Chip's Challenge 1 on 64-bit machines: Difference between revisions

Microsoft's Entertainment Pack version of Chip's Challenge ([[MSCC]]) is a 16-bit program, which means it can run on 16-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows, but it will not run on 64-bit ones. However, most Windows computers sold today are 64-bit. Unfortunately, this means Chip's Challenge will not run on them. If you have a 32-bit version of Windows Vista or Windows 7/8/10, MSCC will run fine. But if you don't, here are a few solutions to the problem.

 

 

Many emulations of Chip's Challenge have been released for various platforms. By far the most popular is [[Tile World]], which is compatible with any Windows, Mac or Linux computer. It is actually possible to use Chip's Challenge's original graphics and sounds in Tile World too.

Andrew R. discovered a cool tool that allows you to run old 16-bit games like Chip's Challenge on 64-bit versions of Windows, called WineVDM. You can download it [https://github.com/otya128/winevdm/releases here], with some more information about it [https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/category/winevdm/ here]. Andrew has some more information and instructions for installing it [http://cczone.invisionzone.com/topic/1511-native-mscc-on-64-bit-windows/?tab=comments#comment-38504 here]. It's pretty cool to just be able to double-click CC and play, like the old days, and it appears that all of the bugs and quirks that were discovered with it so far have now been fixed.

On one of my Windows 7 computers I used to have, CC didn't seem to play as smoothly as usual, and using [http://www.vmware.com/products/player VMware] instead of Windows Virtual PC to run Windows XP Mode seemed to run CC better (turning off CC's sounds helped too). [http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10911/run-xp-mode-on-windows-7-machines-without-hardware-virtualization/ Here is an article] on how to set this up.

 

Note that Windows XP Mode is not available on Windows 8, and is not recommended anymore for Windows 7 due to Windows XP support being discontinued. However, I still have it on my current Windows 7 64-bit PC. It also doesn't seem to have the issues I mentioned earlier that my old Windows 7 PC had with playing the game smoothly (unless I lowered my screen resolution - then oddly enough, it did).

A similar (although more expensive option) would be to purchase a copy of 32-bit Windows and install it as a virtual machine on your PC. Or...

== Get an old 32-bit computer on eBay ==

...or some other location of your choice that sells old computers. This option may not sound like it'd be worth the price, but you'd be surprised - I found a working 14 year old Windows ME laptop for $35 including shipping (I didn't originally buy it for the purpose of being my MSCC computer, but that's essentially what it has become). Of course, a computer of that age does have its quirks, but I've been using it for four years now and for playing CC it works just fine. And considering that it was less than a third of the cost of my 32-bit Windows 8 virtual machine, I'd say it was a much better deal.

If you have or can get a copy of Windows 3.1, you can use a program called DOSBox which can run CC through Windows 3.1. [http://web.archive.org/web/20130904055551/http://chiphome5.webs.com/MSCC_DosBox_HowTo.pdf Here is a guide] by ChipHome5 on how to set this up (note that this option may be the most difficult to set up...).