Omikron: The Nomad Soul – WinXP Problems

Omikron: The Nomad Soul: Problem running on WinXP SP2 and opening the Map freezes the game.

I had first played this amazing game on a Win98 system and reinstalled it on my WinXP PC on one of those ’slow’ days.  Goings were not too smooth on WinXP.  Firstly, it appears that you need to use the US NoCD patch for the game to start properly, due to some SafeDisc issues. This patch can be downloaded from www.gamecopyworld.com. Secondly, the game sometimes freezes when map is accessed from player ’sneak’. From my experience, it happens only when the power scheme selected is “Portable/Laptop” and this issue can be worked around by employing “Always On” power scheme from Windows Power Options.

Enjoy.

21 Responses to “Omikron: The Nomad Soul – WinXP Problems”

  1. ffrreeaakk Says:

    Thanks for info! It’s my first time I play Omikron (better late than never) and encountered this annoying problem. I googled for it and landed here :) I tried switching power scheme but problem was present regardless of these schemes. You made me think and try things… and I found another solution… funny fact is that what finally helped me was just running game in Win98 compatible mode. Omikron Right click -> Properities -> Compatibility.
    Thanks! Now let me dive into Omikron. Greetings!

  2. I was trying to get this game running and had the same problems most everyone else did in WinXP. I tried the no cd crack, running in compatibility mode, finally rolling back my drivers did the trick to start it up. I used 94.24 nvidia drivers from tweakforce, a forum post of theirs showed up when I was googling around for answers on how to get this game to work.

    The audio is still spotting, sometimes it won’t be there when I start up the game. And the map freezing is still there as well.

    “Hopefully” I can just keep restarting the game until the audio comes on and there won’t be any point in the game where I absolutely need the map.

  3. Same glitch – crashing after looking at the map, found this post as well. In my case none of the above solved it. However, it pointed me in the right direction: besides selecting Win98 compatibility mode, I also seleced to restrict to 256 colors (same menu). This completely solved it, and seems to onfirm the above poste’s suspicion that the glitch is in fact related to NVidia (as so often is the case…)

  4. I manged to run the game in XP successfully, but the intro movies are totally screwed. It’s just a mess of colored squares, accompanied by a soundtrack. In any Windows video player they run smoothly though.
    Can anybody give me a hint to the root of the problem?

  5. Cyberia Says:

    Anyone having problem with intro movies(crashing after start or whatever) under win xp…try http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/omikronthenomadsoul/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-42347332&pid=193073

    “Solution:
    go into your game directory, and then into the “FLIS” directory. There are three movies there; if you want to keep them around for any reason, rename them, otherwise you can delete them, either is fine. Create three new text files, and rename them to match what the movies used to be.
    EIDOS.MPG
    GAME.MPG
    QUANTIC.MPG”

    Works perfectly for me.
    The only problem is still map freeze

  6. Game works fine on win xp sp3 (runnin’ the old athlon xp). But I have some problems with moving the game character. After pressing movement button (arrows – single push only!), character starts to turn ’round and round for a few (sometimes more than 5) seconds. The same goes after re-typing buttons to a different setup…
    If anyone could help. Thanks.

  7. I have this problem when i launch the game: “RUNTIME.ICD error. Program will be closed”.
    I tryed everything: nocd patch, compatibility mode.
    What i can do? Thanks.

  8. I Forgot.
    I’ve Win XP pro SP2 and a nVidia GF8600GT

  9. I have the same exact problem, “RUNTIME.ICD error, Program will be closed.”

    I have done the nocd patch from gamecopyworld.com, trying to run the game using disk cd 2, and compatibility mode. I’m on XP SP3, nVidia 7200 256 MB.

    I see that in some other games for Xp fixes, it involves deleting an installed file from the hard drive, so I deleted the Runtime.icd file which does nothing for a fix.

  10. Damn!! I had to take back my PIII 800Mhz whit a W98SE installed… only because the “nomad soul” renderer is very bad!!

  11. ffrreeaakk Says:

    Toshiba Amilo Li2727, Core 2 Duo 1,7GHz, 2GBRAM, Intel graphic card, Vista Home Premium – Omikron works like a dream :D without any tricks, just compatibility mode

  12. Fr33kSh0w2012 Says:

    I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING TO GET THIS BELOVED GAME TO RUN USING *WINDOWS XP HOME SP3
    *CORE 2 DUO 1.8GHZ
    *1 GB RAM
    *A.T.I. RADEON 4830 (SAPPHIRE)

    WHY DOESN’T SOME ONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO PROGRAM RE-WRITE THE RUNTIME.EXE TO STOP ALL THIS CRAP FROM HAPPENING AND TO STOP ALL THOSE ANNOYING BLUE SQUARES ARTIFACTS AND OTHER CRAP!!

  13. Donnerstag Says:

    If you’ve got an error when you launch the game, try to do that :

    Step 1 : copy the files of the cd2 on your hard dsik

    Step 2 : Delete the video files located in the file called FLIS

    Step 3 : make an image of the files of the cd2 or engrave them on a cd

    It should work. But it doesn’t solve the graphic problems !

    And sorry for my english, I’m french.

  14. I found this game in an old box I had and installed it on my XP SP3 system. Everything worked except when the game froze when viewing the map. Anyway, I played this game 9 years ago on a Win98 system and got half way through it. I still had the saved game all this time. But I forgot what the hell I was supposed to be doing in the game. I like the music and the evironments. But hated the interface and the puzzles that had to be traversed. I tossed the game and will see what else in this old box that will.

  15. If you have more than one processor, this may be the problem. Run the game, then quickly access the Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del.

    Under the processes tab, find and right-click on runtime.exe to bring up the context menu. Click “Set Affinity…” You should see a list of CPUs running. If you have more than one CPU with a check mark next to it, uncheck all but one.

    From now on, your computer should only use one processor for the game, which is what Omikron was designed for.

    This solution works for most older games, by the way, you just need to make sure you only do this for that particular game’s executable. Hope this helps.

  16. ffrreeaakk Says:

    Again, I have new computer and I had “RUNTIME.ICD error”.
    I turned on compatibility mode and deleted movies (replaced them with empty files). And game seems to work fine. Anyone knows where save files are stored ?

  17. ffrreeaakk Says:

    I have C2D E8200 2×2,66GHx, WinXP, 4GB RAM (3,5 to be precise :) ), Sound Blaster Audigy, Geforce 7900GS + most recent drivers. No problem.

  18. Something I noticed in a posting i’d like to quote….

    “Vij Says:

    November 21, 2009 at 3:38 pm
    If you have more than one processor, this may be the problem. Run the game, then quickly access the Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del.

    Under the processes tab, find and right-click on runtime.exe to bring up the context menu. Click “Set Affinity…” You should see a list of CPUs running. If you have more than one CPU with a check mark next to it, uncheck all but one.

    From now on, your computer should only use one processor for the game, which is what Omikron was designed for.

    This solution works for most older games, by the way, you just need to make sure you only do this for that particular game’s executable. Hope this helps.”

    Has anyone tried doing this yet and does it work or not? Has anyone found a true solution to getting this game to run on Win XP SP3, quad core processor. I want to try setting the affinity but am wondering if doing that will affect how the system runs afterwards.

  19. Changing affinity is totally safe for your computer, operating system and software. Don’t worry. I have Core 2 Duo and didn’t have to change it to run the game. The problem is people get RUNTIME.ICD error before they can change affinity, because the game crashes.
    Anyway, I not sure if changing affinity will help.

  20. got it to work hiting control+alt+del seems to be the only thing I had to do then switch back to the game. the video behind the menu is all purple and stuff so started the game then exited and the menu appeared as it should normally.

    So strange though considering the demo runs with zero problems at all.

  21. Well, I get the game to load no problem BUT when I start the game there is no video. The audio plays and so does the game, but there is no video. I have a dualcore 6600 and nvidia 250gts. Im thinking cause my card is too new?

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