Just bought Episode I but I'm just getting a crash!!!

[tapalai]

when trying to start the game after a logo-splash screen appears, the game just crashes the computer very badly.
I get a blue screen with some errors that lasts for half a second and then the computer reboots. i am really dissatisfied with this because i just spend some money on the game!
i've read carefully through the requirements, and the computer should be able to run the game, it's a p4 2000mhz, 1024mb ram, nvidia geforce 440 go 64m chip and enough disk-space. damn, i should have tried the demo.
is there anything i can do to get the game running?
and if not, how can i get my money back?
thanks for help or ideas!!! we wanted to play this game this evening and are really unhappy now!!

[Candle]

Try to update your directx from the Download DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime web site

[Erwin]

I'd try updating your video card drivers as well.

You can do so here: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

--Erwin

[tapalai]

thanks for your answers so long...

i have already updated directx to 9.0c but i cannot update the graphics card driver, because it is a laptop and only the manufacturers driver will work and we've already got the last version installed. i've already tried changing harware acceleration on the sound tab in dxdiag, still the big crash

any other ideas ???

by the way, i've copied this thread to the support forum (didn'r know how to move it there) so any answers, hints or ideas would be very welcome there:

http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ead.php?t=2932

thanks for any help!!!

[AdamG]

It's likely a memory conflict of some type, it's very hard to say what the error could be without knowing what the error says. Could you please try to write down as many details of it as possible? Do you have a digital camera? If you do, make the blue screen o' death error come up again, and take a picture and post it here. www.imageshack.us is a good picture host.

[tapalai]

good idea trying to use a camera... but unfortunately i don'T have it here right now, will try that later. and the error on the blue screen is only readable for a very short time and the whole screen is filled with text, so without a camera i can't tell anything about the contents. i'll try to take a picture in the next days

[jmm]

Based on your system specs, I'll say driver incompatibility, the GeForce 440 is quite old and I don't know how compatible with DX9c.

To gather some info:
Go to Event Viewer (Control Panel->Administrative Tools)
Select the System view and check for the bugcheck info (The source says Save Dump).

Open the event, the description should say something like

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000000 (0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

Post the numbers to see what caused the crash. If you saved a dump file (It will say so on the event message) and you have a debugger like WinDBG (Free download from MS), you can get really see what happened.

[AdamG]

You have a GeForce 440? Yeah, a card that old will definately cause some compatibility issues. That's the MX series, isn't it? People had a lot of problems with the MX series. Until you get a photo of the error message I'm not sure what I can do. Jmm's has a good idea though, that might get you more usefull debugging data then even the blue screen o' death would.

[tapalai]

thanks for your idea on this topic. i found the suggested information, it says the following (sorry it's in german):

------------
Der Computer ist nach einem schwerwiegenden Fehler neu gestartet. Der Fehlercode war: 0x10000050 (0xbe8b98d3, 0x00000001, 0xbfa20a6a, 0x00000002). Ein volles Abbild wurde gespeichert in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini052707-05.dmp.

Weitere Informationen über die Hilfe- und Supportdienste erhalten Sie unter http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
------------

in english (my translation ): 'the computer is restarted after a heavy crash. the error code was: ......


if it is an unsolvable problem, is there any possibility to get the money back? we would love to play the game, though. but if it doesn't work...

i'll try this winDBG now...

thanks!

[AdamG]

Any possibility that you could email me that file mentioned in the error? Adam_Geldersma @ yahoo.com

P.S. Yes, I'm sure TellTale would gladly give you a refund if you can't get it to work. They don't generally like people paying for things that don't work, from what I've seen. Well, it looks like it's more likely to be something on your side, but it still doesn't work either way.

[AdamG]

Tapalai, go check this out.

http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ghlight=nvidia

[AdamG]

Like I said MX cards are a real pain in the ass. It seems others in your same situation are also having problems with onboard audio drivers as well. Is your laptop a Dell by any chance? Dells are a big pain in the ass too.

[tapalai]

i have found and tried out this winDBG but it says a lot of errors like

'Your debugger is not using the correct symbols'
'Kernel symbols are WRONG.'
'ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for nv4_disp.dll'
'Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized.'
'Symbol search path is: *** Invalid ***'

which i cannot understand right now. i don't know what symbols the program is talking about. however, i understand that it has to do most likely with the somehow outdated geforce 440 go chip.

@AdamG: i've sent the file to you! i'll try the driver from the other thread, but i'm quite sure that i've read some time ago, that only the manufacturers driver will work on this laptop. it's not a dell, but a 'medion' which is a cheap european label i think.

thanks for your help!

[AdamG]

Arg... The dump file is encrypted. Why on earth would a dump file be encrypted? I don't know what can unencrypt it, someone here should though.

[tapalai]

thanks anyway i'll be going to bed soon because it's close to midnight here already. i'll continue the search for a solution tomorrow

i don't know what could have encrypted the file, i just copied it from the given directory. maybe this windbg unencrypts the file (if you have the correct 'symbols')?

[tapalai]

one last thing for today: i'm really happy for all your fast feedback and ideas! thanks!

[AdamG]

No problem, tapalai. Hopefully the info in that thread can help you. If not, we'll try to figure out what's the problem. Unfortunately it could always be the case that you won't get it to work, which it should because your hardware is capable of doing it. If we can't get it to work though, I'm sure they will give you a refund.

[Candle]

i have a Dell laptop and what a pain it is to play games on it. ..

[jmm]

RE WinDBG and symbols: All depends on which specific version of Windows do you have (ie: XP Original/SP1/SP2).

The symbols must be downloaded from MS' site and setup on WinDBG (File->Symbol File Path).
If you have all that ok, just open the crash dump (File->Open Crash Dump) and enter
"!analyze -v" (no quotes)

That should tell enough info on what went wrong.

Note: Do not install the symbols under your Windows directory (ie: C:\WINDOWS\Symbols)

[tapalai]

ok... back online again.
good morning

i have just downloaded the 'symbols' (200 mb !!!!) for windbg, and with these 'symbols' the program could finally analyze the little few kb dump file. the error was caused by nv4mini.sys or something like that, so it's defenitely the graphics adapter.

i have downloaded the omega driver and it unexpectedly worked (after damn many times of rebooting and tweaking and trying) fine with the computer.

with this driver the game starts (somehow...) without crashing the computer. but it only starts a window that is displaying only white and after a while music starts and finally i can hear sam and max talk. great! but too white to see anything.

after all these hours i've lost hope somehow and i think i'm going to spent the last energy on trying to get the money back maybe the game will just not run on this machine. thanks anyway to all!