Does anyone still play Chessmaster? if so, how about renewing the game with new textures for the old chess sets? There are many free or for personal use textures that can be downloaded from the internet to create new sets and it's easy to make new ones using image editors. 

In chess.com there is a post asking for help modifying the chess sets, my post is to show results and possibly help someone interested in playing with it.

The tool used to extract textures is: CM Dat Texture Extractor. 

IMPORTANT: Ubisoft does not endorse or support any content from the postings made by me. The mods posted were made following the instructions of the official forum of the game.

Please click in "Read more" to view download links.

 

DOWNLOADS:

All downloads and instructions from Ubisoft:
https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/341421-Chessmaster-Grandmaster-Edition-Downloads-Forums

Alternative Download of some files from Ubisoft I upload to Mediafire (It's a free account so may have ads, not by me):

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/5valtle8v1vhh/Chessmaster_Downloads_(backup)

Chessmaster 10th Edition sets by misimatt: https://web.archive.org/web/20090221072636/http://www.freeweb.hu/misimatt/index.html

Chess sets modded by Me:

Please tell your friends about the new chess sets and leave a comment in the comments section.

Download Zipped Folder: https://www.mediafire.com/file/mzw7p9tcfksm9ti/Dat.7z/file

Shared Folder including Wallpapers 1920 x 1080:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/drjjegeulyy1o/CM_Awesome

The zipped folder structure have all sets I made, wallpapers not included. 

I will try to provide links for wallpapers in the screenshots but, for perfect fit, it is necessary to crop or resize according to your monitor resolution and convert to bitmap format (.BMP). It's important rename files correctly to the same name as the set you want the wallpaper. 

eg: A0F_GA_UK1.dat -> GA_UK1.bmp, A0F_African.dat -> African.bmp

Prefix "A0F_" is the set type id (wood, metal, glass, 2d, 3d, animated...). "GA_" is part of name convention I used to easily sort my sets. I tried to make a logo to appear like HOS for House of Staunton in the menu but it seems to be impossible. 

Important Information: 

The file "\Dat\EFF\ eff.ini" will be replaced by a new one with extra settings for the new chess sets. The "EFF" and "ENV" folders contain necessary files, so if you don't want some of the sets delete only ".dat" files eg: \Dat\A0F_GA_Africa 5b.dat. I recommend that you make a backup before making changes to those folders.

Another important information is that there is a limited number of chess sets that can be loaded by the Chessmaster (128), so if you exceed the maximum value, some sets will not appear in the game menu. It is recommended to remove unused files (.dat) from the "DAT" folder.

PS: I have been learning English on my own so sorry for any mistakes. I am from Brazil and speak Portuguese. Feel free to send me suggestions on how to improve the writing of published texts.

FAQ from Ubisoft:

https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthread.php/299133-Chessmaster-Grandmaster-Edition-FAQ-READ-THIS-FIRST!

Q: How do I unlock all the chess sets?
A: To unlock all chess sets without having to win rated games, you can do this:Open up 'My Computer', and select 'Local Disk (C)'.Go to Program Files\Ubisoft\Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition\Data\Users.Select the folder for your user.Open the .INI file for your user.Under [settings], add the following line: unlockstuff=1.Save the INI file.

Thread: Missing Personalities | Forums

https://forums.ubisoft.com/archive/index.php/t-573179.html

Q: HELP, after I installed the "Extension pack" I can't select any of the animated chess sets.
A: This only happens if you already had some custom sets on your computer and now you have too many chess sets. Chessmaster can only handle 128 chess sets.
To fix this go to:

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition\Data\Dat

and reduce the number of chess sets by deleting the corresponding *.dat files (each dat file represents one chess set).