Hi Guys
It looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet on this game, I thinks we have exhausted all avenues, my last attempt will be to try and run it on my daughter Laptop which has Vista installed. Many Thanks for all your help as always, keep it tight guys
Cheers
SAFC

I had the same problem, Safc.
Nothing I did would make it work.
It's possible that buying a new DVD drive might have worked, but that's hit and miss. There's no telling what model DVD drive SecuROM is compatible with -- and it's possible that SecuROM blacklisted something on my computer, in which case a new DVD drive would not help.
I ended up giving the game away. It wasn't worth the headache.

Hi Jenny100
Its a brand new drive, just after I ordered the game my Processor,Motherboard after 7 years decided to visit the old PC in the sky, so as I had just purchased a Laptop,(have tried the game on there also) I just upgraded Mother Board,Process, Case and DVD R/RW Drive 22 speed, so my old 8 and 16 speed are now consigned to the Attic, the only possible light at the end of the tunnel now is, Viva Media have just asked for my PC Specs via DXDia which I have just sent, I will post their findings, once again many thanks for all your help
Cheers
SAFC
PS if Vista does not work and Viva Media fail I think I will be doing the same and passing the game on so if you know of a good home bear this in mind
PPS on a final note I also tried the German Patch and Crack out of desparation but to no avail

Let us know what Viva Media says and if it helps with your computer.

If you want to pass along the game, Inland was interested in testing it out at one point. If you want to send to someone in the UK, I'm sure someone in the Trading Post would be interested.

Hi Jenny100
Sorry for the late reply,Still waiting for Viva Media to get back to me, My Daughter came over today with her Laptop, I will need to sort it out before I try the game, Anti Virus out of date, no updates for 5 months and she has that much on her Desktop I dont know where to start, anyway I will let you know if the game works on Vista
Cheers
SAFC

in setup menu :
resolution :autodetec
shader :0
antialiasing:2
disable vsync
start game,enjoy
hopefully,you-ll see new game menu.

Hi All

Finally got the game to run using Vista on my Daughters laptop, without any anti virus installed, just a few issues with the graphics like in the Laundry the girl walks away and appears to be standing on the table, the same thing occurs in the Police station the guy ends up looking tiny standing on the desk, and somtimes the character disappears but other than that I am playing it and enjoying it. Many thanks for all your help
Cheers
SAFC

I have Windows 7 Professional, 64 bit and had no issues installing or running the game. Of course this is a brand new ASUS gaming laptop, so I expected I wouldn't have any issues. At any rate, Windows 7 is not an issue.

Interesting... what are a few of the specs on your gaming laptop? Is it the beast with the Core i7 720 QM, 8 GB of RAM and the ATI 5870?

I'm going to wait to add your experience to the Win 7 and Gaming thread until I hear what Inland and Jenny think here...

I wish we could narrow down why so many have issues - but, if it works I'd opt to add it in. Jenny couldn’t get it to run at all – I’m betting it’s a hardware issue.

I had a similar issue with Still Life 2. It just couldn’t set the display options for my specific video card correctly.

Drac...

It is that beast...with the exception that I have 6 GB RAM (not 8).

Inland...I'm thinking it's a hardware issue as well. I've seen varying specs on what is required and I strongly suspect that the video requirements are pretty steep on this game.

OK, thanks, Inland. I'll add the caveat that JK has some serious hardware in her gamer.

It may be very particular about what hardware it works with. It may not have been tested on many different computer configurations.

You're probably correct, Jenny100. You'd think that rather than testing games on the newest computers and configurations, the manufacturer's would also test on older platforms to get a real feel for how a game will play on systems that presumably the majority of potential customers currently own. The minimum specifications they put on the game sleeve...which by the way are barely readable as they are so tiny...do not appear to be satisfactory for the majority of folks who purchased this game.

Do developers use a number of beta testers? Or do they rely on in-house testing?

Hi there,

Just to say that i was havign the same trouble under Windows 7 - i tried all the solutions offered on these fabulous boards: set exe to run as admin, set compatibility mode to WinXP, uninstall anti-virus. Made sure permission for engine.config file were fully turned on for all users, installed to directory other than program files etc...


I still kept getting crash at the beginning. :-(

In the end i updated to the very latest drivers for my graphics card (Nvidia 8600GTS) and hey presto - the job was a good one :-) All working absolutely fine now. So if anyone else is still having trouble make sure you get the latest drivers for your card - even try the beta versions!

Melissa

Good catch, Melissa. Your solution is about the 5th or 6th time someone has said updating video drivers worked for them. Inland or Jenny, do you think I should add a statement about updating video drivers in the Win 7 and Games thread?

That's up to you, Draclvr. Updating video drivers (or going back to older drivers) is a common suggestion for getting games to work on any version of Windows.

I agree - there're quite a number of games that have issues with the latest and greatest drivers. In general newer drivers provide enhancements and fixes for the latest hardware, so if you're running an older card there's really no need to update them.

For those that game on Laptops you might want to provide a reference to places like LaptopVideo2Go - They posted a link to a Microsoft driver some time ago that supported my Sony VGN (Geforce Go 7600GT) - it works perfectly. Sony has horrible driver support and nVidia still doesn't distribute updates for their models, so they’re just about the only place I can look to for updates.

LaptopVideo2Go - NVIDIA & Laptop News

Thanks. I'm comfortable with tweaks in Win 7 for getting games to run, but wanted to run driver updates and things like that by you guys first. An expert in such things I'm not! Great link, Inland and I've bookmarked it.