Unpatched new install of game won't run at all

[julielou2]

Hello there board

I've got an AMD 3500+ with a 256Mb nVidia 6800GT graphics card. I've recently bought CotN and installed it without problem (no patches installed at this stage) but find that upon trying to open the programme to run the game I get a black screen with the words "Please Wait" and a green/yellow progress bar near the bottom that gets about halfway across before everything freezes up. The only way out from that crashed screen is to switch my PC off at the power, which I hate doing.

I've tried alt + tabbing out (doesn't work), I've tried Control + Alt + Deleting to bring up task manager and again to try and shut down nicely (doesn't work), I've updated my video and sound drivers (but had to roll back sound drivers as my sound stopped working). I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game 3 or 4 times and nada! I hate to give up but I don't know what else to try.

Just to clarify, this is the UK version, there are no patches involved, I've never had this game before and haven't been able to get past the Please Wait screen even once. :mad:

Please could some kind person advise on a possible next step.

Many thanks in advance.

Jules

[julielou2]

Hello Phil

You were right - I did have a virtual drive - I'd always wondered why I had three drives on My Computer on Windows Explorer but only 2 CD/DVD drawers! :D I've uninstalled the program causing the virtual drive (InstantDrive by Pinnacle - and I've never used it in the 3 years it's been sitting on the PC), I've made sure the drive is gone. I've rebooted and tried the game again and got same crash at the "Please wait..." screen. So I've rebooted from the crash, uninstalled the game, rebooted yet again, turned off my anti virus and malware monitors for good measure and then reinstalled. Tried the game again and still the same crash so it must be the Sony drives now that you mentioned.

Please could you tell me how to launch the analysis as I have no idea how to do this and also who SecuROM are and how to get the analysis to them?

Also, in case I haven't mentioned it, this game is being run from a CD rather than Steam.

You are a very patient and helpful gentleman - thank you. :)

I've also attached an new DxDiag now the virtual drive has gone.

Jules

PS I've also added my msconfig screens too as I see you like to receive those too.

[julielou2]

Hello again Phil

Well I happen to think that you are very patient and tolerant, certainly compared to my husband who is the most sardonic, unforgiving and acerbic man alive (but all the better for it). It's a pleasure to meet someone else on forums who uses complete sentences too. ;)

This is just a small update - I've unchecked the unnecessary processes that were running - my malware (Comodo BO) has started itself back up but then I know what that is and am happy to have it in the background for protection. Thank you for that side advice. I've also successfully created an analysis zip file and that has been emailed to these Securom people.

I must say how annoying all this faffing is, what poor product compatibility testing it shows and second how ironic that Securom appears to be owned by Sony but won't support Sony drives! However, I very much appreciate all this work that you have put in for me - Tilted Mill should have you on its payroll for your efforts. It has certainly put me off buying any further products with Securom. Now that I'm researching it, there are various horror stories about on the internet; that it prevents anti virus from working, drives ever working again etc. I certainly hope Children of the Nile is worth it when I eventually get it running.

Anyway, I'll post again when, fingers crossed, I've received whatever patch I need and have got the game running.

Thanks again to you Phil.

Jules

[julielou2]

Unfortunately I've had the following response from SecuROM:

Hello,

Thank you for your e-mail. After careful inspection of the analysis file and
due to your error description, it appears that the issue is not SecuROM
related.

Please contact the software publisher for further support options related to
issues specific to the software.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Don't know what else to try now. :(

[julielou2]

Hello Phil

Well I was so disheartened after that message so I didn't catch your message as I'd come off-line in a fit of pique. Of course, though the thing worried away at me so I went back to it.

I had read somewhere on the site that the latest patches should be applied to CotN but I've always worked on the principle of getting the vanilla unpatched programme working first and then to apply updates. Anyway, thought as a last ditch attempt before asking for my money back (games just shouldn't be this hard to get going), that I would apply the 1.3 patch. On downloading, it spat back at me that it didn't like a file in the Documents folder which was in fact the shortcut to the CotN website. Of course as it wouldn't save the patch to file properly, I had to run it each time so I had to download for quarter of an hour (I live in the middle countryside and suffer with a 512Mb broadband line) 3 times while I thought about why it didn't like that file. In the end I decided to just delete the shortcut which, WOW - worked!!! I stopped getting the error message. :D I finally felt as though it was getting somewhere.

So then I reran the game whereupon it told me that it couldn't find the d3dx9_33.dll file, so I simply re-ran the redist version of directx which I'd already downloaded. I'm sure I'd done that before but redid it anyway and voila the game now works exactly as intended. So I think the breakthrough came with installing the patch - it just doesn't seem to be logical to me to patch something which has never worked but then if it works...

Thank you so much for your interest and assistance though.

The game looks great and I think it's going to take a lot of World of Warcraft time away from me! :D

Jules