Ubisoft, you're killing me!

[MarcieB]

Been lurking on this forum well before SH3 ever came out. Finally it got there but my PC wasn't up to it. So now finally i have a kick-ass pc, so i ran off to the local shop to get my copy of SH3.

Well what do you know... somehow the game is messed up. Splashscreens (the UBI-logo and the intromovie) are looking like 'fractals', weird colors, all dithering and stuff. And the game keeps crashing, either to desktop if i'm lucky or a total reboot at the worst. Anyone having ideas how to fix this? I'm really desperare afther waiting for soooooooooo long...

Specs
WinXP pro
proc: AMD X2 dual core 4200+
2048MB Ram
Direct X 9.0 c
Radeon 850XT, driver version 6.14.0010.6599
Audio on board (tried lowering the hardware acceleratoion:no luck)
HD's 2x samsung 160GB RAID mode 0 (striping)
1x 160GB seperated form backups.


Is this an issue with the DVD? I've installed the latest patch from UBI, but still no luck.

Any help would be extremely appreciated...

[The Avon Lady]

Right now, all signs seem to be pointing to your graphics adapter and/or drivers for it. :hmm:

[Sir Big Jugs]

Nice to see you've been lurking both here and on ubi forums :sunny:

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/2881085392/m/3401021224

[frog7]

i know how you feel friend,i recently bought a new pc its a AMD64bit with a 2 gig ram and 512mb Geforce 6600 Card and Audigy Sound card....oh yes but im running windowsXP Home 32 bit coz i couldent get Silenthunte3 to run....anyway when i did get it to run the frame rate is realy low....dont know why i changed drivers but still no luck so now i spend my time aimlessly serching the internet for the answer.....boy the places iv seen and searched no one seems to know....i did meet a guy once who said he might have the answer.....he said it might be my pc constantly serching for a intrnet connection...that causes low frame rate.....Mmmm any way good luck to you.

[Polak]

I would say that you need new graphic drivers and a new viedo codec. I have the same problem as you with my intro movie, It's like one big acid tripp. I downloaded some virus a while back ago that destroyed my video codec, before that the intro movies worked perfectly.

[MarcieB]

Well, downloading mediaplayer 10 solved the video-issue. So now the graphics of the intro are working fine. Still, when loading the game (with the red statusbar) it still crashes. Weird, yesterday evening it worked fine. I'm gonna do a fresh new install, see if that works.

[MarcieB]

Nice to see you've been lurking both here and on ubi forums :sunny:

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/2881085392/m/3401021224

Yes, the workings of a desperate man.

[SubSerpent]

Sounds like you either have installed a mod that you didn't exactly install correct OR your Sound Blaster Card is causing you some grief OR your video card is causing a problem. Make sure you have the latest graphic driver downloaded from ATI, try turning your sound blaster accelerator down a notch or two, make sure you have the latest version of DirectX 9.0c installed. Let us know how it goes and copy and paste any error messages. Good Luck!

[MarcieB]

Thanks for the answers all. Unfortunately still no luck.

Well, i haven't got any mods installed. Anyway, did a full uninstall and deleted all registry entries. Tried a new install and I get the errormsg 'error 1335, the cabinetfile Data11.cab is corrupted' and i get to choose between ingnore, abort or retry. When i choose abort it undoes the installation and gives me a good old blue screen of death. Retry and ignore keep giving the same errormessage.

Yesterday I had the same problem when installing but after a couple of tries it worked, except for the crashes to desktop as i wrote earlier. Now it won't even complete the installation.

Looking at the errormessage I'm guessing it's a problem with this individual DVD. I don't think it's my PC since I have lock on, modern air combat and F.E.A.R. running without any problems with all settings on High.

Any input?

[U-4053]

I concure , sounds like s vidio card driver issue, but I could be wrong.
Start there first

[MarcieB]

Hmm i've been checking up on the error 1335 message. It seems that this is a problem with the DVD-drive. I installed the latest drivers. No luck. No i'm placing my old drive in the new PC.
Anyone here with a working copy and a radeon 850(XT)? If so, what drivers are you using?

[SubSerpent]

If I recall it seems like folks were stating that certain DVD players had some issues with StarForce and this game - maybe that was with DVD R/W players though? But it seems strange how you got the game to install at all if that was the case. Seems like the others reported that they weren'y able to even get the game to be recognized by there hardware since StarForce saw that they had a DVD burner drive. Do you have a different drive to test it out on? If not I would return the game for a full refund and try the download copy from direct2drive.com! Then you won't even have to worry about dealing with CD or DVD drives at all and can have a totally different game sitting in that drive that actually works. Anyways, good luck and hope all goes well for ya.

[jasonb885]

...
HD's 2x samsung 160GB RAID mode 0 (striping)
1x 160GB seperated form backups.


:(

Having suffered through three drive failures in less than two months, all I can say is seriously don't run RAID 0 if there's anything you care about on that setup.

I run nothing about RAID 1 and RAID 5 no everywhere with full nightly backups to a separate RAID 5 array on a different system as well.

[vodkajello]

good job on fixing the codecs.

If you are having various file corruption errors I would concentrate on your RAID setup. Don't stripe, it's just not worth it.

My PC started acting up a few months ago. It would crash every once in a while and sometimes would corrupt data while it did it. (which i found out later. 4 directories of photos later...). I was striping for 'speed' too. Now I just use the drives normally, no RAID and I have a backup drive. If you read the research out there striping doesn't help you on a desktop unless you are processing video or recording multitrack audio. Turns out one of my hard drives was slowly going, as well as some brand name RAM.

It was a bitch to figure out, two problems intertwined. But now she's as solid as a rock again. I learned my lesson.

[Wulfmann]

I have an X800GTO and got the acid trip when I used newer drivers. I went back to 5.8 and SH3 runs perfect on both PCs with 2 installs on the 64 bit.
After you install are you using the 1.4 patch? You should patch the game with 1.4 before you run it at all.
You might also consider a DVD Rom to run the game. Cheap.
The game was not actually designed for DC. Would disabling that for this game improve it??? It does for some systems and some games. Just a thought!

Wulfmann

[vodkajello]

Just as a note: I'm running an Athlon64 and a Radeon x800xl and Cat 6.3 drivers. Never saw corruption in the video. But I have a complete set of video codecs and players installed. (WMP10, DivX, QT7. etc....)