F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point crash to desktop BEFORE even starting...

Stormwatcher

Hello all,

F.E.A.R. and the expansion pack are crashing immediately after starting the game... I have bought them both legit, but the original game worked after I switched the normal EXE with a cracked one.

That led me to think that it's a problem with whatever copy protection scheme they use. The SAME thing happens with SW Empire at War.

It think it's some conflict with Alcohol, daemon tools or Nero.

What should I do? I don't wanna use cracks, I wanna use the godamned original disks I bought at the store.

BTW, my specs:
Sempron64 3k+ (Venice Core), 1GB ram, Asus KN8-E, BFG 7800GS AGP, SB X-Fi platinum, Win XP Pro SP2

Thanks all!

TSR

From what I recall, F.E.A.R. won't play with any of those programs installed and in your registry (Nero, Daemon Tools, and Alcohol.) I think I had to uninstall all of them on my machine in order to run the game. Try that, and make sure you delete them from your registry as well, using a program like ccleaner to do that chore for you so you don't screw up your whole system.

For the record, there shouldn't be anything wrong with your system specs. Everything in your rig can handle the game.

Stormwatcher

That is the kind of thing that really pisses me off...
So the pirates can run the game fine, but I, who bought it, can't.

So what if I have nero, Dtools and Alcohol installed? it's not their problem!

anyway, yeah, I actually finished FEAR, I was trying to play XP.

well, guess I'll just uninstall everything, then.

Zell

I'm pretty sure closing all mentioned programs would be enough, no need to uninstall them. Still pretty annoying though.

Darlan

I couldn't get my $50 copy of FEAR to work even after uninstalling such programs, and I found that running in 98 or 95 compatibility mode solved the problem.

Stormwatcher

Wow, now that's interesting.
and I had all the programs closed, didn't work.

TehSpectre

Darlan wrote: »

I couldn't get my $50 copy of FEAR to work even after uninstalling such programs, and I found that running in 98 or 95 compatibility mode solved the problem.

Are you serious? My copy of FEAR has been just sitting on my shelf gathering dust because I couldn't get it to work right. If this works I will you forever.

Stormwatcher

Crap, nothing works.

Color me pissed off.

Jerks.

fogeyman

FEAR worked fine for me (in XP without any compatibility mode changes) with virtual drives and imaged cds running in Alcohol but with FEAR running from a real CD. I couldn't make an image of it and I didn't bother with cracked .exe files. I also have Nero installed (whatever old version came with my dvd burner), but not Daemon Tools.

I don't own the expansion pack, however, so I can't try that.

Burtletoy

Would an anti-blacklisting program make my copy of FEAR work? It works but gets tons of graphic errors then finally crashes after about 10 min, kinda pisses me off also.

CZroe

I had the same problem on an Abit AN8-SLI + A64X2 3800+ system running 2GB memory and 2x7800GT (SLI). Turns out it was the 2GB OCZ memory even though it OCZ claims to test it with this board. F.E.A.R. was the only obvious example without running Memtest86, but Memtest confirmed it. Download the bootable ISO and run it.

Everything was running at default SPD timings, but running at slower 2T command rate or underclocking the memory was a temp fix. I was really just trying the memory out in a configurable board so I soon swapped back to my 2GB Corsair ValueRAM that never had an issue (and overclocks well). The OCZ works fine in an FIC Condor with restricted Intel BIOS (Intel collaborated on the unit), but there's no telling if it's just underclocking automatically, defaulting to 2T, or what.

FightTest

It's a conflict with the MS KB917422 patch.

Installing http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924867 will fix it. Did for me anyway.

Stormwatcher

Holy shit, it worked.

PEOPLES, INSTALL THIS PATCH!

That was a very stupid bug.

PikaPuff

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Holy shit, it worked.

PEOPLES, INSTALL THIS PATCH!

That was a very stupid bug.

Does this mean you can reinstall all your virtual CD programs again after applying the patch? Have you tried?

CZroe

Microsoft needs to realize that naming the game and software titles using CD-COPS and DVD-COPS is more useful than simply listing those as incompatible. People searching the knowledge base for "F.E.A.R." or "FEAR" with their issue will not find a damn thing. You'd have to be ass-backwards to look it up the way they have it.

Stormwatcher

yup
itsa miracle, I say