[Drake1132]

OK, I had been looking (not very hard) for a copy of this game for a couple of years now.  And today I finally decided to look a little harder and found the SCP and Turey's installer and everything.  So I then spent numerous hours letting Turey's installer download and install everything.

After that, I downloaded and installed the latest version of OpenAL from their website.

I then restarted my computer.

Then I browsed to my installation directory and started up the Launcher.exe program, pointed it to fs2_open_3_6_9.exe and clicked Apply.  Then I did all of the settings configuration stuff the way I want them (or at least the way I think I want them... can't be sure 'til I can actually play).  I clicked on Apply numerous times as I went through this.  When I was finished, I clicked OK.

After that I started up the Launcher.exe program again and verified that everything was still the way I had set it before, and then clicked Run.  My mouse cursor turned into it's "working in background" cursor for a brief while, then turned back to normal... five minutes later nothing else had happened!  So then I tried to simply start fs2_open_3_6_9.exe and had the same result as with the Run button on the launcher.

So I tried downloading the official 3.6.9 release that is linked in this page: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Installing_fs2_open

I extracted those files to the installation directory that I had used with Turey's installer and had it overwrite the files.  There was something like a 5 month difference in modification date, but file sizes were the same (Turey's files were newer, but have been overwritten).  And I tried it all again... same results.  There is no error message or anything, it simply fails to launch the game.  Looking through the process list in my task manager does not show any processes associated with the game... I don't know what processes should be there, but I recognize all processes listed and know what they are for, and none of them are from the game except for the Launcher.exe on the occasions when I use the Run button.

I am running WindowsXP Home SP2 on an AMD Athalon 64 3700+ at 2.41 GHz.  I have 2GB RAM and a nVidia GeForce 6600 graphics card with 256MB of vid RAM.  I have DirectX 9.0c installed.  I have on-board sound which is not the greatest sound quality but has never given me any problems in the past.  My command line flags (as given in the Launcher.exe window) are as follows...

J:\Programs\Games\Freespace_2\fs2_open_3_6_9.exe -spec -glow -env -jpgtga -mipmap -nomotiondebris -noscalevid -missile_lighting -cache_bitmaps -dualscanlines -targetinfo -orbradar -rearm_timer -ballistic_gauge -ship_choice_3d -3dwarp -warp_flash -snd_preload -alpha_env  -ambient_factor 50

That path is correct, including capitalizations (in case that makes a difference).

I really, really hope someone can help me get this to work (preferably without having to download and reinstall the whole thing from scratch again).  As near as I can tell from various review sites, Freespace 2 is one of the top rated, if not THE top rated, game in the genre from the last 10 years, and the prospect of finally getting to play it, and even having graphics enhancements from the SCP, has me really excited... and really disappointed since it isn't working yet.

Any and all help is appreciated, but especially if it lets me get this working without downloading another 3+ GB of files.

Drake


Edit/Update:  I just tried to launch FreeSpace2.exe and received a pop-up window stating...

Please configure your system in the Launcher before running FS2.

The Launcher will be restarted!

This window has only an OK button.  Clicking OK brings up an error pop-up window that says...

Freespace2/Fred2 cannot be run from a drive root directory!

This window also has only an OK button.  Clicking OK closes the error window and nothing further seems to take place.

[Wanderer]

Hmmm... You probabaly have all the needed files already by now.

Could you run the launcher (launcher.exe, do not use the old retail freespace2.exe) and select debug build (marked with d). And then run the game again. After this go to your freespace/data directory and open file named 'fs2_open.log' and post its contents here. 

[Drake1132]

OK, started Launcher.exe, pointed it to "fs2_open_3_6_9_debug.exe", clicked Apply, clicked Run... still didn't launch the game.  the contents of the ../data/fs2_open.log file is as follows...

==========================================================================
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:
  -alpha_env
  -ambient_factor 50
  -env
  -jpgtga
  -mipmap
  -missile_lighting
  -glow
  -nomotiondebris
  -noscalevid
  -spec
  -cache_bitmaps
  -ballistic_gauge
  -dualscanlines
  -orbradar
  -rearm_timer
  -targetinfo
  -3dwarp
  -ship_choice_3d
  -warp_flash
  -snd_preload
Building file index...
Searching root 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\FS2OGGcutscenepack.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\multi-mission-pack.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\multi-voice-pack.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\root_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\smarty_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\sparky_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\sparky_hi_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\stu_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\tango1_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\tango2_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\tango3_fs2.vp'
Searching root pack 'J:\programs\games\freespace_2\warble_fs2.vp'
Searching root 'n:\'
Found 14 roots and 7415 files.
AutoLang: Language auto-detection successful...
Setting language to English
Initializing OpenAL...
  Using 'Generic Software' as OpenAL sound device...

Seems that it is a problem with OpenAL, or with the choice of software rather than hardware sound, or whatever is supposed to load AFTER OpenAL.  I'll try with "Generic Hardware" for the sound option and post if anything goes differently.


Edit:  Tried with "Generic Hardware" and the normal build (not debug) as well as "Generic Hardware" with the debug build... no cahnge except that in the ../data/fs2_open.log file the line that said "Using 'Generic Software' as OpenAL sound device..." now says "Using 'Generic Hardware' as OpenAL sound device..." instead.


Edit 2:  Tried with "no sound" and it launched the game successfully.  It must be an issue with the launcher and/or game failing to recognize my on-board sound system.  Is there any way I could force it?  Playing without sound is not an option I'm willing to accept.  I can try updating my audio drivers, but they are fairly up to date as is.  It's a Realtek AC'97 Audio device in case that is a known issue or is otherwise important to know about.

[Drake1132]

OK, this is weird... and not at all cool...

I hadn't noticed before, but just now I was going to sign into my IM program (Trillian) and noticed that it was no longer listed in my programs menu.  I know it was there before I restarted my computer after installing FreeSpace 2 SCP with Turey's installer.  I reinstalled it, and it seems to have maintained all of it's configurations, as though it was not uninstalled, but rather the icons were deleted and possibly the registry entries were removed, but the files were still intact.  However, when I launched it after reinstalling it, it did not play my normal program startup sound.  I verified that the sounds were still enabled and they are.  I checked to see if perhaps the volume had been turned all the way down in my master volume control (not the speakers, which are turned up) and my volume control wasn't in my SysTray.  I went to my control panel for Sounds and Audio Devices and it said that I have no Audio device installed.  My on-board sound card and its drivers are still listed in my Device Manager are supposedly are working.  I can still watch DVD's in WinDVD 7 (I just tried) and sound works fine, but my MP3 player (J. River Media Jukebox 8) does not work.

Something seems to be seriously screwy with my system registry since I installed this, and to say I'm unhappy about that idea is an understatement. 

I'm going to reboot my computer and see if I can at least get my sound working again for everything not including FreeSpace 2.  If I cannot, then I'll probably have to do a system restore from a restore point (one of the few advances in WindowsXP that I truly like compared to older versions).


Edit:  Rebooting DID solve the odd sound issues I was having with everything except FreSpace 2 SCP.  I have not yet tried FreeSpace 2 SCP again (I'm a little reluctant to do so, so I might watch a movie or something and then try again).

[karajorma]

The SCP doesn't change any of you registry entries. I very much doubt that the FS2 install itself was responsible for your problems though. What's more likely is that something else crapped up your registry and FS2 not launching was the first consequence you noticed. FS2 definitely wouldn't be touching Trillian.

You'll notice that the SCP error is with OpenAL and most of your problems appear to be sound related. Do you have the latest sound card drivers? It's possible that they didn't like OpenAL being installed (I assume you did actually install OpenAL).

This link explains what the issues are that are probably responsible for FS2_Open not working.

[Drake1132]

OK, I tried again and still cannot get it to work unless I tell it "no sound" in the audio options of the Launcher.exe.  Fortunately, this does not seem to have had an adverse affect on my sound system in any other way as before (might have been a result of the OpenAL install which has been corrected by my last reboot).

This seems to me like it has to be some sort of issue with either my version of OpenAL (1.1 from http://www.openal.org/downloads.html) and/or my sound card, and/or is a compatibility issue between the game and my sound card.

Also, if I launch FreeSpace2.exe and open it's standard setup dialog...  On the audio tab if I click the button to "Detect Available Sound Cards" it ends up listing DirectSound and EAX in the drop-down list, with EAX selected as default after the detection.  This strikes me as odd because I thought that EAX was strictly a feature of Creative Labs audio chips and as far as I know my audio chip is not a Creative Labs chip (though I certainly could be wrong).



To karajorma:  I have made no changes to my system in the last 3 weeks except for updating my Java Runtime Environment which I did 4 days ago and have had no problems since (until now) including two reboots (prior to the reboots today), installation of FreeSpace 2 SCP, and installation of OpenAL.  Now, I didn't think that the FreeSpace 2 SCP install did anything to my registry, but I assume that the Launcher.exe does (hence the "Registry" tab).  OpenAL is also likely to change system registry (though I have not confirmed this).  This means that either OpenAL or FreeSpace 2 SCP (or at least the Launcher.exe) is the most likely culprit for my other problems.  Since the problems are, as you say, sound related (though I am not completely convinced of this since Trillian seemed to disappear, not just fail to load sounds), it is most likely an issue with OpenAL.  But since OpenAL is a required installation in order to get FreeSpace 2 SCP to work, I may not be able to get this resolved here, but it is still a relevant issue to this community in general if anyone else should happen to run into similar problems, and I still consider it an issue with the FreeSpace 2 SCP install (it may be indirect, but that is a little beside the point).

As to my sound card drivers...  I updated them about a month ago, and I just checked to see if there were any more recent updates and there are not.  So, yes, I am using the latest drivers.

I have not yet looked through the post that you linked... I'll do that now and post any relevant updates.

Drake


Update:  I just went through karajorma's linked post and I DID have nvopenal.dll present in my C:\Windows\System32 directory.  I deleted it and reran the OpenAL install and tried the game again and it works!  So thank you very much karajorma!!!   OK, I'm off to play this now.

[Huggybaby]

Your path (J:\programs\games\freespace_2\) may be causing trouble. I've never seen FS2 with an underscore before.

Try "C:\games\freespace2".

[karajorma]

Underscores should be fine. It's only hyphens and spaces that caused problems.

[Huggybaby]

I of course bow to your superior experience. 

What about the J: though? I could swear I've seen problems with high letter paths before...

Anyway, not that it's necessary, but as a troubleshooting measure, installing to the standard path rules out one more thing.

[TrenchardsLoveSock]

I've got Realtec AC'97 onboard sound with OpenAL 1.1 and have no sound problems whatsoever.  The only difference is that I haven't updated my drivers in AGES (if it's not broke, don't fix it).  Maybe it's a problem with the newer drivers and OpenAL?

I get the EAX option up as well for a lot of games.  I tend to deselect it as I only have a pair of vey old desktop speakers and some games slow down a bit when it is on.

As for high drive letters:  my SCP runs fine from F:

[jr2]

You should be able to run it from Z:, if you wanted to.  Really, it's just a letter.  Windows handles that access.  So unless it's specifically coded not to take a letter, there should be no problem.  The path issue was, IIRC, fixed some time ago, to FS SCP now supports spaces.. not sure about dashes (-).