Recently I purchased a copy of Bad Boys II for the PC. I know. It's a shit game, but I had some fun memories of playing the promotional copy that was given out about 12 years ago that I decided to buy a full copy. At first I tried to obtain it via "sources" but every time I attempted to play, I was greeted with the message "Error during babel installation". I tried everything I knew at that time, various registry edits, checking for conflicts, reinstalling, searching Google and even the method I'm about to show you now. For some weird reason it works now, but didn't seem to work back then. Anyway, I ended giving up on the game, coming to the conclusion that it probably wasn't work because it was a copied game.
I then came across the game on eBay for about £1.99. I decided to buy it, hoping that it would work...and if it didn't, oh well. Not much of a loss. I ordered the game and installed it. To my annoyance, it failed to work. I decided to contact the supplier of the game and I was told
"The issue is sometimes linked to the Graphics Controller Chipset. We would recommend that you check with the PC Manufacturers website and see if there is an updated driver for your Graphics Card. If there is then download and install the update. Also ensure you have the following resolution settings 1024 x 768 32 bit colour.
To change your screen resolution / colour settings Open Display in Control Panel.
Windows XP = To open Display, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Display.
On the Settings tab, under Display Properties, drag the screen area slider to the required setting, and then click Apply.
A default setting of 1024 x 768 is a standard option to set this to. Also ensure that your colour quality is set to either highest 32bit or true colour 32 bit. When prompted to apply the settings, click OK. Your screen will turn black for a moment. Once your screen resolution changes, you have 15 seconds to confirm the change.
Click Yes to confirm the change; click No or do nothing to revert to your previous setting.
If this does not resolve the issue then the issue will be a compatibility problem with the Graphics Card and you will possibly not be able to resolve the problem.
Bad Boys II requires a 3d video card with at least 32Mb of memory that can display 16bit colour or better. The primary video card in your machine MUST have at least 32Mb of memory for Bad Boys II to run, the memory of any additional accelerator cards will not necessarily be taken into account. If your video card has insufficient memory the game will not run correctly, or at all."
Bad Boys II requires a 3d video card with at least 32Mb of memory that can display 16bit colour or better. The primary video card in your machine MUST have at least 32Mb of memory for Bad Boys II to run, the memory of any additional accelerator cards will not necessarily be taken into account. If your video card has insufficient memory the game will not run correctly, or at all."
I tried all the above, and once again to my annoyance...no luck. After another good hour messing around with settings and tweaking I finally came to the solution. It's simply that Bad Boys II wasn't designed to be run on a machine running anything higher than Windows XP. The solution? Compatability Mode.
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The Fix
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The long awaited solution. Thankfully it doesn't involve anything too technical and everyone who has a simple understanding of computers will be able to perform the fix.
First, make sure the game is installed correctly. Once installed, Right Click on the launcher icon and click on Properties.
Switch to the compatibility tab and make sure your settings match mine.
Fixed.
