Techniqal Issue

[hbkhhh69]

I have looked on the support and tech issue faq page and my problem is not mentioned there. I am unable to run the game, when I double-click it icon nothing happens. I did Launch Analysis and it told me it saved an error log that the site serucom will evaluate. I emailed titled mill as well and did not get a response yet. I uninstalled the game and installed it again. I re-started the computer many times. How do I run the game?

[Jaguar]

Hey, yours is a familiar name :)

hbkhhh69, please let us know your system specifications so that we'll be able to help you. My initial thought is that your video card isn't up to snuff to play the game, but I could be wrong.

[Maatkaamun]

A DxDiag (at least the first part) would be helpful to the wizards here (there are several very good techs on the forums).

[Keith]

Make sure your video and audio card drivers are current, and compatable with DirectX 9.

A list of video cards that support T&L used by the game can be found in the following thread:

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4042

If your video card is on the red list, it's time to upgrade.

SecuROM can be a problem with some system that have old drivers and there are some brands and models that just aren't compatible.

What was the error log message about SecuROM? What did it say?

[absinthewfaust]

i've got the same issue, double click on the desktop shortcut, -or- select 'run' from the autostart menu, the cd spins for a bit, hard drive 'thinks' for a bit, then nothing happens.

specs-

intel pentium 4, 2.8 ghz, hyper threading enabled
512 ddr ram
ati radeon 9000 pro (128 megs) with 4.10 drivers
hercules fortissimo 2 sound card
dx 9.0c

the 1st part of my dx diag:

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 11/8/2004, 16:21:03
Machine name: BOB
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2_gdr.040517-1325)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MICRO-STAR INC.
System Model: MS-6788
BIOS: Version 1.00
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 242MB used, 1005MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0904 32bit Unicode



(it says 2 cpu, but it's only 1 (known bug))

any suggestions would be appreciated.

i don't mean to hijack this thread, but being i'm having the same exact issue, i reckon i'd better post in here.

[Erik]

Not sure if it is even a long shot but I have a DVD drive that does that with certain game CD's. Do either of you have a secondary optical drive to test with?

http://nilechild.com/ncsig.jpg (http://nilechild.com/)

[absinthewfaust]

no, i don't.

my cd drive is a re-writeable sony, 24x/10x/40x.

this really has me stumped. this is a newer rig and i've bought most of the newer stuff that is out right now, like doom3, sims 2, men of valor, fifa 2005, roller coaster tycoon 3, rome:total war... not one single issue with any of em.

but this is the first myelin media/tilted mill game, and i believe this is one of the very few new games that uses securom 5..which the software is so paranoid it is almost rediculous.

i know it is undoubtedly something that the game is not agreeing with my machine, but it would be really unfortunate if i could not play this game.
i've been a die hard of these developers since lords of the realm 1 and been chomping at the bit for this since it was first announced. :cry:

[mouse]

If the game installed without a problem then you should be able to run it. Make sure to turn off your virus scanner before trying to load the game. Virus scanners can effect/stop the game from running or cause it to crash. Sony drives often have a problem with Secu-rom the copy protection used by many games.

[absinthewfaust]

@ Mouse: yeah, it installed without any hiccups whatsoever. i do have a virus scanner (Avast) and 'Ad-Watch' (part of Adware Pro) running. i'll disable those and give er' a go.

thanks for the info on the drivers, i'll delve into it.

[Keith]

i've got the same issue, double click on the desktop shortcut, -or- select 'run' from the autostart menu, the cd spins for a bit, hard drive 'thinks' for a bit, then nothing happens.

specs-

intel pentium 4, 2.8 ghz, hyper threading enabled
512 ddr ram
ati radeon 9000 pro (128 megs) with 4.10 drivers
hercules fortissimo 2 sound card
dx 9.0c

the 1st part of my dx diag:

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 11/8/2004, 16:21:03
Machine name: BOB
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2_gdr.040517-1325)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MICRO-STAR INC.
System Model: MS-6788
BIOS: Version 1.00
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 242MB used, 1005MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0904 32bit Unicode



(it says 2 cpu, but it's only 1 (known bug))

any suggestions would be appreciated.

i don't mean to hijack this thread, but being i'm having the same exact issue, i reckon i'd better post in here.
Your Pentium chip has Hyperthreading, which makes the one physical CPU chip appear as two logical CPU on the device manager. This allows your CPU to split runtime duties between two applications at one time. It's not a bug its the way your system is supposed to be. Hyperthreading can be enabled or disabled from the F2 setup menu when you boot your computer under the CPU performance section of the setup menu. I recommend you leave it enabled as it can make many applications run a bit smoother.

I run the SETI@Home application in the background on my system fulltime. With hyperthreading it can actually work on two work units at the same time thus speeding up the throughput on the number I can produce in a day.

Check for updated drivers for your CD or DVD drive. It might be that your sound card is preventing the game from loading properly as well. Check for updated drivers for the sound card.

This sounds very much like the SecuROM problems many people had with Emperor when it first got released. The drive would spin and then nothing.

[absinthewfaust]

Your Pentium chip has Hyperthreading, which makes the one physical CPU chip appear as two logical CPU on the device manager. This allows your CPU to split runtime duties between two applications at one time. It's not a bug its the way your system is supposed to be. Hyperthreading can be enabled or disabled from the F2 setup menu when you boot your computer under the CPU performance section of the setup menu. I recommend you leave it enabled as it can make many applications run a bit smoother.

I run the SETI@Home application in the background on my system fulltime. With hyperthreading it can actually work on two work units at the same time thus speeding up the throughput on the number I can produce in a day.

Check for updated drivers for your CD or DVD drive. It might be that your sound card is preventing the game from loading properly as well. Check for updated drivers for the sound card.

This sounds very much like the SecuROM problems many people had with Emperor when it first got released. The drive would spin and then nothing.


thank you very very much for explaining hyper threading to me! learn something new every day :)

the sound card is a few years old, and unfortunately, the newest driver available is from jan. 2003. it hasn't 'been broke' up till now so i've never had a reason to 'fix it.' if you know what i mean.

[Keith]

thank you very very much for explaining hyper threading to me! learn something new every day :)

the sound card is a few years old, and unfortunately, the newest driver available is from jan. 2003. it hasn't 'been broke' up till now so i've never had a reason to 'fix it.' if you know what i mean.With Hyperthreading you could be editing a video and playing a game at the same time without any noticeble lag. Not all applications make full use of it though. The Seit program I run is the only one that I am aware of at present that actually allows me to specify which logical processor I want a specific work unit to be run on.

It could be a problem with your soundcard drivers preventing the start up of the game. For some reason they may be preventing the game from loading properly.

Also, I mentioned a similar problem with Emperor when it was first released, and it was discussed in a long long thread on the VUG Emperor Technical Discussion board (http://community.vugames.com/WebX?230@@.ef94ba5).

Tony Leier (http://community.vugames.com/WebX?14@@.ef94ba5/30), who now works at Tilted Mill, posted a link to the Blizzard Entertainment website technical support section (http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=awr0648p) that walked people through steps to discover why their games didn't run when started as well. Just go through all the pages which help analyze the problem.

[absinthewfaust]

With Hyperthreading you could be editing a video and playing a game at the same time without any noticeble lag. Not all applications make full use of it though. The Seit program I run is the only one that I am aware of at present that actually allows me to specify which logical processor I want a specific work unit to be run on.

It could be a problem with your soundcard drivers preventing the start up of the game. For some reason they may be preventing the game from loading properly.

Also, I mentioned a similar problem with Emperor when it was first released, and it was discussed in a long long thread on the VUG Emperor Technical Discussion board (http://community.vugames.com/WebX?230@@.ef94ba5).

Tony Leier (http://community.vugames.com/WebX?14@@.ef94ba5/30), who now works at Tilted Mill, posted a link to the Blizzard Entertainment website technical support section (http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=awr0648p) that walked people through steps to discover why their games didn't run when started as well. Just go through all the pages which help analyze the problem.

once again, thank you for your efforts. :)

this is what the problem was:

Click on Start --> Settings --> Control Panel
Open System
Select the Device Manager tab
Double click on the CD icon
Double click on the CD drive entry
Select the Settings tab
Change both the Start and End Drive letter to match the current drive letter assignment
Click Ok and Reboot

which is something that securom is picky about.

problem solved!!!

:D

[hbkhhh69]

The game still does not work, I tried all possible solutions as followed on the Blizzard site and what was posted here.

[mouse]

The drivers I'm using for my Ati card 4.14 so it might be a good idea to update your video drivers and your sound card drivers too.

[hbkhhh69]

I tried to update my drivers and it said there are no driver updates found at this time and I am good to go for my card. Here is my dxdiag info from yesterday -->

http://www.angelfire.com/al4/xena4life/DxDiag.txt

[hbkhhh69]

Yeay! the game works now:)!

[Keith]

Yeay! the game works now:)!
So what made it work? Since you couldn't download a new driver something else must have changed? Give us a clue.

Glad you got it going.http://community.vugames.com/Images/emoticons/ltdance.gif

[absinthewfaust]

The drivers I'm using for my Ati card 4.14 so it might be a good idea to update your video drivers and your sound card drivers too.


there's a new one already?? wow. i just updated to 4.10 :D

[Mestor]

I just purchased the game today, and I have the same issue as the origional poster.

I double click the exe or the shortcut and simply nothing happens, no error message, nothing

dxdiag link (http://www.torz.org/mestor/cotn/DxDiag.txt)

for what its worth, Warhammer40k: Dawn of war gives me the exact same problem - and both games use the SecureROM protection which leads me to believe that its an issue with perhaps something I have installed and SecureROM

The only way I can fix the problem for DoW is to download a no-cd cracked exe, which is a pain in the butt

I'm 99% sure that it is NOT my current CD/DVDrom drive because I went out and bought a new sony dvd rom drive to try to get wh40k to work sunday. So thats 3 different drives I've tried it out on.

I'm going to check out that blizzard help thing, and I'll post if anything in there works.

[absinthewfaust]

I just purchased the game today, and I have the same issue as the origional poster.

I double click the exe or the shortcut and simply nothing happens, no error message, nothing

dxdiag link (http://www.torz.org/mestor/cotn/DxDiag.txt)

for what its worth, Warhammer40k: Dawn of war gives me the exact same problem - and both games use the SecureROM protection which leads me to believe that its an issue with perhaps something I have installed and SecureROM

The only way I can fix the problem for DoW is to download a no-cd cracked exe, which is a pain in the butt

I'm 99% sure that it is NOT my current CD/DVDrom drive because I went out and bought a new sony dvd rom drive to try to get wh40k to work sunday. So thats 3 different drives I've tried it out on.

I'm going to check out that blizzard help thing, and I'll post if anything in there works.


for what it's worth, i've got a sony drive also, and my problem was drive related.

sony and securom do not play well together at all. i'm not just making that generalization from my own experience either. i base it upon information i've gathered from scouring the net to find an answer to my own problem.. sony drive owners are pretty much forked when it comes to games that have securom 5 on them. :confused:

[Mestor]

Well I tried everything listed on the blizzard site, well everything that applied to me anyways (running win2k without a lot of those conflicting programs)

No dice. I did change my cdrom drive letters to E: and F: thinking that maybe that was the problem (they were G and H - and win2k doesnt have a "start drive letter" and "end drive letter" so this was the closest to the step that fixed absinthewfaust's problem.

Any ideas would be appreciated

[mouse]

Do you have a Sony drive that your trying to run the game from by any chance? As I said in post #8 Sony drives have a known problem with secu-rom and has had for a number of years. Sony doesn't seem to have any plans to fix it.

[Mestor]

Do you have a Sony drive that your trying to run the game from by any chance? As I said in post #8 Sony drives have a known problem with secu-rom and has had for a number of years. Sony doesn't seem to have any plans to fix it.

yessir I do, a newly bought sony DVD rom drive

But I also have a cd-rw and i unstalled the game and reinstalled via that and still the same thing happens (nothing)

[Keith]

I just purchased the game today, and I have the same issue as the origional poster.

I double click the exe or the shortcut and simply nothing happens, no error message, nothing

dxdiag link (http://www.torz.org/mestor/cotn/DxDiag.txt)

for what its worth, Warhammer40k: Dawn of war gives me the exact same problem - and both games use the SecureROM protection which leads me to believe that its an issue with perhaps something I have installed and SecureROM

The only way I can fix the problem for DoW is to download a no-cd cracked exe, which is a pain in the butt

I'm 99% sure that it is NOT my current CD/DVDrom drive because I went out and bought a new sony dvd rom drive to try to get wh40k to work sunday. So thats 3 different drives I've tried it out on.

I'm going to check out that blizzard help thing, and I'll post if anything in there works.
I am not sure your video card is up to snuff. It must be able to support the Transform and Lighting (T&L) standards used by CotN.

Also you an rather ancient sound AC97 sound card with rather old and decrepid drivers dated 2001.

While moderating at VU Games, I've seen lots of people with AC97 sound systems post requests for help.

There is a short list of current cards that should work, and those that probably won't work in the following post:

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34204&postcount=6

GeForce2 doesn't seem to appear on the list.

[Mestor]

I am not sure your video card is up to snuff. It must be able to support the Transform and Lighting (T&L) standards used by CotN.

Also you an rather ancient sound AC97 sound card with rather old and decrepid drivers dated 2001.

While moderating at VU Games, I've seen lots of people with AC97 sound systems post requests for help.

There is a short list of current cards that should work, and those that probably won't work in the following post:

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34204&postcount=6

GeForce2 doesn't seem to appear on the list.

The AC97 is my onboard audio, I never use it, the current default sound device is my SB PCI 512, which while not amazing should certainly support whatever cotn throws at it. Just thinking about it though, I'll see if disableing the AC97 in my device manager does anything helpful.

and quoted from that link about the gf2
This list of video cards that DO support T&L recently appeared on the VU Games forum:

Nvidia- GeForce SDR/DDR, GeForce2, GeForce3, GeForce4, GeForce FX

:/ I really don't think its a hardware conflict, I'm fairly sure its an issue my computer is having with SecuROM

[Greg Sheppard]

Hi Mestor,

You might be right that its SecuROM related & I'd like to know what Sony thinks the problem / solution is. Please right click on the shortcut to the exe & choose "Launch analysis". The analysis takes a few seconds to run & the resulting .log file is saved at the root of your system drive. Post the file to this thread & Sony should get back to us before the weekend.

Also, I know that SecuROM is incompatible with at least some emulators. If you have one running, you might want to try uninstalling / disabling it.

Good luck,

Greg

[Mestor]

Hi Mestor,

You might be right that its SecuROM related & I'd like to know what Sony thinks the problem / solution is. Please right click on the shortcut to the exe & choose "Launch analysis". The analysis takes a few seconds to run & the resulting .log file is saved at the root of your system drive. Post the file to this thread & Sony should get back to us before the weekend.

Also, I know that SecuROM is incompatible with at least some emulators. If you have one running, you might want to try uninstalling / disabling it.

Good luck,

Greg

Yeah, I decided to email SecuROM last night and they asked me for that log file, but alas, I can't right click on .exe's without he explorer crashing (yeah - theres no way to make myself sound smart after saying that heh). So this seems to be the kick in the pants for me to call in to work and reload windows. If - when I have the option to right click again - I still run into the same problems, I'll be sure to send the log file though ; )

Also yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by emulators, but I don't have any virtual drives or anything of that nature installed.

/me delves into the wonderful world of "Reinstalling everything"

[hbkhhh69]

I solved the problem by removing all virtual drives, I also removed D-Tools and Alchohol 120% since my Samsung CD-R/RW drive has problems with the autoplay feature. Uninstall those programs if you have them and I got an email from SecuRom telling me to remove all emulation options with any programs virtual drives may be associated with. Don't use a Sony drive, especially if its a DVD drive. If this does not solve your problem let me know.

[Mestor]

I solved the problem by removing all virtual drives, I also removed D-Tools and Alchohol 120% since my Samsung CD-R/RW drive has problems with the autoplay feature. Uninstall those programs if you have them and I got an email from SecuRom telling me to remove all emulation options with any programs virtual drives may be associated with. Don't use a Sony drive, especially if its a DVD drive. If this does not solve your problem let me know.

thank you very much all of you for your help

I got so disgusted with the problem that I just formatted and reloaded my system. I had SOMETHING it was conflicting with, but I just couldn't figure out what.

... I was due for a clean install anyways ; )

Again, I really appreciate ya'lls help, but the format fixed whatever the conflict was.

And now I'm going to play more cotn :D

[absinthewfaust]

i'm really glad you were able to get it going. :D