“Atlantis: The Lost Tales” on Windows 7


„Atlantis“
„Atlantis“

We’re writing the year 1997. Small Ginchen is about fifteen years old, when “Cryo Interactive” release the first game of the “Atlantis” series. We had a PlayStation 1, and someone gave us a few games for it – including “Atlantis”. It wasn’t particularly comfortable to play an adventure game with the control pad, but I liked the game so much that I gladly took on this burden.

Since then I have wanted to play this beautiful game again – but please, on the computer. So I bought it in the shop one day, but it wouldn’t start. I tried every tip I could find, but never managed to get the game running. Until now! And since, over the years, I have read from so many people that they are having the same problems and therefore can’t play their beloved “Atlantis”, I will put down in writing how I got it to work.

However, even if you don’t have the game, you should still take a look at the soundtrack und screenshots at the bottom. :)

Content

  1. Disk not found
  2. Graphics issues
  3. Crash on CD change
  4. Done!
  5. Soundtrack
  6. Screenshots

Disk not found

The first obstacle one might stumble over when starting the game is this error message:

“Restart with CD 1 in the drive.”

Depending on the version, however, you might also get the error message in French:

“Redémarrer avec le CD 1 dans le lecteur.”

Disk Management
Disk Management

The solution: If you have two (or more) CD drives, you have to put the “Atlantis” disk into the first one. (Obviously, the game was made at a time when multiple CD drives were something completely unimaginable.) If you don’t have a CD at all, but instead want to play from an image file using “Daemon Tools” or similar, you have to change the drive letter of the virtual drive so it comes before the real CD drive in the alphabet. Here’s how:
Right click on “My Computer” → “Manage” → “Storage” → “Disk Management”
Then right click the drives in question and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”.

Graphics Issues

Compatibility options
Compatibility options

Now I was able to actually start the game for the first time after all these years – but it kept minimizing itself every two seconds, and I ended up on the desktop. Here, the Windows compatibility settings can help: In the game directory (by default C:\CRYO\ATLANTIS), right click Atlantis.exe, go to “Properties” → “Compatibility”, and select “Run in 256 colors”. (If that still doesn’t help, you can also try the checkboxes for “visual themes”, “desktop composition” or different settings under “compatibility mode”.) It might just run now, and you can happily start playing. In this case, have fun!

However, it may also be that the game starts now, but the image is unidentifiable and full of stripes. Now there’s either good or bad news: For the CD version, there is a graphics patch; for the DVD version, there isn’t. So if you have the DVD version, you sadly have to give up at this point. If you search for “Atlantis” on certain sites, you will indeed come across a number of download possibilities for the CD version, like here, for example. But, unfortunately, these things are illegal. Too bad!
Now, if you own the CD version, you can simply download this patch and overwrite your old Atlantis.exe and cryo.dll with the new ones from the ZIP archive. Remember: For this new Atlantis.exe, you must again set the compatibility to 256 colors before starting!

Crash on CD change

Error on CD change
Error on CD change

Finally, there is one more problem: Eventually, when you try to enter the elevator to the hangar, you will be prompted to insert CD 2. Unfortunately, the game crashes with an error message when doing that. The simplest solution to this problem is to download the next savegame right after the CD change. Now open the “Atlantis” folder, where there should be no more than 26 .gam files at this time, and add the new savegame pa27.gam. After that you can load the elevator scene in the game via Escape → “Load game”.

Done!

Now everything should finally work. Only the animations of characters and mouse cursors run far too fast on modern computers, which looks extremely stupid most of the times. While there are some “CPU slowing tools” on the web, I’ve tried several of them, but to reduce the animations to a normal speed, I had to create so much CPU load that everything else (such as rotations, movements, video sequences etc.) became too jerky. So I think it’s better to just live with it. It’s not that bad, and you get used to it quite quickly. ;)

And now enjoy this beautiful, somewhat “MYST”-like game! (Actually, one of the sounds from the soundtrack strongly resembles the one from “MYST”, when you just travelled to a different world with a book.)

Soundtrack

“Atlantis” soundtrack
“Atlantis” soundtrack

While we’re already at it: The game has an, in my opinion, exceptionally beautiful soundtrack, which was even released as an album. It consists mostly of quiet, meditative sounds, good for relaxing and dreaming. My favorite: “Back to Atlantis“, which I’ve never gotten out of my head again since 1997.

Be sure to click and listen to the previews!

Screenshots

Finally, here are a few screenshots that I’ve made while playing. Click through them, if you like. :)


41 responses to ““Atlantis: The Lost Tales” on Windows 7”

  1. hi,

    just like you i would love to play this game after like 7 years one more time, but i encounterd a prblm. For the setup i have to select a drive to instal the game, with free space of 50MB . so i select C drive, with much more than 50 MB, next thing, these to litle free space!!,

    can you help me pls???

  2. What is the exact path you’re trying to install the game to? I remember that I had some problems when I tried to change the installation path to something like “C:\Games\CRYO” or “C:\Games\Atlantis”. But when I left it at “C:\CRYO”, as suggested by the game, it worked.

    If it still doesn’t work, you might try the solution posted here. They say that the game can’t handle a hard drive larger than 2 GB. (However, I installed it on a 50 GB drive, and it worked fine.)

  3. Hmmm, it should not give you the same error message, if your CD/DVD is in the uppermost drive. What exactly did you do? Or can you make a screenshot with the order of your drives? There must still be something wrong with it.

  4. First of all thanks for responding;

    Before I added the patch files, the game was working , however the graphics were catastrophic. I used Daemon tools as a virtual device. I run game via daemon tools

    After I added the patch files the game, in order to solve graphical problem, it gave me “Redémarrer avec le CD 1 dans le lecteur.” error. I run game in C:\CRYO\ATLANTIS —-> atlantis.exe

    If you still want more details I can make a video about how I did it and post it, so you tell me where I was wrong. Or anything you suggest. Thanks

  5. Hi,

    sorry for the delay, but I got my wisdom teeth out … :D

    Do you have the game version with 4 CDs or the one with 1 DVD? Because the graphics patch will only work with the CD version.
    If it worked before the patch, and now it doesn’t, this might be the problem. You really need the CD version. I think there is no way to make the DVD version work on a modern computer.

    Another way to play very old games would be a Virtual PC. You can download this program and pretend that you have an older Windows. I use it to run some extremely stubborn games. ;)

  6. Super lieben Dank für den Tip mit dem Patch !!!
    Hatte auch schon alles versucht … sogar mit VirtualBox keine Chance. War damals für mich das 3D Grafik Highlight überhaupt … und das auch noch ohne Installation :-) Nach so vielen Jahren immer noch toll … obwohl heute = auf nem modernen 24″ LED Monitor isses dann doch etwas pixelig ;-) … egal !

    lg und nochmals Danke !..
    Tom

  7. ich könnte dich knuutschen.. juhuuuuu.. mein geliebtes atlantis läuft auf windows 7 – genau wie du es beschrieben hast hats geklappt.. perfetto. dankeeeeeeeeeee und grüessli.. bruno

  8. i played the game without any problem until the ‘hangar’. i am playing with images and the game alerts error when i minimize it to change cd images 1 to 2. is there any way to fix it?

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