New installation refuses to work..

[DocRorlach 25]

Thought, of course, this would never happen to me:
A recent crash of Vista made me switch back to XP, which meant a complete reinstallation of hte pc. Including SC4. And now SC4, despite new installation on new OS (and all updates installed) refuses to run. I get's as far as the EA logo - at which point it hangs and kicks back to the desktop. No matter which command line switch I use; with, or without plugins, nothing doing. My guess is that its a graphics problem, but cannot be sure. It used to run under Vista, using the affinity/priority fix, without crashes of any sort. 

Any ideas, anybody? Any and all help would be appreciated.

Hardware: nVidia 8500, latest XP driver installed; 2GB RAM, Intel dual core 6300.

[starrychelx 0]

u shudnt of swithced back beacuse it would keep the history of the game but beacuse you have edited it is has altered its memory and it is confused, to fix simply uninstall it then uninstlal xp and install vista then install then uninstall then install agen, that fixed it for me

[Geronimo 4]

Hm, what about your sound card, it could be related to it. Check if its ok, I know this has caused CTD at startup.

[DocRorlach 25]

starrychelx: Switching back to Vista is not possible because this is an OEM machine that never had the original DVD's for Vista. Besides, the registry is totally separate from Vista thus the installation is a virgin one.

Geronimo: But I do have problems with getting the crappy onboard Realtek OEM soundchip to work - the Realtek websie is absolutely no help and XP cannot even uninstall the hardware, claiming it is required during boot.

I've already cleaned the registry prior to the re-install, still, no go.

[Geronimo 4]

Then I guess its the onboard sound card that causes it, but I dont know how to fix it. Strange you cant reinstall/uninstall it though...?

[Lancelot1968 0]

Ok I had the same problems a few times. This is how it works (correctly). Make sure you uninstall all realtec MS hardware drivers. They are the buggy ones. Clean your reg. and reboot. Then and this is the difficult part if you don't have a CD install the Realtek ones...try searching the web for allternative non-MS drivers. Make sure after reboot that the hardware detection is turned off!. After this reboot again and try to re-install SC4 it should work. In any case get rid of the MS drivers for realtec devices. They are buggy

suc6 with that

[DocRorlach 25]

Originally posted by: Lancelot1968 Ok I had the same problems a few times. This is how it works (correctly). Make sure you uninstall all realtec MS hardware drivers. They are the buggy ones. Clean your reg. and reboot. Then and this is the difficult part if you don't have a CD install the Realtek ones...try searching the web for allternative non-MS drivers. Make sure after reboot that the hardware detection is turned off!. After this reboot again and try to re-install SC4 it should work. In any case get rid of the MS drivers for realtec devices. They are buggy

suc6 with thatquote>

 

I thought that might be it; unfortunately, without major surgery, this does not seem to work. I have thus been unable to find replacement drivers (or originals) anywhere on the web. Realtek's site is useless, and they won't support anything on a motherboard. and MSI only supports what they sell right this minute. Methinks the only option is to buy a soundcard - or go through the horror - again - of formatting disks & starting XP from scratch.

Good luck with the Amsterdam CJ (Groetjes uit het Jordaan).

[Lancelot1968 0]

Here are 2 sites with some drivers. Try to find what you need here

http://www.megadownloads.nl/download/36/Realtek%20AC97%20Audio%20Driver.html

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/realtek.htm

(Groeten uit Buitenveldert)

[DocRorlach 25]

Originally posted by: Lancelot1968 Here are 2 sites with some drivers. Try to find what you need here

http://www.megadownloads.nl/download/36/Realtek%20AC97%20Audio%20Driver.html

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/realtek.htm

(Groeten uit Buitenveldert)quote>

 

Hartelike bedankt! (sorry, that's as far as my Dtuch goes). The first link did indeed provide the right driver, and after some radical RegEdit surgery (changing permissions on hardware keys, deleting keys, etc.) the restart & reinstallation of the realtek driver worked - as did SC4.

Guess I'll have to errect a monument to you in Flatlands (my region not too far from Amsterdam)..

Thanks,

DocRorlach

PS: (but not as an afterthought): thanks, Geronimo, for pointing me in the right direction..