I am trying to run Resident Evil 2 on a lower end system with good graphics quality. It is a WinXP laptop that obviously far surpasses the specification requirements for the game. Unfortunately, the XP saving issue is in effect. I fixed it by running the game in Win95 compatibility mode. Unfortunately, this presented another problem. When running the game in this mode (I think it only happens in compatibility mode), the game experiences a strange, critical drop in FPS in one specific portion of the game: when you go into inventory while the health meter zigzag line is present! It only lags here, apparently. You can even notice the FPS returning to normal as soon as the line temporarily moves off-screen (it's like a heart monitor), and then the FPS drop returns when it is back. This is an extremely strange and almost game-breaking problem. It goes away in non-compatibility mode I think, but you can't save.

So, I either need a solution to saving/loading in non-compatibility mode or I need to fix this little problem somehow.

Easiest think I can think of that you could do would be to download the Application Compatibility Toolkit, start the ACT, look at what fixes Compatibility mode applies to the game and then look through those fixes and see which ones would cause the issue. If by reading the summaries and the documentation doesn't help then as a last resort you could just uncheck each fix one-by-one and test the game each time and see which fix causes the issue.

The program is set to run ResidentEvil2.exe, which is the original exe. However, the patched version (1.04) is designed to run via a different executable, through a .bat file.

Okay. Turning on ANY ONE of the following settings will allow you to load your games:

EmulateFindHandles
EmulateHeap
EmulateMissingEXE
CorrectFilePaths*

At least from what I gathered. If ALL of those are disabled, the files will not load or show. If you enable any ONE, meaning at least one (two, three or all), it should work.

*CFP doesn't always fix it, apparently. I go with EME for now.

After looking at the issue more closely, I found that the problem of the lagging cardiogram persisted. The solution was rather strange: running Windows Media Player while you play the game. Surprisingly, even if you disable all the acceleration features that can be disabled within the options, running or not running WMP still makes the difference.