Problem loading a game

[Chojin]

So.. So I aquired "The Movies" slightly used from my good friend the internet.

But I know it's supposed to work because I gave it to OJB when I couldn't figure it out and it ran fine on his machine.

So here's what it does.

It loads up fine at first, I see the realtime-rendered Lionhead studios logo, ok. Then, the screen goes black and never comes back. However, I can hear the pre-rendered Activison logo movie playing, then silence while the game loads, then the music of the title screen. All while the screen is still black. I have to alt+F4 out at this point :<

Here's what I've tried:
-Updated video card drivers
-Re-ran the windows media player series 9 codecs package
-Went looking for a config file for the game to make it start in windowed mode and failed to find it
-Uninstalled all my other codecs
-Waited for 5 minutes at the blackness for something to show up
-Downloaded a different distribution of it
-Uninstalled and reinstalled with new distro
-Tried windowed mode after figuring it out
-Tried changing all of the registry settings for the game to different values
-Tried disabling 2nd monitor

Anyway, the fact that it fucks up when the Activision WMV plays would leave me to believe that something's wrong with my codecs. I can play the activision movie just fine by itself by opening the appropriate file in the data\intros folder of the game.

Thoughts? I'd really like to try this one out.

By the by, a pre-emptive 'fuck you' to people who go 'Your problem is that you downloaded it Go buy a copy ' I have $1.34 in my back account, you can suck my wing-wang until the sun sets. Further, I know it works on OJB's computer, so the retail copy would most likely also give me the same problem. GOOD DAY.

[Dr. Boogie]

Maybe you just need to uninstall some of the codecs. I had a similar problem with Freelancer back in the day, and once I uninstalled the Nimo pack, everything worked fine.

[Chojin]

I just tried uninstalling my k-lite codec pack, reinstalling WM9 codecs, then assigning all wmv files to the wm9 player (instead of classic) and it still doesn't work :< good idea, though.

Heps me!

[Ninjavenom]

If they have the movie file separately, try removing it and renaming something else the same thing. I don't know if that would help at all, but it would be kind of funny to start your game with a video of the cat running into a wall or something

[Chojin]

I just tried modifying the registry settings of the game to everything else, tried windowed mode, and tried downloading a new copy by a different distro group, uninstalling and reinstalling. Tried reinstalling WMP9 altogether. Nothing yet.

[Chojin]

Interesting development: WHen I play the WMV movies outside of the game, they load on the 2nd monitor. When I try to move them to the 1st montior, they disappear.

However, starting the game on monitor 1 and then moving it to monitor 2 doesn't seem to work.

[ziggytrix]

tried it with monitor 2 completely disabled/unplugged?

[Chojin]

Disabled, yeah.

[ziggytrix]

Have you checked your video card manufacturer's website for known issues? It sounds like this issue is specific to either your video card or dual monitor setups.

I'd also try it with the PC freshly rebooted with the monitor cable completely disconnected - I seem to recall having a bitch of a time getting WoW to run with two monitors on my old NVIDIA card. I could be misremembering, but I think it wouldn't run correctly even with the 2nd monitor plugged in, but disabled.

[Chojin]

Okay so I created a new 'user' on my computer and the game actually ran. It looked like shit, though, so I installed my graphic drivers. Now it won't run. I've tried both the current ATI driver and the driver out before it, and nothing.

It says that my card (ATI Radeon X800 PCI-Express) is supported. I don't get the hangup here.

[MetalMilitia]

You could give some of these a go -

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=18

or even some modified ones like DNAs.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=24

Some people rave about them but I have never really believed that a 3rd party could do anything better than qualified ATI techs.

[Chojin]

Okay, I found something that works. I had to download ATI's "Catalyst Uninstaller" program from their drivers section (why is this a seperate program.) and run that, then run the newest driver. Anything but 800x600, 1024x768, and 1152x864 in The Movies (including windowed at any res) will cause the black screens but at least it's playable now. The text and effects still look like shit for some reason. I'm fairly confident it's a bug in their engine that causes it to not support ATI PCIX x800 cards properly, which is hilarious because it's an ATI-sponsored game. Or maybe my 64 bit processor is the problem. THE WORLD WILL NEVER KNOW.

Go check out my movies in the The Movies thread in gaming. THey're delightful.

[whoreable]

the movies playing only on the 2nd monitor could have had something to do with theater mode enabled on under the ati overlay tab under the advanced video settings.