If you are having trouble with your Japanese game, and you have gone through everything on the Checklist of Common Game Problems, here are a few things you can try on your system to fix conflict or compatibility issues.
Change the Local Regional Settings and Time Zone to Japan - For most games, simply having Japanese set as the default for non-Unicode programs on the Advanced tab in the Regional and Language Options is all that is needed. There may be a few however where your local regional settings must also be in Japanese (this is the case on many Macromedia games). To do this, go into Control Panel and click on Regional and Language Options, and on the first tab under "Standards and formats" change it to Japanese, and under "Location", change it to Japan, then hit Apply and OK. Then double-click your time in the corner of the screen, go to the Time Zone tab, and change it to (GMT+09:00) Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo. However, this extra step is optional, most Japanese games will not require these specific settings. But if you are having trouble running a game with just the standard Japanese language support settings, then try changing these settings.
Update Your Video and Sound Drivers and DirectX - Check and see if there are any new drivers for your video card and sound card from the manufacterer's website. If you are not sure what kind of video or sound card you have, you can find out in Device Manager (on Windows XP, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, go to the Hardware tab, and click the Device Manager button). Also make sure you have the most recent version of DirectX from Microsoft's website.
Check for Missing Codecs - Try to find out if the game is having some sort of codec problem. This may be the case if the game is trying to load an opening movie and the system doesn't have the codecs it needs to run it, causing the game to lock up or not load. Sometimes you can find documentation on the game disk mentioning required codecs, or simply a copyright notice to specific a codec developer. You can also try installing some of the comprehensive codec packs available, such as the Combined Community Codec Pack. Also look to see if there is any way to access game settings from the installer or a separate game option .exe to disable opening movies or change video and sound settings for the game.
Try Different Hardware Acceleration Settings - Try changing the Hardware Acceleration of your video. On XP you can do this by right-clicking the Desktop, then chose Properties from the drop-down menu, go to the Settings tab, click the Advanced button, click the Troubleshoot tab, and try different acceleration settings by moving the slider. Some newer games may require the highest setting, while some older games run when it's set on a medium or lower setting. If you are having sound issues, you can also try changing the hardware acceleration of your sound: on XP, go into the Control Panel, click on Sound and Audio Devices, then on the Audio tab, click the Advanced button under Sound Playback, click the Performance tab, and try different settings with the Hardware Acceleration slider.
Try Compatibility Mode - If the game you are having troubles with is an older game, particularly one designed for Windows 95/98, then try XP's Compatibility Mode. If the game won't install, right-click the install file, go to Properties, then click the Compatibility tab, and check the box for "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and try Windows 98/Me or Windows 95. You can also try changing the display settings by setting the program to run in 256 colors or 640x480 screen resolution. You may also need to try changing the color settings on your system: right-click on the desktop, click the Settings tab, and under Color Quality try setting it to a lower setting. If you can install fine but not run the older game after install, then follow the above steps on the game .exe. Some older games may also require having the game disk in your primary CDROM drive (typically D:\).
If it is a really old Windows 95/98 game, and even XP Compatibility Mode won't work, you can set up a virtual drive on your system, using software such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware. These programs are designed to make a "virtual computer" on your computer, where you can install another operating system. You can use one of these software programs to create a virtual PC and then install a Japanese version of Windows 98 on it (remember, you will need the Japanese version of the OS, because regular Windows 98 doesn't provide Japanese native support). You should be able to play old DOS or Windows 95/98 games that don't work on XP on your virtual PC.
If none of the above works, it is hard to try to pinpoint the issue, since there is such a wide array of settings on any one individual's computer, making it hard to tell what exactly is causing the issue with the game.
Boys' Love Games Headquarters Complete Idiot's Guide to Japanese Gaming © March 2009
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