How To Run System Shock 2 on Windows Vista

Ninjit_Turak on 17/9/2006 at 05:04

Test System - Dell Inspiron 9300 Full Kit
Specs:
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate RC1
CPU: P-M 2.0GHz Speed-Step Disabled by Vista
Video: GeForce6800 Go 256MB
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
RAM: 2GB DDR533
Display: 1920x1200

!- INSTALLING THE GAME -!
Inserted the SS2 CD and Vista asked if I wanted to use the Panel, or browse the disk. Launched the Panel, and the "Install" button did nothing. Browsed the disk and ran setup.exe without -lgntforce. Installer worked perfectly and installed the full game to d:\games\Sshock2 (unpatched version installed)
Tried to run the game, got the "Known compatibility error", clicked "Play Anyway" and it failed to find the CD. Said "Please Insert Key CD".

Patched game to latest version, no help.

Game did not require a No-CD crack before I installed Vista. And infact, before I formally installed SS2 (I dumped a pre-installed NON-CRACKED copy of the updated, rebirthed, and SHTUPed copy of the game onto my Vista machine and ran it) the game launched perfectly and found the key CD and ran.

Models in Rebirth flickered a little bit, could be video drivers, im asking nVidia where to get GeForce 6 Go drivers for vista at the moment.

I uninstalled my formal install of SS2, and tried to run my dumped version, and it still failed to find the Key CD.

Tried to re-install. Panel actually crashed this time. Tried setup.exe and Explorer crashed.

Rebooted, Dumped copy of SS2 launched and detected the Key-CD. Played fine except some flickering in rebirth models.

Tried setup.exe from original disk again. Complained "Can not create uninstall.log" but installation continued. I canceled it prematurely and deleted d:\games\Sshock2 so it wouldnt fail to make the uninstall.log
Tried setup.exe again and it did nothing. After about 5 mins, it popped up and closed again.

Rebooted PC and ran setup.exe again. Didn't complain about "Unable to create uninstall log" this time. Installed all the way. Started the game, screen went blank and began to initialize, then the program halted and crashed. I ran my Dumped informally installed and atched copy, worked perfectly. Quit game and ran Multiplayer Patch on the formally installed copy, and it runs perfectly.

System Shock 2 intgrates itself into the Vista "Games" menu seemingly with no problems.

!- PLAYING THE GAME -!
Running a formally installed and multiplayer patched version of the game. Launched game and no videos play. Mouse cursor stuck in the top left area of main menu. This used to happen to me in XP when i pressed ESC during gameplay, but never on the main menu before now. ALT+TAB then ALT+SHIFT+TAB fixed it without having to quit. Played game upto medsci and worked fine, ran VERY smooth. Quit the game and installed IV5PLAY.EXE off the SS2 CD, it completed, then Vista said "The program didn't install correctly" I selected "Reinstall using recommended settings." Recieved "IV5PLAY.EXE Unexpected Error" then nothing else. Entered System Shock 2, no cutscenes. Tried playing cutscenes manually in Windows Media Player 11, caused WMP to crash.
Giving up on cutscenes for now.

Other than cutscenes, game appears working perfectly.

!- Rebirth Com. and SHTUP -!
Extracting SHTUP using Vista native Zip support took about 3 mins, very long time compared to XP. Rebirth Com. took about 20 seconds, still quite a slow extraction.
Game still works perfectly and SHTUP and Rebith implemented without and problems.

!- SUMMARY -!
Game loads HEAPS faster, despite the original troubles with safedisk key-cd finding, the game no longer requires safedisk varification mid-game. In XP, it re-verifies every time a .crf file is accessed, or a level is loaded. This does not happen in Vista. This is a good thing because it eliminates the need for a No-CD crack in my experience. The less need for cracks, the better.

Please post your experiences with SS2 and Vista here.

David on 17/9/2006 at 08:27

Installed via "Install" button on panel, applied patch, played game. Worked fine, mods (Rebirth, SHTUP) all worked fine too. Same for the Thief games as well.

Specs:
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate RC1
CPU: Athlon X2 3800
Video: GeForce 7800GT
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
RAM: 2GB DDR400
Display: 2560x1024

Ninjit_Turak on 17/9/2006 at 11:51

Quote Posted by David

That's great, looks like so far we might have a better experience with Vista compared to XP.

Bjossi on 17/9/2006 at 13:42

If SS2 works on Vista, then my fears of compability problems with older games are not nearly as big. :p

Enchantermon on 17/9/2006 at 16:51

Hey, this actually sounds promising! It seems that everyone has different experiences, though, which is no different than what went on with SS2 and XP.
I'm still wondering about SS1, though.....

icemann on 17/9/2006 at 18:24

Thats what dosbox is for

Enchantermon on 18/9/2006 at 01:19

But does DosBox work in Vista?

cosmicnut on 18/9/2006 at 09:55

Vista is OK with games of the SS2 ilk as they do not require a very high version of directx.

The problem games so far seem to be the latest games, Prey took ages to install (I had to first get round the installer not liking the windows version).

Then you get a bug when you try and load it, it tries to copy the game engine DLL from a pack file. It won't work due to the annoying change in admin rights (you have admin rights but not administrator rights...strange huh...). Manually coping the file to the right place fixes this.

Then you get an error sayng that the graphics card does not support the modes required. You then download the latest drivers for the graphics card

It then works.

Well if you call having the entire screen filled with visible mesh lines and missing triangles...

So far not impressed with Vistas compatability!

BTW didn't I already post this about SS2, I'll have to search for my old "Shocking Vistas" thread.

here it is after I got the first beta (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104128&highlight=Vista) clickie

Bjossi on 18/9/2006 at 11:49

Wait, you are telling me that Vista runs SS2 better than Prey? :eek:
That is truly hilarious!

Burawura on 31/5/2007 at 17:07

Well I wasn't as lucky as you guys were. I installed the game the normal way on my Vista Home Premium machine, and patched it with shkpatch.exe to v2.03. At first, I was getting a memory error on startup (System Shock needs 35M to run, you only have 29M). Restarted pc, game starts up just fine, I can change options and start game, but locks up as soon as I exit the tram heading toward the gravshafts. Sound looping upon lockup. I tried a variety of resolutions and sound options, but same thing. Also tried running the game in all compatibility modes and as an administrator. I am no expert with computers but I had no trouble getting SS2 running on my older XP machine so I was pretty disappointed about this. Any ideas?