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TheCleric
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 230
Location: Upstate NY, USA |
| Install problem or Compatability problem? |
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Hi there,
My problem is, I can't get the game to run and I'm trying to determine if I have an Installation problem, or a compatability problem and how to fix whichever one I have.
When I install the game, the overall progress bar runs and counts down without a hitch, but the individual file progress bar starts and stops and clears itself and starts over and never completely shows Speech1.vdf, Speech2.vdf or textures.vdf as having finished. Yet, there are no error messages and it prompts me for the different CD's OK. When I get to CD #3, it picks up and runs great, showing every file complely copied.
When it finishes installation, the game directory shows Speech1.vdf, Speech2.vdf and Textures.vdf as being there. Also, I was able to copy the CD's to my hard drive (although with the same progress bar anomalies mentioned above).
When I try to run the game, my pointer turns into an hourglass for about 4 seconds, then changes back to a pointer. No hard drive activity, no CD activity, nothing! But when I Ctrl+Alt+Del, it says Gothic2 is running. No matter how long I wait, it doesn't do anything (waited 4 hrs and nothing).
I've tried everything mentioned on this and the JoWood board, including going back to DX8.1, disabling sound card, removing and re-installing Video card and all drivers, downloading and switching the Vdfs32e.exe file, disabling my joystick, switching back to a corded mouse, getting manufacturor's drivers for my CD-Rom, changing versions of Media Player, turning off my modem, Disabling DMA, Re-enabling DMA, switching to less aggressive RAM timings, but so far nothing works.
Both hard drives were Scandisked and Defragged before installation and since. I'm running the newest drivers for my HD's. Gothic 1 (Full) and the Gothic 2 Demo work fine (I removed G2 Demo prior to install of full version). If I double click the Vdfs32e.exe file, I get the little progress window, which seems to complete OK and disappears when done. I'm all out of ideas. Any suggestions would be welcome. Here's my specs:
PIII 933 CPU
Creative Live Value sound card w/latest drivers
Radeon 8500 Video Card (64 MB) w/Catalyst 3.6 Driver and control panel
512MB PC133 RAM (CAS2, set at 2,2,2)
2-IBM 7200 RPM Hard Drives (1 System, 1 Storage, games, etc.)
14 GB's of free space on System drive, about 5 GB's on storage drive
Logitech Cordless Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder USB Joystick (disabled)
Cable Modem w/Linksystems 10/100 LAN Card
50X CD ROM (IOMagic)
LS-120 Drive
Standard Keyboard
Windows 98 SE w/all updates
Windows Media Player 7 (runs Bink video fine)
DirectX 9 (DS90_Redist.exe - Supposedly, the Final Version)
Gothic2 version 1.31 (Bought from GoGamer)
Two strange things to report.
1. With DirectX 8.1 installed, it says my video driver (ATI2DRAG.DRV) is certified and OK, but with DirectX 9, it says it's not certified.
2. In my ATI Control Panel, it says I have driver version 7.91-030625a-010027C-ATI installed and Control Panel version 6.14.10.5021. All well and good, except, the control panel I installed is the same version as the driver. I mean, the .exe files had the same version numbers on them. I don't know if this means anything, or if it's just an ATI bug. (Yes, I uninstalled the old Control Panel and Driver, before installing the new ones).
To me, it seems as if the Gothic2.exe file is hung up, but I have no idea why. If someone else has had the same problem and gotten past it, I'd like to hear how you did it. Thanks for any help.
PS- Possible Suggestion/Request for any DEV's - I've seen others posting the same/similar problems, but no firm answer's on what's causing them other than "the game doesn't like something on your system". How about coming up with a utility that would monitor the game from startup and report any freezes/crashes to a log file, along with the last command issued? This might help to diagnose exactly what's causing player problems like this. Just a thought, no offense intended. |
Sun Jul 20, 2003 11:17 pm |
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TheCleric
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 230
Location: Upstate NY, USA |
I also noticed that one of the first files the installation program copies is Math64.dll and that it seems to hang for a few seconds, with the status bar showing it completely copied.
Now for the strange part, when I look in the Gothic 2 folders, there is no Math64.dll file installed. In fact, i used "Find" to search my entire computer and it came up with no such file! This makes me wonder what happend to it?
Can anyone verify if this file is supposed to be installed or if they have it in their G2 folder? Thanks. |
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Mon Jul 21, 2003 12:42 am |
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TheCleric
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 230
Location: Upstate NY, USA |
Well, tried a few new things, but I'm no further ahead.
Normally, my Hard Drives run at UDMA 5 and my CD at UDMA 2. Just to see if it made any difference, I changed the HD's to UDMA 4, 3, 2 and PIO 4 (which my CD also supports) and reinstalled at each. No difference.
I re-enabled autorun to see if that would make a difference...Nada.
Found an upgrade for my motherboard BIOS and flashed it.....same story.
I tried some advice I saw on one of the boards and transferred each install disk to a zip file, then unzipped them into seperate folders on my HD and re-installed from there... you guessed it, no luck.
I uninstalled Direct X again and re-installed versions 7.1, 8.1, 9.0, 9.0a and finally 9.0b, with a fresh install of G2 with each.....no luck.
I downloaded and installed the Windows Media Player 8 Codec's.. same story.
Disabled EAX support for my Sound card.....no difference.
Oh well, I'm out of ideas again. I could install a different CD Player (got a new one sitting in a box for my new rig), but I hate to keep mucking around, with no idea of what's causing the problem.
I tell you, this is really frustrating! I've waited for this game since I first finished Gothic 1. Now I have it, but it won't run! Arrrrgh!
Sorry about that, just had to get it out of my system. Time to hit the hay now anyway. I've successfully spent the entire day trying to get this thing to run. I think going to work tomorrow will actually be less stressful than today!
Anyway, as always, any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
Last edited by TheCleric on Mon Jul 21, 2003 10:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Jul 21, 2003 6:15 am |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
Frustrating. 
Can you install WindowsXP? The other CD-ROM is also worth a try.
You should install the game on another PC, to make sure the CDs are okay.
_________________
Webmaster GothicDot |
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Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:20 am |
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Daedalus
High Emperor
Joined: 04 Jan 2002
Posts: 2516
Location: Estonia |
hmm i am sure 101% that if u run it on different os lets say winXP or WinME it will run like clock just try it out |
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Mon Jul 21, 2003 12:44 pm |
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TheCleric
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 230
Location: Upstate NY, USA |
I'll try changing the CD-Rom tonight. I also read a post where someone had to completely remove their antivirus program to get it to run. Just having it disabled apparently wasn't enough. I'll prob. try that too.
I appreciate the advice, but I'm not going to install XP on this machine. I've got too many DOS games that might not run under XP and I want to keep this maching running under Win98 for them. My new Rig's going to run XP, so if I have to I'll just wait a month or so until I get it up and running. Just building up cash for the CPU and Video Card (Radeon All In Wonder 9800 Pro) now. (Already maxed out my CC getting everything else  ). |
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Mon Jul 21, 2003 10:37 pm |
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TheCleric
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 230
Location: Upstate NY, USA |
Well, I got it running, but it's a mixed bag as to how it happened.
I was using the System File Checker in the Microsoft System Information tool to make sure I was using the latest version drivers (as mentioned above, I just recently got over having to re-install windows and I was concerned that I might not have gotten all of the newest drivers re-loaded).
Anyway, I found a couple where the previous version was newer than the one's I was running and replaced them. But, when I went to reboot, I couldn't get into windows. To make a long story short, I ended up having to use an old Norton Ghost image to restore my main system drive.
I lost a lot of data, and wouldn't have intentionally tried this, but since it was a done deal, I loaded up DX 8.1 and the Catalyst 3.2 Drivers and installed the game. Voilla! She's a running! (Now if I can just get my e-mail working again). 
Unfortunately, I don't know what exactly was causing the problem. I had hoped I might pin it down, in order to help other's w/similar problems. I have a sneaky suspicion that it may have been the Intel Application Accellerator, but I'm not going to re-load that until I've beaten the game at least once! If I do find out specifically what was causing the problem, I'll post the info.
I do know that it wasn't an installation problem, because when I reinstalled it, it still had all the stutters, seeming stops and starts as before.
Thanks for the suggestions and support. |
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Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:07 am |
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