NHL Series Part II

[Ron]

Hey Matt

Im trying to play nhl 2002 on windows 10 and im not sure what do with that dx7z.dll file thing??

[Ron]

Hey Matt

Im trying to play nhl 2002 on windows 10 and im not sure what do with that dx7z.dll file thing??

[Ron]

Hello again

That issue is solved now. The game is working beautifully. Thanks for your help.

[Danny]

Hey Matt,
I'm having trouble with NHL 2002 after I launch it the menu and gameplay is extremely laggy. I followed the steps that you listed on the NHL 2002 page. I was able to get NHL 99 to work no problem and I am using Windows 8.1. I appreciate any help you can give me.

[Matt]

Hi Danny,

OK, so you tried both Direct3D and Glide mode? Was one more or less laggy than the other? Also, you don't have any compatibility modes set, do you? Those can cause lag.

First thing I would do is run the 3d setup program - might be in your start menu in the EA SPORTS\NHL 2002 folder. Run that and just press OK when the configurator pops up. This should reset your graphics settings.

Next, download dgvoodoo v2.54 from here. Unzip dgVoodooCpl.exe, ddraw.dll, and d3dimm.dll (located in MS folder inside the zip) to your NHL 2002 directory. Try the game again and see what happens.

[baguettez]

Hey, first of all thanks for your guides.

I was trying to run NHL98 on Windows 7 since forever. However, the SDB file for compatibility in the guide seems to be corrupt, or at least, doesn't work on Windows 7. I was able to make my own using MS Compatibility Toolkit and it worked. Now I have another problem, I'm using NGLIDE, but I think that it is not using the 3dfx wrapper and instead using DirectX, since the settings for resolution in NGLIDE don't work (resolution in game stays at 640x480). Also, after exiting a match, when the game is supposed to return to the main menu, it defaults to a black screen, and it can only be force closed with Task Manager.

EDIT: Nevermind, it seems that I needed to restart the game or something, since now it worked fine. Sorry and thanks again!!

EDIT: The SDB though didn't work so you may want to fix it for future users.

[Matt]

Hey, you're welcome and I'm glad you were able to get the game working.

Re: the sdb, what happened when you clicked on the PatchInstall.bat? Did you get a DOSbox popup for a fraction of a second? That's what it's *supposed* to do...just tested it on 10 and it worked. I'll have to find a way to test on 7 as my Win7 desktop is dead.

If you open up the Toolkit you can check to see whether the patch went in or not -- would be listed as "NHL 98 Update" under "Installed Databases".

Thanks for visiting and for the heads up.

[baguettez]

May 28, 2017 8:46:32 GMT -5 Matt said:

Hey, you're welcome and I'm glad you were able to get the game working.

Re: the sdb, what happened when you clicked on the PatchInstall.bat? Did you get a DOSbox popup for a fraction of a second? That's what it's *supposed* to do...just tested it on 10 and it worked. I'll have to find a way to test on 7 as my Win7 desktop is dead.

If you open up the Toolkit you can check to see whether the patch went in or not -- would be listed as "NHL 98 Update" under "Installed Databases".

Thanks for visiting and for the heads up.

Nope, it fails to install, either with the batch file, manually through command prompt or trying to open it with the Toolkit. Here's proof.



s16.postimg.org/8ysqatcet/Capture3.png



I made my own patch with the settings used for NFS2SE and it worked.

Probably some compatibility problem with the Toolkit used in Win10, or something.

[Danny]

Hi Matt,
You were right on the money about the compatibility mode, once I took that off it ran smoothly. Thanks for your help and for making all these guides you are doing great work.

[Matt]

Thanks BG - tested it on a virtual machine today and got the same result as you did. Really glad you pointed this out because I never would have known otherwise.

Just made a new one inside of Toolkit 5.6 which *seems* to work. Tested it inside of Windows 10 and it worked there as well. Need to test more, but it looks like sdbs created inside of 5.6 will work on Toolkit 6.1 (the Windows 10 version), but maybe not vice versa.

[Joham]

Hi i have got trouble with NHL 99, i followed your guide and i can start the game i even hear and see EA SPORTS logo and then just a black screen.

[Joham]

It´s working but lagging as hell.

[Matt]

Which version of Windows, Joham? And do you have any compatibility modes selected? Those can make it lag.

[maarcis12]

Hey, Matt.
Long time no see. Ok, i got a toughey for you, and it's towards NHL 2003. Is there any way to make this game work with a newer ie versions, cuz i had nhl 2004 running with a special fix from NHL rebuilt forums, that allowed game's ui to work on newer versions on ie without needing to downgrade my ie 10. Sometimes i couldn't figure what drugs was EA Sports dudes using when they thought that IE as an interface base for NHL 2003 and 2004 was even remotely a good idea. And sorry if it's off-topic in this category.

[Matt]

Hey bud.

I check the nhl04rebuilt forums every so often to see if anyone ever released a fix, but no luck. Not sure it will ever get fixed. I'd love to help myself but it's way above my knowledge base. Someone would have to actually edit the game code to make it work, or at least the JavaScript parts. Like you said, people did it with 04 which is similar - there just aren't enough people who care about 03 to make it worth the time to fix, I guess.

You are so right about the IE stuff. I always wondered if the developers were actually that dumb, or if it wasn't a backhanded way to try and make you buy future editions by placing what amounted to an 'auto destruct' sequence inside the game.