Fix - Choppy Framerate & Messed up Menus on Windows 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The game may or may not run at first. If it does, though, it will probably do so with a slow framerate and weird black bars where the menu is supposed to be. To fix, install this patch. Or, if you know your way around the ACT toolkit's Compatibility Administrator (32-bit), the compatibility fixes you want to select are "Layer_ForceDirectDrawEmulation" and "DWM8And16BitMitigation."

 

After installing the patch the game should run smoothly, with no black bars (hit ALT+F3 to access the menu). I should mention that this fix is for the original, unpatched version of the game. There's a 3D patch for this floating around on the interwebs, but once I install it, the black bars and slow framerate return, and the fixes don't seem to work. This can be a frustrating game in general. It's one of those games that work, until it stops working for no apparent reason. If you can't get it going quickly, I don't recommend wasting too much time on it.