How to Horntail without graphical glitches closing your client

Hello and welcome to my first official guide on MapleRoyals. My name is Tim and i'll be taking you through some steps on how I managed to successfully start going on Horntail runs without getting any graphical glitches and/or getting my client closed.

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Because I was fortunate enough to get access to the test server I spend some time narrowing down the potential problems that prevented me from completing a Horntail run so I could work towards a solution. I haven't had any graphical issues ever since I completed this setup so I highly recommend it. That being said I would like to put a disclaimer here:
The setup in this guide works for me, it might not work for you / you might need to change some settings along the way to make it work for you. This guide is currently for Windows PC's only.
Of course I'll try my best to make the steps easy to follow along however it does require some 'computer knowledge' of your own if any of the steps don't quite follow the same pattern as mine.

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Maplestory is a game made for computers with very low specifications. This hasn't changed much throughout the years and the version we're playing here can be run on a very basic setup. That being said it also runs ok on 'high spec' computers in most cases. After many test runs and comparisons @Sybe and I figured out the only real difference we were using were our video cards, my PC and Laptop run on NVIDIA cards while his runs on an AMD. We started a thread about this to confirm our suspicion and figured out the majority of the NVIDIA players on windows 7 were having the same issues with some exceptions and that it wasn't a problem related to just MapleRoyals. (http://royals.ms/forum/threads/ht-feedback.15919/)
I went to find a solution to this without all of us having to replace our perfectly fine graphics cards and found two options:

1) Disable your NVIDIA card and run your PC on on-board graphics.
2) Run a virtual PC on your computer and make it run on basic settings.

Because I would like to keep my graphical performance on at all times on this computer ( I don't just use it to play MapleRoyals) I went for option 2, and this is what the rest of this guide will be about.

So lets jump right into it!
VMware Player is a free program that allows you to run a virtual PC on your computer for some good old computer-ception.
You can download it here: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0

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I chose VMware with windows XP based upon the succes that @Neshium had with his setup and because it's easy to use.
Upon installing and opening VMware you should end up at a screen like this:

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You need to Create a New Virtual Machine but before you do that you need either a CD with Windows XP or an .iso file of Windows XP. Since this version is no longer supported by Microsoft it's not advised to run Windows XP on your every day computer anymore yet its one of the most stable operating systems for a Virtual PC. You can download an .iso file here: http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-xp-sp3/
Click the download button. This will start the download of an .iso file of around 617MB. we will be needing this file to install Windows XP on our VMware.

Once it's done downloading we can start to create a new virtual machine!
Go to your VMware Player and click Create a New Virtual Machine:

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The following window will pop up:

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Select the Installer disc image file (iso) and browse to the location of your downloaded .iso of Windows XP, then click next.
It will ask for a Windows procut key and personalized details for your windows. I chose not to protect my VMware windows with a password because nobody else uses my computer. You can google your way to a Windows product key for Windows XP SP3. I don't feel bad for 'pirating' this because this is a discarded version of Windows that's no longer supported by Microsoft. After entering a key press next.

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On the next screen you can name your Virtual machine and select a location where you want this machine to be. This is important because you need to 'reserve' a certain amount of hard disk space on your actual computer for this virtual machine to use in the next step, click next once you're done.

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Because I have plenty of space to spare on my D drive I went with the recommended 40GB Maximum disk size for this Virtual machine. If you're limited by space I would suggest at least 10 GB to have Windows XP and MapleRoyals installed and running smoothly Storing the virtual disk as a single file or splitting it up has no impact on what we're planning to do with it since we're not going to share this setup on multiple computers, click next.

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You will now be looking at an overview of what you're about to create:

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This is where things get personalized. Its highly unlikely that you and I have the same PC setup. I can't tell from here what you're currently running on memory and processing power but you have to make sure you can keep running your normal computer and the VMware at the same time.
This means you need to make sure you can spare a certain amount of Memory and Processing power to run your VMware while also running your normal computer without hiccups. Now since Maplestory is a game with low requirements the default setup (Memory: 512MB and Processors 1 core) will run fine but because my computer can spare a bit more I clicked Customize Hardware and upped the Memory of my Virtual Machine to 1GB and gave it access to 2 cores of my processor.

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I kept my virtualization engine preferred mode on automatic and clicked close, it saved my settings.

If you want to see what specifications your computer has go to start and write: dxdiag. Start that up and look at your Processor and Memory. Mine is as you can see an i5 760 2.80GHz 4-cored processor and I have 8GB RAM memory installed. If you run a computer as low as 2GB RAM memory I would advice to keep the default 512MB for your virtual machine.

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My final Virtual Machine setup looks like this before I click Finish:

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Once you clicked finish your Virtual Machine(VM) will start running. You might get a pop up screen saying your VM can connect a list of devices that are attached to your computer (headsets, usb devices) but you can ignore those for now and click ok.
your VM is currently installing Windows XP. you can click inside your VM window to start controlling it. This is a good time to tell you the basics of how VMware works. once you click inside that window you cannot reach anything else on your actual computer. To go back to your actual computer press CTRL and ALT. VMware also gives this hint once you enter it.
Windows is currently installing automaticly with Easy Install and like on any other normal computer this will take a while:

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(If during this process Windows XP asks for a different key, use your google skills to find another one that does work.)
After Windows XP has been installed the Easy Installer will continue with installing VMware Tools in your VM. VMware tools are crucial in order to run MapleRoyals so make sure to install them. You might also get one of those popup bubbles that says that your computer might be at risk and you need some antivirus software but as long as you use this VM just for MapleRoyals Horntail runs there should be no risk at all. Easy Install might restart your VM after installing certain things so please let it do it's job before attempting to take the next steps.


You should now have a tiny 640 x 480 windows XP running on your VM with the oh so nostalgic background:

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You should change these settings to something more suitable (atleast 800 x 600 since that is what MapleRoyals runs on) by right clicking your desktop and going to properties > settings:

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Apply that and press ok.
Since you guys are playing MapleRoyals it's pretty safe to assume you know how to download and install MapleRoyals. Just open up internet explorer and go to the proper page to download the files on your VM.

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After downloading and running MapleRoyals you will end up at either a black or a white screen while the sounds do play. There's one more step that has to be done before you can successfully play MapleRoyals on your VM and bypassing your graphics card to avoid graphical issues during Horntail and such.
Right click your client and click on properties, the following window pop up:

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Go to the Compatibility tab and check Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 98 / Windows Me
Apply and press ok.

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You can now play MapleRoyals on your VM!

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If you're done with your VM session you can simply go to start > turn off to close your VM like you would shut down your actual computer. The next time you want to use your VM you don't have to set it all up again. VMware Player remembers your VM as you can see here in the Home menu. If you want to start your VM for another session just click Play virtual machine to start it up.

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Q: Do I still need to GFX (change picture quality) at Horntail?
A: Yes, it's still advised to do so for everyone including people that run a VM.

Thank you for reading my guide on how to play MapleRoyals on a Virtual Machine, if you have any questions please post them below and I will try to help you out as soon as possible.

- Tim

 

Yes as long as you run MapleRoyals in compatibility mode like mentioned in the guide. Also keep in mind that Windows 7 needs more memory RAM to run smoothly than Windows XP does.