Squirt the Cat Installer – Shivers 2

Shivers 2 – Harvest of Souls

Other Games

Modified for Windows XP/Vista

  • XP/Vista installer.
  • XP/Vista windows executable.
  • Scales to use entire screen (Direct3D bilinear interpolation).
  • Eliminates black lines in cut-scenes.
  • Per-user save games (Vista friendly).
  • Fixes exceptions and script errors under XP/Vista.
  • Fixes panning speed on modern CPUs.

Requirements

  • Windows XP or Vista.
  • DirectX 9c (Direct3D).
  • Shivers 2 CD set (not included):
    • English

Download

Changes to the original game

XP/Vista Installer

  • New installer created to be XP/Vista friendly.
  • The installer will install the files normally included by a Sierra install.

XP/Vista Executable

  • Modified version of the original Sierra Windows 95 executable.
  • Fixes SP alignment bugs causing script errors under XP/Vista.
  • Fixes div-by-zero exception causing game to fail under XP/Vista.
  • Fixes panning speed on modern CPUs.
  • Eliminate black lines in cut-scenes.
  • Use hardware support for mouse cursor.
  • Upscale to full screen resolution while maintaining aspect ratio.
    • Dirext3D hardware accelerated bilinear interpolation.
    • On a widescreen monitor black bars are added left/right to maintain correct aspect ratio.
  • Store save games per user to work under Vista. Default APPDATA locations:
    • XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Sierra\Shivers 2
    • Vista: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Sierra\Shivers 2

Common problems

Occasional horizontal line glitches in some cutscenes: Some cutscenes have occasional horizontal line glitches. These glitches are present in the original game.

Mouse cursor is a large black box:
1) Download and install the latest Windows drivers for the video card.
2) Check that the color-depth is set to 32-bit in the Windows display settings.

Crashes during gameplay: If you find a repeatable crash, please post on the SquirtTheCat forum and include the steps to reproduce.

Change log

Release 20080704:

  • Fix bug in hardware cursor support causing corrupt cursor and/or crash.

Release 20080628:

  • Use hardware support for mouse cursor.

Release 20080622:

  • Fix problem causing long startup time.
  • Improve cutscene upscaling quality.
  • Improve handling of captions over cutscenes.
  • Cleanup dead code paths.

Release 20080618:

  • Fix panning speed by using a real-time reference.
  • Fix interactive animation timing.
  • Fix 100% CPU load during normal gameplay.

Release 20080611b:

  • Rescale panning speed adjustment to allow user to select a slower panning speed.

Release 20080611:

  • Render mouse cursor as seperate Direct3D object to improve mouse performance.
  • Improve Direct3D handling.
  • Improve cutscene handling.

Release 20080605:

  • Fix Direct3D error message when Ctrl-Alt-Del is pressed.
  • Improve to Direct3D handling.
  • Improve cutscene handling.

Release 20080602:

  • Fix possible privileged instruction crash.
  • Fix possible SP alignment bugs.
  • Fix not-enough-memory error under 64-bit Vista with >= 4GB RAM.
  • Improve error messages.

Release 20080601:

  • Fix captions in cutscenes.
  • Fix black line glitches in cutscenes.
  • Show error message if Direct3D initialization fails.

Release 20080531b:

  • Improve cutscene handling.

Release 20080531:

  • Initial XP/Vista release.
  • XP/Vista installer.
  • Fix div-by-zero exception causing original executable to fail under XP/Vista.
  • Fix handling of paths containing spaces.
  • Eliminate black lines in cut-scenes.
  • Upscale video to use entire screen (Direct3D bilinear interpolation).
  • Store save games in user-specific APPDATA directory to work under Vista.