I'm having a little difficulty here. I want to play Arcanum in windowed mode. When I tried to simply add "-window" to the end of my shortcut, it simply crashed. When I tried using D3DWindower (making width and height 800 x 600, changing to Window and clicking the top three and disabling the rest), it looks like the attached image, which is a blank screen. The thing is, I can hear the game audio (the in-game music and sound, none of it glitched), and it does make the sounds it would if I were playing it (confirmation and cancellation sounds, even closing out if I press escape at the main menu, which would close it normally).

Could anyone please help me? I'm trying to run this on Windows 7 32-bit with the UAP, and I'd really appreciate it if I could get this working, since it seems like there seems to be some visual error that I'm experiencing.

I use Drog's Unofficial Arcanum patch. With the UAP .exe you can add the -window to the shortcut target and it'll run in windowed. :)

Well, like I put in the first line, I tried to do that but the game crashed.

JesusGreen was telling you to use the Unofficial Patch, if you are not already; the base game has problems with windowed mode but the Unofficial Patch fixes that for most people. Are you using the Unofficial Patch?

In the last paragraph, I said I was using the UAP, so yes.

Sorry, missed that.

I'm having this same problem. Win7 x64, the game crashes if I try to window it. I installed both the unofficial patch and the high-res patch. Game runs fine fullscreen, but in window it immediately crashes.

Windowed mode (-window) works fine with me as long as I remove the -doublebuffer command line argument. It does not crash for me -doublebuffer enabled but it causes all sorts of problems from abysmal performance and screen resolution issues to screen drawing problems (black screen you can clear with cursor).

I remember Drog stating long ago at Terra Arcanum forums that -window and -doublebuffer are incompatible with each other and it seems to be the case.

I'm on XP Pro SP3 so that might also explain why it works. I also use the default resolution.

Where exactly do you find the Doublebuffer to remove it?

I have Arcanum on a win 7 x64 installed outside program files, and I have it on another computer in the house which is win vista 32bit, I got the crash in both computers.

I have UAP, HQ Maps and Hi-res Patch.

program shortcut (the one you use to launch the game). Right click it and choose properties. One of the tabs should have target field.

For me it has following:

D:\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe -no3d -doublebuffer

To run on window I would have to change it to following:

D:\Arcanum\Arcanum.exe -no3d -window

I also have UAP, HQ Townmaps and High-Res patch and, while I haven't tested it extensively, for me windowed mode works just fine. What resolution did you set with High Res patch and what it your native resolution?

I'm having the same problem, I prefer to play things in windowed in general because I tend to multi task with multiple chats and need to keep an eye on my skype.

I've put -windowed after the short cut, I'm using the UAP and I'm on windows 7 64 bit. it just crashes straight away.... It's slightly frustrating.

According to Petrell, you want to use -window, not -windowed. Also you need to remove the -doublebuffer tag if you are going to try running in a window.

Seems the the windowed mode can be a bit finnicky for a lot of people though.

Aye I just tried all of those things, I appear to still be having a problem... hm

Where is that -doublebuffer tag? I don't have any and game still crushes on start.

I found this solution awhile ago. Go to your installation folder and find the file "ddraw.dll." Rename it to "ddraw.dll.old." Then, if you already have the Unofficial Arcanum Patch, enter properties on your shortcut to the game and place the command line "-window" (no quotes and after the quotation marking the end of the .EXE path) and try again. Works for me on Windows 8.