Venator on 22/10/2004 at 21:00
Hello ladies and gents,
Well, I've taken some time on my own trying to fix this, and I've read through this FAQ and discussion as well as trying to search various other support forums and have come up with nothing.
(It always used to really annoy me when people would just run straight for help without trying for themselves first)
Anyway, my copy of SS2 USED to work (ish - there were no videos). I only ran it the once (possibly twice) and it worked fine, got into game, went through training, etc. got into game, beat up bad guys etc etc. (got killed by auto-turrets)
Anyway, to the actual problem... I can load the game and enter the main menu. However when I attempt to create a game it begins loading... and then pops up the ever-annoying error message. It's one of those "Do you want to send Microsoft an error report" ones... and doesn't tell me anything about what actually went wrong (despite working my way through several sub-windows) all I got was a list of some files, most I didn't recognise and a huge long list of code... none I could understand...
This has been a long winded post, for that I apolagise. I'm determined to play this game again and was hoping somebody here could help... ? :erg: :confused:
Respectfully,
Ven
(a day or two later...)
Thinking more critically about the fact the Demo worked and the full game didn't I concluded that the only major difference to the start up is that the demo has no intro movie... Working on this idea I moved the game's videos to a seperate folder. Lo and behold, this simple change fixed the problem...
this seems slightly odd as I can't see why the videos would have failed, however, the game is now working (if without the videos). Thanks to anyone who gave my post the time to read, but I'm happy to say it's fixed... anyway, I just got killed by a group of 5 or 6 arachnids that supprised me... most go extract vengence. Have fun!
spiderangelwing on 30/10/2004 at 10:27
Hi everyone, I'm kind of new here but I would appreciate it greatly if someone could help me.
Well...my problem is more or less the same as everyone else's in this thread. More specifically, I had to format my HD and reinstall Windows a couple of days ago. Before this reformatting, SS2 worked perfectly well on my PC. Now, however, when I reinstalled it after the format, it won't work. When I click on Shock2.exe, I get a black screen for a few seconds, followed by an error message (the usual "System Shock 2 has encountered a problem and needs to close" thing).
I'm running the following system:
System Shock 2 patched to ver. 2.3
Windows XP Professional with SP2
Athlon XP2600+
GeForce MX440 with ver. 61.77 drivers
256Mb RAM
Now, the only things that are different with my system following the format are that I installed SP2 (I hadn't before) and I updated the video drivers (hadn't done this before either). I tried downgrading the video drivers to versions over a year old and SS2 is still behaving in the same way, so I'm assuming it's SP2's fault.
I've been going through this FAQ, and I've tried all of these:
-installing with -lgntforce
-creating a user.cfg file with "safe_texture_manager" written in, as well as adding the same line to the cam.cfg file
-downloading and installing the shock2_xp_2000 fix
-downloading and installing the shock2fixed .exe
-setting the Compatibility mode to all Windows versions
None of those have worked in any way. Is there anything else I could possibly try?
alienstookmybeer on 30/10/2004 at 13:13
You are in luck! There are other tricks you can try, all of which I tried while swearing profusely from spending my entire day trying to get it to install.
Since you have the same error message I had, I'll mention other tricks I did that you haven't listed.
You did list safe_texture_manager -- I put mine on shock.cfg
I think :confused: I cleared that error when I did the no-cd crack. That should be mentioned somewhere in this FAQ.
Keep the video driver downgraded!
Also check into the hyperthreading fix, if your PC uses that.
My last resort fix: :grr: dust off the old computer and try that.. in my case, I found out that it didn't work anymore... :mad: Swearing became much louder at that point
But... works now! I'd never play this game again, if it wasn't for FAQs like this.. good job to all who contributed! :thumb:
corio27 on 3/11/2004 at 21:02
BooWaah, thanks this works ok :thumb:
Tulsidas on 4/11/2004 at 05:52
The readmep.wri file created after applying the 2.3v patch has a few words on the SS2 compatibility problems with NT/2000 :
"Use lgntforce switch for the setup. Additionally, there's a ZIP included with the patch which must be extracted to the directory to which you installed SS2."
Just which ZIP file are they refering to? As far as i can see there's a *patch* directory which contains a few *.crf files (which as we know are actually zip files). How is this going to help? :confused:
And i wonder why does SS2 have such issues with XP when the other two dark engine games TG & T2 run flawlessly, aside from the lgntforce switch for TG setup of course, but that's minor. Irrational still does support SS2, doesn't it? How come it hasn't ever thought of releasing a fix? :mad:
David on 4/11/2004 at 08:43
There is no Zip file and Irrational doesn't support SS2. They where pretty much the designers of it, with LGS being the technical side.
Tulsidas on 4/11/2004 at 10:23
...and EA the business side. Which makes me feel stupid for caring to send the post. :o
By the by, who owns the source code?
Bio-Wrath on 7/11/2004 at 03:43
Okay, I just rebought Ss 2 for my PC from Amazon.com cuz the old CD I had got lost someplace. Anyway, I install it and, typical installation and all is going well I must say until I run the program: "System Shock 2 is not compadable with this version of windows, contact EA games for some kinda version..." I have defragged my comp three times, tried the "force" thing four times, tried those patchs, ended up opening Microshaft word somehow for some kinda decoding babble. Defragged comp in safe mode, reinstalled in safe mode, checked the program for viruses with Norton Sys works, tried every single possible compadiblity mode, even that wizard junk and all I get is a black screen for like five seconds then I return to my Desktop as if nothing even happened. I turn off the WIN 95 version and all I get is an hourglass for like a split second. This game has ran FINE on my OS before, then I had to nuke my HD because of a viral infection, write 0's to it and rebuild windows from the ground up and now it doesn't work. I need help on this, please whoever can help me, I thank you. E-mail the answer to: [email]sougr@aol.com[/email]
OS:
WIN XP Home edition
Baracooda Hard-drive
1 gig of memory
intergrated vid card to motherboard.
Gateway PC
Thanks much. :>)
TheNightTerror on 7/11/2004 at 04:18
Have you tried finding "setup.exe" on the SS2 CD, then changing the compatibility mode on it? Worked for me when I installed Thief Gold, can't see why it wouldn't work here.
Bio-Wrath on 7/11/2004 at 04:35
Just as the title says, your idea didn't work. :grr:
