Help. Still can't start SPWAW

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Sun Oct 15, 2000 7:06 am

The game still does not start. I have upgraded successfully to 4.3b. The game keeps returning to the main menu when trying to start with each version. I'm running a Gateway Pentium 100 w/ an Intel MB that does not have any onboard cache. Are there any known conflicts with the ESS-869 sound chip or the STB Nitro 64 vidio card? Any other ideas on things to try? The games original PCGames CD is OK when I installed it on a friends computer. Note: I have played SPWAW successfully on a 486-66 with 32MB RAM, but it was a little slow, so I went back to SP1.

Thanks for any help.

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Sun Oct 15, 2000 10:24 am

Originally posted by Jerry:
The game still does not start. I have upgraded successfully to 4.3b. The game keeps returning to the main menu when trying to start with each version. I'm running a Gateway Pentium 100 w/ an Intel MB that does not have any onboard cache. Are there any known conflicts with the ESS-869 sound chip or the STB Nitro 64 vidio card?

Known conflicts with especially this equipment? No.

Suspicion? Yes.

What version of Win do you use?
Which version of DirectX?
Did you get yourself the latest drivers for either the sound and the graphics card?

How much memory (RAM) do you have?
How large is the swap file?
How much free space on the c: drive (not that important - I'm running SPWaW with only 11,2 MB left

)
Where is the TEMP directory and how much free space does it have (dunno exactly if SPWaW uses it at all)?

That's for now ..

Arralen

murks · Post by **murks** » Sun Oct 15, 2000 12:18 pm

Have you checked if the file vid998.smk is present in your sound/streams directory?
When I try to start the game, it does return to the main screen, too, due to this file being corrupted in the spwawfull.exe and thus missing in the game directory.

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Sun Oct 15, 2000 4:31 pm

Thanks. Here is more info:

WIN ver 4.00.950a
DirectX ver 7.0
RAM 48MB
Swap file 100MB
Free space on C: 612MB
Temp file: C:\Windows\Temp (612MB free)

I found the newest drivers I could from ESS and STB. They are not all certified by DirectX but video and sound test OK in DirectX.

I also checked for Vid998.smk. It is there and is 57,850 KB.

Thanks for your help.

Billy Yank · Post by **Billy Yank** » Tue Oct 17, 2000 6:26 pm

The game doesn't always run on Win NT 4.0.

------------------
Billy Yank
I don't define "my own" the way you want me to.

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Tue Oct 17, 2000 7:44 pm

Originally posted by Jerry:
Here is more info:

WIN ver 4.00.950a
DirectX ver 7.0
RAM 48MB
Swap file 100MB
Free space on C: 612MB
Temp file: C:\Windows\Temp (612MB free)

I found the newest drivers I could from ESS and STB. They are not all certified by DirectX but video and sound test OK in DirectX.

I also checked for Vid998.smk. It is there and is 57,850 KB.

Everything looks fine - except that you should upgrade (update?) to DirectX7.0a .. there where some problems with the frist version .. maybe even some with the latest, but most people report it as running fine

The vid-file looks ok. .. so it gets a bit tough with this remote-diagnosis

Arralen

Schrullenhaft · Post by **Schrullenhaft** » Tue Oct 17, 2000 7:51 pm

The STB Nitro 64 is based on a Cirrus Logic 5434 chip. I believe the latest drivers for that chip would be included in DirectX 7.0a. The STB drivers will probably be a bit dated. I would suggest uninstalling them and removing any .INF file in the C:\WINDOWS\INF directory that is related to the STB card (they should usually be named OEMx.INF - you'll have to open them in Notepad and find out which ones relate to the STB card).

I would suggest deleting the STEEL.PRF file in the C:\MATRIX GAMES\STEEL PANTHERS WORLD AT WAR\SAVE directory and see if this helps. The Steel Panthers World at War Menu should launch the "autorun.exe" file while the Steel Panthers World at War should run the "spwaw.exe" file. You may want to attempt to run these files manually from either the Start > Run or from the Explorer file manager and see if it reacts any differently.

The exact size I have for the vid998.smk file is 59,238,192 bytes (with 59,244,544 bytes used to store it on the hard drive).

Here's the full download of DirectX 7.0a (6,341 kb):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=16819

[This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited October 17, 2000).]

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Fri Oct 20, 2000 4:51 am

Thanks everyone for your help. I tried all the suggestions including installing DirectX 7.0a and the program still did not start. I read some directX help and they suggested for a similar problem to change the Windows Graphics Hardware Acceleration to the next to lowest setting. Low and behold the game started and ran perfectly. However the pop-up windows are slow as molasses, slower than the 486-66, but the units move quite smartly. I guess I should get a new video card or something.

Major Destruction · Post by **Major Destruction** » Sat Oct 21, 2000 10:12 am

The slow pop-ups could be simply the preferences default message delay and live delay. One is default set to 200 (live delay? I can't remember). I change that to 10. The other, I set to 120 or so.
The 200 setting is the delay that makes those messages take so long to show. Crank it down to 10 and they will pop up smartly, and on the double..the other delay is the time the message is viewable.

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Sat Oct 21, 2000 12:08 pm

live delay = the time the pop-up window needs to come to live when pointing the mouse at something. I would recommend setting it to 50 (0,5 seconds).

message delay = the time a message appears on the screen, go for 150 (1,5 seconds) to start with.

Hope this helps,
Arralen

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Sun Oct 22, 2000 4:58 am

Hey thanks. Thats all it was. I'm off to the Russian front.