TOPIC:

Hey. I've just re-downloaded this game (haven't played it in years) onto my PC running Windows 10 and when I try to run the game I get this message:

"There was an error while trying to start up Direct3D8 on your video card.

Please try updating your video card drivers, or reinstalling DirectX 8. If this doesn't help, contact your computer manufacturer.

Direct3D8 error message:

The method call is invalid. For example, a method's parameter may have an invalid value."

I've seen other people on this forum ask the same question but none of the suggested fixes have worked for me (I've tried reinstalling, updating display drivers, changing screen resolutions, running as admin/in compatibility mode). Does anyone have any other suggestions as I used to love this game and it's great to see there's still an active community to get involved with if I can get the game working.

My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 if that helps.

try right clicking the dtr2 app that's on your desktop and make sure its set to run as administrator.
then under properties run the comatability wizard.
then under help look for the win 8 and 10 help.

change screen setting resolution shock told me what needed but ur have try some upper settings I got same when used run on 8 but im back on my stable system lol

Just tried these and still getting the same error message Any other ideas?

Try changing your game resolution to something like 1280x720 and then turn high resolution textures and 32-bit textures on and see if that will fix it.

Is there a way to get into these settings from outside the game (maybe using the game files) because I can't start up the game to get to these options?

what compatability mode is it running at.

I've tried all the compatibility modes available but always get the same error message

a couple other things to try.
right click the dtr2 app select properties under the security tab in the permissions window make sure everything is on allow.
also try changing your destop resolution then try the game again go down to 800x600 first.

Still getting the same error I'm afraid

Weird, usually that problem happens when you go to race, not when the game starts.
I remember I had a problem like this before.
Where you installed the game there's a file called options.
Run it and try disabling something called remove warnings, I forget what It's called off the top of my head but it's close to disable sound I think.

Ok, so I've finally managed to get in game, (I made a machine running XP on VirtualBox and got it running on there), but when the game opens the mouse sensitivity is suddenly absurdly high and the cursor always snaps to a certain few points in what seems to be a 6x6(ish) grid, making it impossible to select anything on the menus other than Options -> Audio (and even this is fairly difficult to do). It's worth noting that the screen resolution decreases significantly upon entering the game and the colour goes to 16-bit, but I can't get to the visual settings to change these to see if they would help. Any ideas?

The game also crashes whenever I tab out and try to re-enter it but I guess that's fairly common for games of this era.

whats the specs on your pc.
do you have administrator privleges.
my pc is an i3 3.4 ghz with an asus grapics card and win 10.
do you have the latest drivers for your graphics card.

I have an i5 2.7gHz running windows 10 with an NVidia GeForce 960 GTX with the latest drivers installed, and yes I have the latest drivers.
As an update I've created another VirtualBox machine, this time running Windows 7, so once I've finished downloading the game onto that I'll see if it works there.

So when I try on Windows 7 I end up with the same Direct3D problem as on Windows 10. Back to the drawing board then.

Does the game open up at all?

Try updating DirectX.
It it's already installed, uninstall it, restart the computer by literally turning it off, then back on using the power button, then install it again. After installing it, repeat the power off and on cycle.

Only try this as a last resort, but try disabling your graphics card either through the bios, or just take it out of your PC (IF YOU KNOW HOW).

So DirectX doesn't seem to fix it, even if I only install 9.0 instead of 12.0. The graphics card thing didn't make a difference either If I run it on Windows 10 or on my Windows 7 VirtualBox the game doesn't open at all and I get the Direct3D8 error. On my Windows XP VirtualBox I can open the game and navigate using keyboard shortcuts (as the cursor jumps about all over the place on the game menu) but this only lets me start a default quick race (10 laps, 2 cars, I can't change car or setup) as all the other options require a mouse to select. Interestingly on the XP version the actual racing runs perfectly, it's just the menus that are un-navigatable, so I'm thinking this will probably be the easier problem to solve, although I have no idea how to.

might try uninstalling the game then reinstalling it by right clicking the installer and run as administrator.
did you get the game installer from vlr ?

I got the game installer from vlr on the windows 10 and XP versions, for some reason the windows 7 version wouldn't download it properly so I had to get it from elsewhere, and I also tried a different installer for windows 10 as well.

Updating on the situation, the original mouse problem on the XP VirtualBox version was that when moving the mouse what should be one pixel, the game's cursor was jumping about an inch (I checked this using mouse keys), meaning that I could only get it to certain points on the screen. I've now discovered that toggling seamless view on and off can alter the amount the cursor jumps by (no idea why), meaning that with a bit of trial and error I can now get to a decent portion of the game. Altering the screen resolution in-game unfortunately didn't have the effect I was looking for but it also slightly alters the amount the cursor jumps by. Essentially, I now have a semi-functioning game with an in-built puzzle game whenever I want to click a button, but at least I'm up and running and can access most of the offline features. Judging by how the problem now is it seems like it's more to do with VirtualBox's handling of the software than the game itself, and I've given up on trying to get it to work on Windows 10 after trying everything and still getting the same error message. If anyone happens to know how to fix the cursor problem please share it but I think I can use the game as I've got it for now at least. Thanks all for your help and suggestions.