Uncommon Valor: Game will not start

[Paulpaspas]

I have loaded (and reload) Uncommon Valor many time (different machines too) and cannot get it to start.

I have XP pro & home.

I have tried the desktop start icon and the directory uncommonvalor.exe.

I have downloaded all the patches (2.0 - 2.20) and installed them; no help. (I have tried installing them one at a time, tried to run game, then installed the next one in sequence... no joy).

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Paul
pas@interaccess.com

[Marc von Martial]

Please check the FAQ thread and make sure you have all your drivers up to date.

[Paulpaspas]

Yes, I have tw o brand new computers that will not install it... all the drivers have been updated from the web... sound, bios, video... still it just whirls the hard drive when I try to start UV... either from the start menu or the UV.exe file from IE Explorer... it just puzzles me as to having two, somewhat different, computers having the same trouble. Please respond with more ideas,
Thanks,
Paul
pas@interaccess.com

[pasternakski]

This may sound very strange, but it works for me. I run Windows XP home version, and UV will not launch after I first boot up. If I do a soft reboot (shut down - restart), it launches fine.

I have looked all over the place for a reason, whacked my noodle (that's head, not the other one) and cannot for the life of me figure out why this works.

What the hey - give it a try.

[denisonh]

Originally posted by pasternakski
This may sound very strange, but it works for me. I run Windows XP home version, and UV will not launch after I first boot up. If I do a soft reboot (shut down - restart), it launches fine.

I have looked all over the place for a reason, whacked my noodle (that's head, not the other one) and cannot for the life of me figure out why this works.

What the hey - give it a try.

Like a wise NCO once told me "If it sounds stupid but it works, it ain't stupid Sir"

[brankin]

I am also having the same problem with UV.

I am running XP pro. I have a Geforce 2 and SB Live with latest drivers. AMD 1200 processor and 384 MB RAM.

As soon as I start program the HD light lites up and computer fails to respond to anything. (I have to hit the reset button).

Initially I was installing to non-default location, but I tried the default and that wasn't it.

After installation clicking on the CD (autoplay) gives some error messages:

"Failed to load language file
<gamepath>\GMDATA\amslng.9"

"There was a problem loading one or more graphic images. Did you forget to copy the DATA directory?"

"MSG_ERR_WAV_PLAY
MSG_ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
<gamepath>\MENUSOUND\1015.wav"

After these error messages the menu comes up black but the entries are clickable.

If I copy the folders from the CD that contain those files to the directory where I installed the game, I stop those error messages, but instead of saying PLAY UV it still says INSTALL UV. The registry has the correct path for the game and the other entries seem to be correct. I did install on an XP home computer at my work(a brand new Dell) and the game worked correctly.

[Mr.Frag]

Try hacking this into your registry by hand: (not for the feint of heart!)

----------------cut----------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Matrix Games]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Matrix Games\Uncommon Valor]
"version"="v2.20"
"installed"="TRUE"
"installed to"="C:\\UV"
"username"="Your Name"
"company"="Your Company"
----------------cut---------------

installed to needs to be escaped to where you installed it. By this I mean doubling up the slashes.

C:\Program Files\Uncommon Valor would be C:\\Program Files\\etc ...

Cut and paste the contents between the --cut-- lines into notepad, make the required touchups then save it out as UV.REG (the .reg is required). Double click on the file to have it added to your registry. I presume you are probably dealing with a problem with the Windows Installer bombing. Go snack on all the updates from www.windowsupdate.com (Microsoft)

[brankin]

I had checked the registry and found it to be correct.

I had not thought to do all of the Windows XP updates, so I have done that now but with no effect.

I have also renamed the Video folder to prevent the intro movies from playing. I have found that that makes no difference.

[Veldor]

Originally posted by brankin
I am running XP pro. I have a Geforce 2 and SB Live with latest drivers. AMD 1200 processor and 384 MB RAM.

As soon as I start program the HD light lites up and computer fails to respond to anything. (I have to hit the reset button).

If you have a 2.0 UV Cd and you ran Instant Update after installing UV to a non-default location, it most likely redownloaded the 2.0 update and the update does not read your path correctly and subsequentely installs in the default location unless you noticed and changed that as well. Seems to screw up the program on some machines. So..

My advice... Uninstall all of UV.. delete all directories.. keep just the 2.1 2.11 etc update files.. re-install UV to the default directory, manually apply the updates.

Don't forget to update Direct-X also. I'm running v9.0. Outdated Direct-X can cause a ton of problems. You've got nothing to loose by trying 9.0.

[Paulpaspas]

I have done all things suggested and I still cannot get the game to start. Are there any other suggestions before I get a refund?

Any help welcome,
Paul

[brankin]

I have installed to the default and non default locations. I have ensured that all traces of UV are gone before I reinstall. I installed DirectX 9 when I tried the Freelancer demo. That has not made a change.

Paulpaspas,

Will you run dxdiag in your Run box and choose the Save All Information option. It creates a text file that has information about your hardware. If you'll email me the file at
brrankin@bellsouth.net
I'll see if we have any hardware components in common that could explain our problem.

[Erik Rutins]

Paul,

Sorry I didn't catch this thread earlier, I'm no longer one of the regular bug report folks.

Are the system specs on your two new computers identical? Do they have any components in common?

Have you taken your UV CD to a completely different machine (i.e. laptop, friend's machine, work machine) just to see if it installs and runs? It's important to try to isolate whether you have a bad CD or a component that UV dislikes.

Our reports of complete UV incompatibility such as you are experiencing have been basically non-existent. Everyone's gotten it working with some troubleshooting and help. Hopefully, we'll be able to get yours working as well. Most of our staff run XP of some sort, and we have AMD processors in our group, so I doubt it's an issue with either of those.

When you ran the installation, did it run smoothly? You describe autoplay problems, did you have those during your installation as well? What CD/DVD drive are you using to install UV on each machine?

Regards,

- Erik

[Mr.Frag]

Rather strange that two of you spring up with problems at roughly the exact same time after months of no game install issues ... Wondering ... do you guys happen to live in the same general area (ie: bad shipment of CD's?).

You might want to call the shop you got UV at and see if anyone else who picked it up is having problems/returning it, etc.

It is very rare, but there have been issues with a bad batch of CD's being shipped from manufacturing. We all know that Matrix has been out of stock for some time, and got a new run of product recently...

[brankin]

I have tried the game on a different computer and was able to get it to run without incident, so I know the disc is OK.

I can dual boot my computer between Windows 98 SE and Windows XP Pro. I was able to install and run it under Windows 98, so assuming driver compatiblities, my computer hardware is OK. I would like to resolve the problem though because I never run in Win 98.

Erik, I'll be happy to send you any diagnostic info on my computer if you think it would be of any help.

The auto play issues only seemed to occur after installation and may have been the result of a previous failed uninstallation.

I am using a TDK CD-RW drive, unsure of the model (not at home right now).

[Mr.Frag]

Wonder if you have some file permissions issues going on with XP Pro ... are you installing as Administrator? Rather strange that you dual boot between Xp & 98 ... I assume that means you are NOT using NTFS and running FAT32 instead. I wonder if the dos/short filenames are causing you the problem due to non-native filesystem support.

Not having a Fat 32 partition, I can't even test it here, but I have seen this kind of situation with various applications, where the shortnames (PROGRA~1) do not translate quite right to the long names "Program Files".

Try your install to a very short path ie: C:\UV and see if that helps out a bit...

[Erik Rutins]

Brankin,

Thanks for the additional info.

Good to know that in your case we can rule out a bad disc and bad hardware. We know it's XP compatible, so driver issues could be a problem, as could the line that Mr. Frag is following.

I would assume that you're not having problems with other games in XP Pro, right?

Do you have the same problems if you run the uncommonvalor.exe file in the UV directory directly, or just when going through the autoplay menu?

Regards,

- Erik

[Paulpaspas]

Erik,

Just to point out maybe the obvious: There are two of us in this thread who are having trouble. My UV installs fine, but does not play.

The two computers where I have trouble have two (somewhat) similar item:

1) GeForce4 (Nvida) a 4400 & 440
2) Both use the motherboard's sound AC'97.

Is there a known issue with these items or combination?

Thank you for your time.

Paul

P.S. I did install the game on a laptop (so it is not the disc).

[Erik Rutins]

Paul,

Just to point out maybe the obvious: There are two of us in this thread who are having trouble. My UV installs fine, but does not play.

Yes, I was waiting to hear back from you.

I doubt the GeForce cards are the issue, but perhaps it's a combination of the two components or the sound system alone. I'm not aware of a "known issue" with either component separately, but a few folks did have sound-related issues early on.

What drivers are you using on each for the GeForce and the Sound system? If you need help finding the driver revision and date, let me know. Running dxdiag would also be helpful as far as checking the DirectX compatibility on your sound drivers/hardware.

Also, per the FAQ, have you tried disabling your sound card and then running UV to see if that is the cause?

Regards,

- Erik

[Paulpaspas]

Erik,

I disabled the sound (again, I usually do read the faq and try them first... but, I tried again). No luck.

My video is current with the latest web download: 6.13.0010.4109
I also have the DirectX 9 update (the program also failed before I upgraded from 8.1).

I've fiddle with games and such since the old Apple IIs and this one has me stumped (just for the record, I'm NOT running a Mac... I was just trying to say I've been around the block... maybe too many times).

Thank you again for your help,
Paul

[macnab]

i know this may sound crazy ,but that flie that look`s like ateddy bear ,and is used for tranfering long named file`s isnt missing? you know the one that alway`s come`s as a virus hoax ,and say`s we should get rid of it ?