from germany
Wow, such a nice work!
You not only created a standalone installer but also fixed all possible problems anyone can get. This is responsible blogging and real work, not just fancy traffic making copy-paste material.
I salute you mister or madam or whatever you are :)
Well I don’t think it’s really true to say we fixed all possible problems :)
Use this settings
http://i.imgur.com/JVlhWy5.jpg
This installer has worked great for me, and other than getting about 26 or so fps it has been playable. However, oddly today when i loaded it up it has been getting no higher than 8 fps, which is pretty much unplayable. Even after trying fixes and reinstalls the game is locked at 8. Im still on the same drivers so I don’t know what could have caused the change.
Ideas?
i downloaded both patches to install, and play but no matter what game is moving extremely slow. I tried emptying my computer, but it doesn’t change
Your installation exe crashes at half for me. Have anyone experiences this?
After I tried most of these solutions together and nothing worked, I got it working on Win10 64bit with AMD graphics card using dgVoodo. Ive reinstalled the game using the supplied patched installer and used dgVoodo inside, using no other patching methods. In combination with other solutions (such as PhantomMenaceWD3D) it didn’t work, so I suggest people having similar problems trying the same.
I honestly have this problem, too, but the game continuously pauses every second and a half, and then locks at 8 fps.
When I use the Voodoo driver, the game literally speeds up to where it skips dialogue… Yet, it still pauses every second or two or so.
Finally got it working after a solid 90 minutes of trying everything and almost giving up. Here’s what finally worked for me. (For reference, I’m using a Macbook Pro 2015 model (has an AMD graphics card) with Windows 8.1 installed.)
1) Use the replacement installer provided on this page to install the game. For reference, I happened to install the game into a folder inside of My Documents, not inside the default folder it selects on your c:\ drive. (This may have helped me avoid some of the OS permissions problems some people were running into…)
2) Go here and download the atiumdag.dll file and place it inside the game’s installation folder. Get the file from this page: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_I_%E2%80%93_The_Phantom_Menace
3) Download and use dgVoodo 2 exactly as directed on that same page I listed in step 2.
4) Run the game as you normally would. For me, this is all it took to get it working.
Huge “thank you!” to BuckoA51 for posting this (I’m assuming?) and to LordBeverage for his contribution in the comments section, without which I would have probably given up in disappointment a while ago. I tried everything I could at first but it just didn’t work, so I uninstalled the game and started over and did as I described above, and that sequence of steps worked for me.
Got the game working instantly on Windows 10, for some reason the framerate is terrible even on a low resolution setting…. on a Surface Pro 3 with 2GB RAM and a 2.5GHz processor…
Same here. FPS seems to be capped at 20 FPS. Maybe that’s how the original was.
Hi, everything works except for the blue fog or the fog effect in some levels, how do enable that as there no such setting under options?
Wow! This was such a great find. Thank you so much for what you do!
HEY GUYS. Thank’s for uploading all the patches and troubleshooting issues. I downloaded everything and managed to get everything to work. There’s just ONE F-ING PROBLEM. The graphics looks awful. I’ve done everything correctly.
I’m running dgvoodoo2,
I managed to get around the “graphics hardware” error,
There’s nothing wrong with the resolution, looks good,
I have no issues saving games or anything.
The only thing is that the game LOOKS really weird. Check the wetransfer link bellow to see a picture.
Anyone else experiencing this???
Im running a Macbook Pro mid 2017
with a AMD Radeon Pro graphics card. (Yes I downloaded the patch for ATI/AMD cards)
Thanks for providing the installer for modern OS’, it installed fine and quickly after mounting the Iso :) Also I was getting COULD NOT INITIALIZE GRAPHICS HARDWARE at first, but seems it doesn’t support a width higher than 1920 ;) I found the max I could run it at was from editing the config to 1920×1440 (I have a 2560×1440 monitor), but if I change it to 2560×1440 I get that error again.
Hey guys,
when I try downloading the replacement installer for 64 bit from MEGA it gets stuck at 13-14% and won’t go any further. Is it something any of you guys had encountered or is it only on my side? Appreciate the feedback <3
Not had that issue I’m afraid, are you sure your security software is not blocking it?
Hello, I have a problem: when i launch the .exe to install it, it says :”I can’t find the Phantom Menace CD” but i have the original one and i put it in the cd thing. Can you help me please?
You must have a different edition of the game to us, sorry but there’s not a lot I can do about that.
Good Day All! I finally got it to work!!! I tried the above detailed instructions, didn’t work, tried voodoo, didn’t work! Tried the WMAIN change and it did but Glitching and bugs so…Didn’t work as unplayable. All the errors you all got…I got. Soo frustrating right!
Okay so I ended up going to purchase the game on Amazon. You can try and Download it online and get the ISO. Hope it still works…Anyway…When you buy the CD…DON’T INSTALL IT…If you do, you will get all the above issues again from this website guide, wmain, voodoo the lot and all won’t work So here is what you do:
DL the ISO or Buy the game.
Then with the CD in or ISO loaded, go to this website:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/i8v2ywswbn7p6vw/SW_TPM_v1.1_x64_%2526_x86_CD_Setup_%255BMULTI%255D.exe/file
DL the Custom CD INSTALLER (not dvd installer as didn’t work for me for some reason).
Then install and play! That simple right?
Well it is an alternative Inno Setup installer which includes dgvoodoo 2.5, widescreen resoluten fix, new launcher with extended game hardware configuration, batch startfix to play the game with single core on multi core systems, patch v1.1 integrated, AND FFmpeg with Batchfile to extracting video and Scumm Revisited v2.0.12.46 for convert iMUSE audio files of the game. It’s the ultimative installer for english, german und french version for this game.
So it will work for you fine! The Nostalgia feeling is amazing! It runs sooo smooth on my Windows 10 Laptop ATI card version so all working fine!!
So So Happy. Thank you to this page. I tried the step by step guide on here but just wasn’t working. So thankful I found this page. The link I have shared, I found on google and it was a WIKI page for the game, I scrolled down to “Installing on 64-bit versions of Windows” and that is where I found the CD Version Installer.
Enjoy all, who is reading this in 2020 and beyond!!
Adam
NOTE – Visitors follow and use external links at their own risk!
Thanks m8! I deleted everything and tried your way and it worked on the first try
passing by to thank, I made dozens of attempts, I was almost giving up. I followed your tutorial and finally managed to run on my windows 10 perfectly. my thanks!
do someone also has problems in level 2 when you leave the Water ?
Every time my game crashes in exactly this moment
After a few tries, I managed to get the game working, but it runs at a staggerin <10fps. It took a whole minute for Qui Gonn to walk from where he was standing to next to Obi Wan(and its not that far)
Any thoughts about this?
that’s with DGVoodoo2?
No, I did the obi config and, after some time of black screen waiting, it loaded. The menu screen is at normal speed, but once the game loaded the fps just dropped
runs perfect but 16 fps.
Using win 10 nvidia 1080, does anyone know of an fps fix?
Hello
Thanks for everything you did mister I love this game and getting to play it once again is fantastic
I encountered a problem though when I go back and load a save it loads till 11% or so and goes back to the menu, when I try to load the same save again it makes some kind of electric sound and it doesnt load at all
same as with the other saves
I dont know if it is a common problem but if you know about it any help would be appreciated
thx
Now that I checked it I didnt finished reading the troubleshooting section at the bottom, and I did try doing that and it didnt seem to work, but I happen to play it from the disc image as I dont know any workarounds, so I came to figure that once I dismounted the image and mounted it again it was on a different letter designation so it didnt let me either load saves or start a new game
so I mounted it to the original image from where I installed it
I dont know if that was the problem but it worked for me, probably sounds dumb and incredibly obvious for some people out here lol
anyways sorry for any inconvenience and have a nice day sir
The installer not working due to the 16bit vs 64bit was the exact issue I was having, so I downloaded this and it worked!!!
It said it couldn’t see the CD, so I simply made the game files into and iso and mounted them onto a virtual CD-ROM drive.
Thank you so much!!!
Just got the game. It is installed and ready to play. When i do play the game its slow and unplayable. Any idea how to fix this?
Hello there !
When I try with dgVoodoo2 all the scenery is blank, I can play quite normally and the sprites are normal, but everything else is in whitish beige color. My graphic card is an MSI radeon rx 580 armor 8g oc, so AMD if that helps
Guys, I can’t express enough my appreciation for You. Phantom Menace is my all-time favorite SW game, and of course, I came across the 16bit installer issue. I used the one You prepared and it worked like a charm. I added dgVoodoo, and my God, with x8 MSAA (my laptop kinda chokes a bit with x16) this game looks so nice.
You guys put some kind of dono service here like Ko-fi, and I won’t hesitate to drop 5gbp for fixes like this.
Really, really happy!
So it took a while to get it working on my 64 bit windows PC, but I did. I downloaded the game from the original CD using the installer. I got the dreaded ‘Could not initialise hardware’, so I downloaded the fix for that (replacing WMAIN), but it didn’t work. I tried using dgVoodoo, but that didn’t work. I saw the comment on changing WMAIN.EXE to ‘256 colour mode’. Finally that worked, but only the patched WMAIN.EXE worked, not the original. Unfortunately, the game started (after a little wait on a black screen, be patient), but it was soooooo slow, like 1 fps, and unfortunately was unplayable. I thought that typing in ’60fps’ into the console would help, but that didn’t. I tried downloading atiumdag.dll, because I have an AMD card (radeon RX 570), but that did not help :(
So I started from scratch. I downloaded the game using a different installer, called otvdm. I tried swapping the WMAIN.EXE patch out, with no luck. I tried dgVoodoo again, this time downloaded an older version, v2.5 (released: 2016.01.09). I copied the Voodoo dll files into the installation directory. This this time, using the original WMAIN.EXE, I double clicked straight on the file. Up came a message: “the procedure entry point createdxgifactory2 could not be located in the dynamic link library D3D11.dll”. I figured out that it was talking about the D3D11.dll in C:\windows\System32\D3D11. Thanks to google, I found out that this is a directx file. My computer has direct X installed. So I googled a solution, and apparently you can rename your game file Dxgi.dll to D3D11.dll. Now, since I have Direct X 12, I renamed the game file Dxgi.dll to D3D12.dll (there was D3D12Core.dll back in system32, but I wasn’t sure so I just changed the game file to D3D12.dll instead. Don’t change the name of the system 32 file!!!!)
So getting back to the game, I started up WMAIN.EXE, and to my amazement, the game opened smoothly and sharply in dgVoodoo!!!!!! I then tried clicking on TPM.EXE, and that worked too!!
Huzzah!!!!!!!! The game now runs smoother than a baby’s bottom.
I do hope this helps someone out there, its a truly amazing game that everyone should play. I just wish they did a game like this for every episode!!
May the force (and computers) be with you!!!!
None of that really makes sense, though I’m not sure what you managed to do by randomly renaming DLLs to be honest.
It makes perfect sense, and I can 100% confirm it worked for me, so it may help someone else.
Thanks for this great website and support!
Just one question: I have the german version and the game is now mixed up with english visuals and subtitles but also german visuals and soundfiles.
Is there a way to change the selection of the language or is it maybe possible to replace certain files with the ones from the Disk to make it a single language again?
Thanks in advance!
Hello,
Windows 10 OS
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics
Dedicated GPU: Nvidia RTX 3050
I only managed to start the game with Voodoo but after starting the background is broken, it has a white-cream-ivory colour. The character models: robots, Obi-wan, Qui-Gon, the health pack are fine but the whole background has this strange cream colour, you can’t differentiate doors.
Anyone knows a fix?