[ME$$ENGER]

So a couple of days ago I finally decided to switch from windows 2000 to windows xp pro. Not wanting to do a fresh install I simply did an OS upgrade. Everything went pretty smoothly and after the upgrade I didn't even have to do any driver installation (except the driver for my SATA controller) to have a working computer. Every program on my computer works right after the upgrade, too, which is kind of expected since windows xp is really just windows NT 5.1. Anyway, the previous statement is not entirely true. There is one program that refuses to work properly. Guess what it is? FS SCP.

At first the launcher wouldn't even run. It would simply go "xxxx.exe has encountered a critical error blahblahblah". I decided to run the 3.6.9 executable to see what would happen. Lo and behold, it ran...without sound. So the first thing that popped into my mind is "openal is being anal". This is pretty weird since SCP (and openal for that matter) was working fine before I did the upgrade. Anyway I reinstalled openal from here. Now the launcher does work, except that if I set the sound to anything other than "No sound" in the audio tab SCP wouldn't launch at all. It would just read the hard drive for about 2 seconds, then die. Nothing pops up. Not even an error warning. Also launching the 3.6.9 executable directly doesn't really work, either. It would only run if I've already set the sound setting to no sound. Otherwise same thing occurs.

Then I decided to run the debug build. Of course it would only give useful information if it's set to crash on launch, so I set my sound setting to "Generic Software" and ran the debug build. Well, it tried to launch and died quietly as expected. What was not expected is the fact that there was no log produced. At this point I can't think of anything else to do. I already upgraded my built-in sound chip driver but it didn't really do anything. OpenAL was reinstalled at least three times with no result. Any idea anyone?

[karajorma]

I assume you know that the log is now called FS2_Open.log and lives in your data folder rather than the main one?

[jr2]

You have Launcher 5.5a, right?

[Wobble73]

OpenAL is driving me nuts!

A man walks into a doctors with a steering wheel shoved down his trousers. The doctors sees this and says

"Crikey, that must be painful!"

and the man replies...

"Yeah Doc, It's driving me nuts!"

*Boom Tish*

 



Sorry, not very helpful I know but when I read the title I just had to!

[ME$$ENGER]

I assume you know that the log is now called FS2_Open.log and lives in your data folder rather than the main one?

Ah, my bad. Anyway the log isn't particularly helpful as you can see:

Code: [Select]

==========================================================================
DEBUG SPEW: No debug_filter.cfg found, so only general, error, and warning
categories can be shown and no debug_filter.cfg info will be saved.
==========================================================================
Passed cmdline options:
  -spec_exp 16.7
  -spec_static 0.9
  -spec_point 0.6
  -spec_tube 
  -2d_poof
  -alpha_env
  -ambient_factor 18.3
  -env
  -jpgtga
  -mipmap
  -missile_lighting
  -glow
  -spec
  -cache_bitmaps
  -img2dds
  -no_vsync
  -ballistic_gauge
  -orbradar
  -rearm_timer
  -targetinfo
  -3dwarp
  -ship_choice_3d
  -warp_flash
  -snd_preload
  -mod ITDoH4,itdoh3,mediavps
Building file index...
Searching root 'C:\games\freespace2\ITDoH4\'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\ITDoH4\ITDoH4.vp'
Searching root 'C:\games\freespace2\itdoh3\'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\itdoh3\ITDoH3.vp'
Searching root 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mp-710_effects.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mp-710_models.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mv_core.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mv_effects.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mv_models.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mv_music.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\mv_textures.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\mediavps\nebula.vp'
Searching root 'C:\games\freespace2\'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\axm_jad2eb.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\axm_JAD_SE2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\Homesick.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\root_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\smarty_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\sparky_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\sparky_hi_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\stu_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\tango1_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\tango2_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\tango3_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'C:\games\freespace2\warble_fs2.vp'
Found 26 roots and 10790 files.
Setting language to English
Initializing OpenAL...
  Using 'Generic Software' as OpenAL sound device...

That's it. There's nothing about why it failed to launch.

You have Launcher 5.5a, right?

Yup. I have the stable 3.6.9 archive (including the launcher) when it was released.

[jr2]

The problem appears to be OpenAL, as that is what was being loaded when the log stopped.  Try un-installing OpenAL, then re-installing.  If that doesn't work, see if you can find which files OpenAL installs, uninstall it, delete those files, re-install it, then try again.

[ME$$ENGER]

Actually, I just fixed the problem 10 seconds ago (how embarrasing).

What happened is that I vaguely recalled taylor telling me that the nvidia drivers for older generation nvidia motherboards (those that use soundstorm audio solution) include its own implementation of OpenAL that sometimes conflicts with the official OpenAL implementation. So I went into the system directory and found a nvopenal.dll sitting over there. I deleted it but left all the wrapoal.dll, openal32.dll...etc (files from the official openal installation) alone. SCP seems to work fine afterwards. Rather strange since windows 2000 doesn't seem to get confused by the existence of nvopenal.dll. Well, whatever. All that matters is that I can blast some shivans now.

[jr2]

8)