Game wont start

[ericbabe]

Have you gotten the newest update for Forge of Freedom yet?  We only added the NOFLASH option in one of the updates, so if you're using an unpatched version that might explain why the NOFLASH option didn't solve the Flash problem.

To get the latest Flash, I think this is the web page that you want:  http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

And this is Shockwave player:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/

I found that on both our Windows 2000 and XP systems that when I do a clean install of the OS (without installing any Flash or Shockwave components) that I can run Forge and instead of the Flash animation we instead get a blank at the intro, and then the game plays normally.  With both these systems, in my tests, it was only necessary to install the Flash player to get the Flash animation to work.  However we have had several people report that the Flash animation crashes their system and that it was necessary for them both to install the Flash and Shockwave players to get it to work properly.

[Phatguy]

I bought the dl+physical combo. From the looks of it, The version I dled(sunday) is the same as the upgrade patch . Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure if i'm ready to do a clean install as I'd have to spend hours upon hours burning photos, business papers, saved games etc.Not counting the fact that I have to find my MS XP software and ser # and a myriad of install cds. If you saw my office you would know what a chore that will be. My wife threw up her hands, hung up a nuclear contamination sign on the door and walked away. Not the way i planned to spend my vacation week. By the time i'm done it will be time to see all those smiling rugrats again.
I'll try to upgrade with the patch but when I got the game I also dled the patch and installed it at the same time. I'll give it a another shot and let you know.


What is strange to me is when I deleted shockwave and Flash,Flash did not work(tested on youtube)in any of the 3 browsers i use but
when i reinstalled flash/shockwave it only worked in Mozilla but not AOL/IE

[Phatguy]

no, nope...did not work....sigh

[ericbabe]

You shouldn't have to do a full clean install, I was just talking about how our testing process goes and what we found with various combinations of Flash/Shockwave.

Now that you've reinstalled Flash/SW, does it work to drag the intro into your various browsers?

It does sound as though you have the proper version.  It should show "V1.10.10" in the upper right hand corner when the game is loading.

I'm sorry you're having such difficulties getting this to run.  It really isn't this way for most people with most of our games, honestly!

Do you have any anti-virus programs or any other programs running in the background that might cause problems?  I had to disable Norton Utilities Automatic Update option while running FOF in multiplayer mode, since Norton Auto Updates seems to put some sort of chokehold on the TCP/IP layer that causes our TCP/IP client to crash.  It's possible other programs could cause similar problems on load.  Another person reported a screen saver that wasn't compatible with FOF.  (The screen saver was shutting down FOF's DirectX instantiation -- quite a rude thing to do!)

We had one person whose RAID array was causing COG (our other game) not to run properly.  I don't recall from your DxDiag that you have a RAID though.

It's also remotely possible that your harddrive has a physical problem (bad sector...) that's causing the crash -- this happened in one case in which someone was having a crash-on-load.  You might try a full scandisk, though I think the chances that this is a physical problem on your drive are probably small.

The Matrix guys, who are far better than I am at reading the DirectX Diagnostic dumps and finding conflicts, are still on their Christmas hiatus.  Hopefully when they come back they might be able to find something in your DxDiag that's culpable.

[Phatguy]

thanks for some new ideas to try.i have avast anti-virus and ewido anti-malware, but i recall disabling them when i installed the game.will try scandisk. where in my browser do i drag the intro to?

the adobe site tells me to turn off all processes that might have flash running before uninstalling. unfortunatley im not sure which ones so i just might have to do a full os reinstall to get rid of leftover flash stuff thats hiding. unless some one here knows how to help me get the correct processes stopped.

[Phatguy]

figured the intro- browser thingie.

It works fine in mozilla firefox but no sound.

It refuses to work in IE. keep getting asked if i want active x plugins to be allowed.I answer yes about 5 times then it tries to install flash which then fails.

So it does work . Wish i could figure out why it doesnt within the game

[hadberz]

Have you tried moving the intro.swf. I dont have the issue you do, but when I put my intro.swf into a folder I named backup the game loads much faster for me. The screen is just white in place of the video, the game works fine though.

[Phatguy]

made a backup folder and slid the inro into it. same problem persists. Thanks for the thought though.

[Phatguy]

I give up!

[Phatguy]

Thanks for sending me an e-mail Gil. Even though I am "annoyed" that I could up to now not get FOF running I do appreciate the support service I received from Gil, Ericbabe and the other posters. Unfortunately I could not figure out what to do. I assumed it was a flash problem since I had 3 different browsers but it was working in only one and refused to delete itself completely.

Yes there is a solution. It just cost me over 300 bucks. I bought myself another HD and installed a clean os which I had to buy since I stepped on my original win/xp disk. A bit drastic? Yes. But guess what? The game runs like a charm so far.Thats why I haven't been around. This has been the most expensive and time consuming game purchase I have ever made. Going into my winter break I had 10 days off with the thought of playing FOF with a smattering of others. Now its Saturday and I have 3 days left.Next time I just might have to hold out for a demo before plunking down some cash on a game.

That said,it is a very impressive game so far.I've had no crashes or niggles in about 10 hrs I put into it.Maybe I should read the manual but PDF files annoy me. Thankfully I have a very understanding wife who will leave me alone for the next 3 days to get my gaming Joneses in.

[Gil R.]

I'm glad you're finally able to play, even if it took a far more circuitous route than it does for most.

[Phatguy]

yeah, I must be the only one here who did what i did to get this game running..lol

[Wolfpack1]

Hello everybody,

first of all thanks to Matrix for a great game and to the community.

I´ve enjoyed playing the game for hours and learned a lot about ACW.
Yesterday I reinstalled FoF (built up a new computer in December) but
now I have same problems as apathetic lurker in his first post !
Reinstalled Adobe Flash and Shockwave, checked Nvidia for latest driver
(even changed to version before) but no success.
Renamed sound, music and video directories, again no success.
DxDiag file is attached, hopefully someone can help me.

[Wolfpack1]

Hi,

finally I managed to get FoF running.
I read through last years support posts and found the solution.
Had to start IE7 and install Adobe Flash explicit for IE7 !!
Usually I´m surfing with Firefox or Opera and I ignored
the InternetExplorer !

All the best & have fun.

[ericbabe]

Glad you got it working!  I'll add the bit about installing Flash for IE to the next version of the FAQ list in the readme file.

[Wolfpack1]

Hi Eric,

thanks, thats a great idea.
I searched the support forum for hours but did not find the hint
explicit for IE, maybe I overlooked it.

All the best
Oliver