Topic: Curious launching problem with BOTH SFC2 & 3

[Taimat]

I just borrowed my friend's copy of SFC3 to play offline, in the absence of a demo, and see if I want to buy it.  However, I installed everything, including the dx9 patch but every time I try to play the game, it goes through the "launching" screen, to the screen with all the ships blowing each other up with the unity in the background, then it just shuts down without a word.

Anyway, life continues, and I decide to play SFC2 later that day.  Interesting... it gets to the Launching screen, to the title screen, then freaking dies just like sfc3.  Anyone else ever have this problem?  I tried the obvious, restarting windows, did nothing.

1.4ghz celeron
256 megs of ram
Winxp home
Geforce2 MX

I have no idea what version of Dx I have, nor do I know where I can find it.  I know I have later than 8.0, but I don't know if I have 9.0

Also, SFC2 is fully patched to 2.0.3.6

Any idea what's wrong, or is this a feature to keep me from playing games and make me do my assignments like I know I should

[Corbomite]

Run DXDIAG to find your version of Direct X (click RUN in the START menu and type that in). Make sure all of your drivers are up to date and that your version of Windows is up to date as well (all the new upgrades, whatever your version). Turn off all antivirus software and firewall software and anything else that would count as an unnecessary application program. If you still have problems after that come back.

[Taimat]

Ok, so I ran that program, and I have dx8.1.  I turned off my firewall, and I foolishly don't have any antivirus software, and the game still didn't work.  Arg.  I have one of the service packs for XP, my Nvidia drivers are top notch... I can't see a problem here.  What other suggestions are there?

EDIT

One other thing to note is that every so often, out of no where there is this error message for a program simply called WMI, and I always say don't send error report.  I wonder if that can do anything.  Curious... if I run DXdiag, that error thing pops up, I close it, and it appeared that Dxdiag failed, then about a minute later, it launches

[Cleaven]

Start SFC2 from starfleet2.exe and not sfc2.exe. See if that helps.  

[Taimat]

Nope, no luck...  seemed promising for a second though  

[Cleaven]

WMI - Windows Management Instrumentation is a part of the OS, but I have no idea why it should be malfunctioning, but it would seem to be bugging DirectX.
Since I'm clueless in this respect what I would do is install DirectX 9 but that's because I don't have any better ideas and I have practice in rebuilding my games machine. You may want to do nothing until you get better advice.  

[Fornax]

I'm not sure why this would be relevant to SFC2, but if you installed the Dx9 patch for SFC3, and you're not running Dx9, there could be an issue there.

Have you tried turning off the demo movies?  In SFC2 you access a different excecutable.  Want to say off memory to change the shortcut or menu to run starfleet2.exe not sfc2.exe.  For SFC3 you delete or rename the files in one of the directories (\cinematics?)

You're not a minimum spec machine - are any of the components integrated?  Is the video memory part of the motherboard/shared with regular RAM?  Optionally, do you know how to look for IRQ conflicts in Device Manager?  Is your video card parked on IRQ 11 all by itself?  If anything else is sharing IRQ 11, seriously consider moving the other item to another IRQ.  If it will not allow you to move it within Windows (IRQ), it's actually possible to get cards to auto-choose other IRQ's by moving them to a different available PCI slot.  Try to avoid just shuffling them.

I don't have any experience with XP but I've read about a few issues with it and the SFCx series.

[Taimat]

Nope, no integrated components, my Geforce card sits on an AGP slot, but I have no idea what an IRQ is.  Also, I installed Dx9 but it still won't work.  The gods are aligned against me for this one, maybe I should just reinstall

[Fornax]

IRQ's, interrupt requests, are how the CPU talks to every other component on the computer and how it avoids confusing what it is talking to or vice versa.  Windows 9x and beyond mostly auto-allocate these.  Sometimes it puts two or more devices onto the same IRQ which *can* work with some hardware.

As I read it, the thing that changed was Dx8.1 -> Dx9.
DirectX is how windows manages Video/Sound.

As a pure guess, could it be that maybe your system had a conflict that was manageable under Dx8.1...but Dx9.0 is less forgiving and now causes it to crash completely?  There are some things you could try to troubleshoot this but I hesitate to describe IRQ's or PCI Steering if you've never worked with them before.

If you'd like to peek, try Start Menu - Settings - Control Panel.  Open System Icon, Select Hardware tab and click on Devices button.  Any red X's or Yellow Exclamation points indicates a problem that requires manual setting of device interrupts or can sometimes be solved by moving them around...aka, physically removing a card from a given PCI slot to a different slot.  Yes, windows does do things differently based on which PCI slot a card is installed into.  Obviously this wouldn't help with an AGP Video card, but if your modem/NIC is conflicting with your Video card, changing one of them might fix the problem.

Usually when you have video problems you'll get a blue screen saying vmm32.vxd (virtual device driveers) had an error.

I'd recommend my own primary learning method.  Search the internet on topics and start reading.

www.tomshardware.com might give you some good background information.

Nax

[Fornax]

Hmmmm - just remembered something.

How long has it been since windows was initially installed?
A tool I use on my home win98SE is System File Checker.
It's a utility over on your system menu that is designed to either reinstall system files from an original Windows installation CD from the *.CAB files, or to check your system files for changes (add/delete/updates) or corrupted files.  I'm not sure what the equivalent is over in WinXP although the Signature File Verification Utility looks like a potential candidate (never used it).

Using it, I have on multiple occassions fixed critical system errors - had to be booted into safe mode, normal was unbootable 100% of the time) and saved myself from a system backup/reformat/reinstall...particularly when critical files were corrupted.  You can not overestimate the value of the scandisk utility.  Defrag helps, but on more recent Windows versions isn't needed as much as it was back under Win95/Win98.

<Edit

I just went to www.msn.com and typed in "xp system file checker" and the first link was:
http://resnet.bgsu.edu/resource/sfc.htm

Apparently under win2K and winXP it's not a DOS command utility called "sfc" - imagine that and this game's name.

Anyways, Hit the Start Menu - Run.  Type in "command" which pulls up a protected mode Dos window.  Type sfc and you'll see the options.  sfc /scannow appears to be the right command.  In win98SE it prompted you for everything.  This one looks automated.

Nax


Nax

[David Ferrell]

Wasn't there a problem for some people with a Geforce2 MX?  This is the card taht Taimat is using.  

Anyone?  Bueller?


Thanks,

Dave  

[Taimat]

I just borrowed my friend's copy of SFC3 to play offline, in the absence of a demo, and see if I want to buy it.  However, I installed everything, including the dx9 patch but every time I try to play the game, it goes through the "launching" screen, to the screen with all the ships blowing each other up with the unity in the background, then it just shuts down without a word.

Anyway, life continues, and I decide to play SFC2 later that day.  Interesting... it gets to the Launching screen, to the title screen, then freaking dies just like sfc3.  Anyone else ever have this problem?  I tried the obvious, restarting windows, did nothing.

1.4ghz celeron
256 megs of ram
Winxp home
Geforce2 MX

I have no idea what version of Dx I have, nor do I know where I can find it.  I know I have later than 8.0, but I don't know if I have 9.0

Also, SFC2 is fully patched to 2.0.3.6

Any idea what's wrong, or is this a feature to keep me from playing games and make me do my assignments like I know I should

[Corbomite]

Run DXDIAG to find your version of Direct X (click RUN in the START menu and type that in). Make sure all of your drivers are up to date and that your version of Windows is up to date as well (all the new upgrades, whatever your version). Turn off all antivirus software and firewall software and anything else that would count as an unnecessary application program. If you still have problems after that come back.

[Taimat]

Ok, so I ran that program, and I have dx8.1.  I turned off my firewall, and I foolishly don't have any antivirus software, and the game still didn't work.  Arg.  I have one of the service packs for XP, my Nvidia drivers are top notch... I can't see a problem here.  What other suggestions are there?

EDIT

One other thing to note is that every so often, out of no where there is this error message for a program simply called WMI, and I always say don't send error report.  I wonder if that can do anything.  Curious... if I run DXdiag, that error thing pops up, I close it, and it appeared that Dxdiag failed, then about a minute later, it launches

[Cleaven]

Start SFC2 from starfleet2.exe and not sfc2.exe. See if that helps.  

[Taimat]

Nope, no luck...  seemed promising for a second though  

[Cleaven]

WMI - Windows Management Instrumentation is a part of the OS, but I have no idea why it should be malfunctioning, but it would seem to be bugging DirectX.
Since I'm clueless in this respect what I would do is install DirectX 9 but that's because I don't have any better ideas and I have practice in rebuilding my games machine. You may want to do nothing until you get better advice.  

[Fornax]

I'm not sure why this would be relevant to SFC2, but if you installed the Dx9 patch for SFC3, and you're not running Dx9, there could be an issue there.

Have you tried turning off the demo movies?  In SFC2 you access a different excecutable.  Want to say off memory to change the shortcut or menu to run starfleet2.exe not sfc2.exe.  For SFC3 you delete or rename the files in one of the directories (\cinematics?)

You're not a minimum spec machine - are any of the components integrated?  Is the video memory part of the motherboard/shared with regular RAM?  Optionally, do you know how to look for IRQ conflicts in Device Manager?  Is your video card parked on IRQ 11 all by itself?  If anything else is sharing IRQ 11, seriously consider moving the other item to another IRQ.  If it will not allow you to move it within Windows (IRQ), it's actually possible to get cards to auto-choose other IRQ's by moving them to a different available PCI slot.  Try to avoid just shuffling them.

I don't have any experience with XP but I've read about a few issues with it and the SFCx series.

[Taimat]

Nope, no integrated components, my Geforce card sits on an AGP slot, but I have no idea what an IRQ is.  Also, I installed Dx9 but it still won't work.  The gods are aligned against me for this one, maybe I should just reinstall

[Fornax]

IRQ's, interrupt requests, are how the CPU talks to every other component on the computer and how it avoids confusing what it is talking to or vice versa.  Windows 9x and beyond mostly auto-allocate these.  Sometimes it puts two or more devices onto the same IRQ which *can* work with some hardware.

As I read it, the thing that changed was Dx8.1 -> Dx9.
DirectX is how windows manages Video/Sound.

As a pure guess, could it be that maybe your system had a conflict that was manageable under Dx8.1...but Dx9.0 is less forgiving and now causes it to crash completely?  There are some things you could try to troubleshoot this but I hesitate to describe IRQ's or PCI Steering if you've never worked with them before.

If you'd like to peek, try Start Menu - Settings - Control Panel.  Open System Icon, Select Hardware tab and click on Devices button.  Any red X's or Yellow Exclamation points indicates a problem that requires manual setting of device interrupts or can sometimes be solved by moving them around...aka, physically removing a card from a given PCI slot to a different slot.  Yes, windows does do things differently based on which PCI slot a card is installed into.  Obviously this wouldn't help with an AGP Video card, but if your modem/NIC is conflicting with your Video card, changing one of them might fix the problem.

Usually when you have video problems you'll get a blue screen saying vmm32.vxd (virtual device driveers) had an error.

I'd recommend my own primary learning method.  Search the internet on topics and start reading.

www.tomshardware.com might give you some good background information.

Nax