Help w/ Multiplayer

[AxisKiller]

Hi guys. I've bought SH4 from a friend about a week ago with the U-Boat missions, and I'm loving it.
My friend bought it from Steam a couple of days ago, so we decided we would try to play multiplayer. Neither of us have any mods installed (I had Environments 5 and some hi-res textures for the subs, but I removed them with the Mod Manager before playing), and since mine didn't come with a serial key (friend I bought it from didn't like it and lost the serial), we're limited to using Hamachi for vLAN games. I can't host a game that will appear due to my router, but with a second friend of mine's game, I can join and play just fine.
With this friend though, when he hosts a game, I can see it in the list and join fine, so we set up and everything, game starts. Loading screen is just fine. When we're done loading, I get the control bar at the bottom and a black screen as I usually do right after loading before everything gets rendered. But right when it should have rendered and the game be playable, I crash to desktop.
I've tried a single player game and it works fine with or without mods. Both of our game ports are fowarded, game executables have been to the firewall exceptions list. I have absolutely no clue what's causing the problem.

TL;DR version: No mods running, version 1.5. Friend A hosts game that works fine. Friend B hosts game that works fine until loading finishes, then CTD.

Specs, if needed:

2.4GHz Athlon 64 4000+ Single-Core
2GB Memory
8800GTS Video Card
Windows XP Pro SP3
I think that's all that will be needed.

Note: I have used the search function but it turned up nothing useful. I have tried nearly every method to get it to work and still nothing.

[Kloef]

and since mine didn't come with a serial key (friend I bought it from didn't like it and lost the serial)

So when you dont like a game you lose the serial-key...doesnt make sense.

But lets just say multiplayer is bugged beyond repair,you need an install on your systems drive and patch to the same version without any mods whatsoever..no routers!

A mate and i got it working he has a direct modem connection...another friend has a network and refuses to directly install his modem,he does alot of single player now:arrgh!:

[Graf Paper]

The router is not so much to blame as it is not having the proper ports forwarded through the router's NAT firewall.

Also, make sure you disable your anti-virus resident protection, or background guardian as the case may be, as some antivirus programs will block certain processes started by SH4 in multiplayer. Sometimes, those processes can be mistaken for spyware or trojans. Other times the antivirus can cause dropped connections or CTD because it's trying to inspect every file that is opened by the game to make sure it's "safe".

If you have any software that uses automatic updates, disable those as well. They can interrupt the connection SH4 has to the server.

I hope this helps. Don't forget to take a look a ddragon's thread about tips to avoid CTD. :up:

[owner20071963]

Every Disc has Security,
So you bought it from a friend?
Did He Totally Uninstall the game Before he sold it to You?
Ubisoft will recognise the Registered Ip of the Disc during Install,
Most Online Games in 2009 require the Legit Ip Registration,
[eg Disc Must Be In Your Computer To Play Online]
A Solution now being looked at with the SH5 Dev Team,
This avoids copying A Game You Purchased,
Solution,
Buy it Online or in a Game store
Happy Hunting,

[Graf Paper]

After thinking back on this one, I have one more possibility.

For whatever odd reason, SH4 multiplayer can CTD in some instances where at least one player is using Windows XP while another is using Vista 64. I have no idea why this is the case but I've seen it happen.

Have you submitted a ticket for this to Ubisoft or at least asked around the SH4 Support forums there?