Dungeon Keeper 2 -- Attempting to get the damn game running.

So here's the story, I have a copy of Dungeon Keeper 2, and from my lurking around here, it seems I am not the only one who enjoys the game around here. Recently I have had a hankering to play the game... however I have encountered a few problems... the biggest one being my system is a Dual Core system.

Sys-Specs
OS: Windows XP Home Premium 32-bit
G-Card: NVIDIA-GeForce 6800 GT
S-Card: SB Live! 24-bit
CPU: AMD Athelon 64x2 Dual

Game-Specs
Name : Dungeon Keeper II
V. Installed : 1.3
V. Currently : 1.7 + unofficial fan patch 1.8

So, I have two small problems with the game that I am hoping some kind folks would help me look in to.
*wall of text*
I have found that when I set the game to run on 1 core, doing so by opening up the task manager and setting the Process Affinity, the game runs at a normal rate, however the sound is buggy and it sounds like it is trying to run each sound file twice, or it sounds choppy. If I run it on both cores, the game exhibits strange behavior, it seems to think I am idling in game, but it only says the same idle message, "The very rock yawns in fascination of your next move keeper", and the screen automatically moves to some random location on the map in response. I prefer to run it on single core, but that brings up my problem, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to set the game to run on only 1 core via shortcut.

So far I have tried this : C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C start/AFFINITY 1 "C:\Program Files\Bullfrog\Dungeon Keeper 2\DKII.EXE"

But it will not seem to work, since when I run cmd and type "start/?" It does not show a [/Affinity] parameter or w/e, but when I look on line, other people claim to have it, and I have heard its only on the 64 bit version of windows.

As for playing the actual game it's self, I love it.. my favorite mode right now is my pet dungeon, simply because its like a sand box where you can just dink around for as long as you'd like, I just wish that there were more maps for that mode :"(.

Does any one have any solutions to these problems?
Also, what do you all think of this game?

Hm, It seems to be fixed after I installed
http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=153&lang=us

and

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=173&lang=us

It seems to run perfectly on a dual core system.... schweeet!

If any one is interested in the lengths I went to getting this game to run on my computer, I can post that as well if you'd like.

Is it a good game? I've only played the first one which was very fun.

My copy doesnt run on ANY computer, since it used some bullshit copy protection that only worked on specific drives or something

Always had to hunt down a solution all over the internet, and the game wasnt as good as the first after all that trouble.

I wish the first game could get something like a source port that removed all the limitations, its a crashfest..

Ragnor said:

I wish the first game could get something like a source port that removed all the limitations, its a crashfest..

There's a guy working on doing that actually. He kicked his project off after I shared with him my discovery that some of the beta and DOS Dungeon Keeper executables contain full debugging information. Using IDA Pro, he has turned the DK exe file into a DLL and is slowly replacing Bullfrog's code with his own.

The project is called "KeeperFX" and the guy making refers to himself as mefistotelis. Try buzzing around the Keeper Klan forum.

Oh awesome :p

I edited the game like crazy in my teens, only reason I stopped was the game couldnt handle my ideas, not enough memory for giant battles, too many rooms and too much detail, etc

I might be able to finish my mod if this project goes somewhere :D

iori said:

Is it a good game? I've only played the first one which was very fun.

Well, it's a good game, but not for its difficulty imo. I find it pretty easy so far (mission 10 of the campaign and i've beaten my pet dungeons already) No, what is awesome about the game is just the way it plays... your evil. You get to do evil things, like whittle down the ennemy forces as you convert them to be evil...or in to skelletons. You get to build your own domain, you can take control of a monster and walk around it FPS style... and even group up other monsters to go attack with you.

If any of that sounded fun, then yeah.... its a good game :P

@Ragnor : Yeah the game is a bitch to get running. I have never played the first one... perhaps I should look in to it, do you know of any place where I could purchase it?