Much to our dismay, Mr. David Bowie passed away on the 10th of January, 2016 at the age of 69 from cancer. In memory of this iconic musician, actor, artist and innovator, Square Enix announced that for a limited time, they would be giving away the game “Omikron: The Nomad Soul”, which included Mr. Bowie in the game, for free. Mr. Bowie composed most, if not all, of the music for the game, and even made several cameos in the game (see header image above).
You can claim your free copy for Windows PCs by claiming it from the Square Enix website Here, and entering the promo code “omikron” at checkout. Open the product key after checkout and Right-click/Copy it. Open your Steam app on your PC and click on the [+ ADD A GAME] button on the bottom of the library list. Selecting “Activate a Product on Steam…” on the list that appears will open a window asking for a product key. Then, simply Right-Click/Paste the 15-character product key in the required field to add the game to your library. Viola! You are now the proud owner of “The Nomad Soul”!
Those of us who did that and received the game for free, were really excited to have it. I know I was! At least until I tried to play it…
Once I tried to open my newly downloaded “Omikron: The Nomad Soul” on my PC, the same PC I play “Skyrim”, both “Portal” games, as well as various other graphic-intensive games on without even an inkling of an issue, I received a prompt stating that my video card does not have enough memory to play “The Nomad Soul”. Now, this is complete bull-malarkey, especially since I just recently did a complete factory-wipe of that PC, so those other games aren’t even on my PC any longer… AND the game is about 17 years old! There was NO way a game of that age would require more graphic memory than those other, more current games! After some research, it appears to be a Steam problem, and not a problem with your PC.
Without further ado, here is a fix that may allow you play “Omikron: The Nomad Soul”, as well as one, damn-near guaranteed fix.
Fix 1 (Possible Fix):
-Right-click on the game in your steam library and select Properties.
-Change the tab to “Local Files”.-Select “Browse Local Files…”.
-Find “runtime.exe”, and right-click on that to access “Properties” again.
-Change the tab to “Compatibility”.
-Check the box saying “Run program in compatibility mode for:”.
-Open the dropdown menu and pick any of them. Should go from Windows 95 all the way to Windows 7. Try all of those and try to run the game after hitting “Apply” for each mode.
If any of those gets your game working, GREAT! Enjoy “Omikron”!
If that does absolute squat like it did for me, here’s the other fix that did work for me:
Fix 2 (ALMOST guaranteed to work):
-Go to the dgVoodoo2 download site Here, and download the latest dgVoodoo2 file. dgVoodoo_v2.5 was the latest as of when this article was written.-Once you have the file downloaded, extract it somewhere safe. If there’s a Zip password, enter “dege” as the password to open it.
-Run dgVoodooSetup.exe and configure it. I didn’t have to change anything until I got to the DirectX tab. There you can change various setting depending on the game you’re trying to run. There’s also a “dgVoodoo Watermark” checkbox. Leave that on at first to ensure that the wrapper is working correctly, then you can turn it off later after confirming that it’s working. You can also toggle the ability to use the “Alt+Enter” shortcut to toggle fullscreen or windowed mode here.
– Hit “Apply”, then “OK”.
-Open the “MS” folder, and Right-click/Copy the bottom 2 .dll files. There should be 3 in the folder.
-Right-click/Paste them into the Omikron game directory (where you found “runtime.exe”).
-Run the game.
Your game should now be working just fine. Enjoy “Omikron: The Nomad Soul”!
If you guys like the tutorial here, go ahead and let me know in the comment section below. Let’s collaborate and see if this is a surefire fix or not!