FIX: Install and Run the game in Windows 10

[Zeffenn]

I bought this game when it first came out on CD and wanted to play it on my modern system today. Unfortunately when I tryed to install the game, windows 10 would not allow that to happen and all I got was a blank screen. When I opened Task Manager, I could see a process called 32-bit Setup Launcher (32 bit) using zero CPU, this was my failing Tachyon installer.

Specs:
Windows 10
i7 4790k
Asus z97a motherboard
16GB Corsair DDR3
nVidia Titan X GPU

The Fix:

1. Start your system up in safe mode.
2. Browse the CD and click the search and find setup.exe
The one you want is the one in the TTFSETUP folder. Right click and troubleshoot compatibility and allow windows to automatically select windows xp. Test the program and it will work. Install Tachyon to C:\Tachyon because older games sometimes have issues with the program files folder.
3. Restart your computer to it's normal boot mode (not safe mode)
4. Run Tachyon and go through the Video setup, Audio Setup and Game controllers tabs.
5. Now if you try to play the game it will load the opening cinematic and then fail to load.
6. Download the latest patch for the game, which can be found on Novalogic's website here: http://files.novalogic.com/TTF/ttf_update_050500_xx.exe
7. Install the patch. You will have to browse the folder that you installed the game in.
8. The game still will not work and you will need another 3rd party patch for the space.exe application in the game folder which can be found by searching for Game Copy World and then searching for Tachyon on their site. Use an Adblocker.
You are gonna want the file titled Tachyon v1.00.00.36r [ENGLISH] Fixed EXE
9. Extract dvntacp2.zip and then you will find ripcrk.rar which will also need to be extracted.
If you do not have WinRAR to extract it, you can find it here: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
10. Inside ripcrk.rar is a application called space.exe, copy and paste this into the folder that you installed tachyon into. Replace the existing space.exe with the new one.
11. You're gonna need to edit the Tachyon.cfg file found in your installation folder to look like this:

[VIDEO]
WINDOWED=0
USE_HARDWARE=1
NO_VSYNC=0
RES=1
HW_TYPE=1
DEVICE=0
DEF_GAMMA=100
DEF_BRIGHT=70

12. Download nGlide from here: http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
This will allow you to run Tachyon at your prefered resolution on your modern system.
13. Install nGlide and open the nGlide Configurator and set your resolution settings and hit apply.
14. Run Tachyon from the space.exe found in your installation folder and enjoy!

Tachyon doesn't appear to be using any antialiasing, so if you are using an nvidia graphics card, be sure to open Nvidia Control Panel and make a profile for space.exe and enable it so that the game will look more modern. This is an old game so I would imagine you can max all the settings out and it will run just fine.

[Quintessential]

Thanks for this, worked great

[rm -rf / --no--preserve--root]

Interesting that I didn't need this, and I'm on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC. I'm using dgVoodoo2 to run at 1440x1080 instead of the limited resolutions supported by default, but I ran the game without patching anything at all and it booted up fine.

[Ty Tanium]

Howdy Zeffen, 'sup?

Thank you amigo...!!! I haven't been able to get the game up so I've got it on the back shelf, thought it was my rig but what you have here looks VERY promising. Gonna give it a shot.
Cheers,
T

[Zeffenn]

Hey! Hope this works for you. I haven't tried to install this game in several years. Maybe I should revisit the process myself so I can figure out any tweaks that are needed on modern hardware :)

[bora781112]

Thank you very much for providing the guide. It's 2023 September now and I was able to run it on Windows 10 by following this guide. (In my case, didn't need to use the safe mode to install, though.) But every time I launch into space, it automatically tumbles all over the place! For anyone who has this same issue, just press "Alt+Tab" to fix it. At this moment, I'm at the point where I need to choose Galspan or Bora. Good times.

[Zeffenn]

I'm glad to hear this is still working!