Matrix Games Forums

After waiting until the initial bugs were fixed, I finally purchased and downloaded MF last Friday (v1.095). I installed it today, and when I try to run it, I get abends:

1) When I click on Play Development System, I get "RTE 429 ActiveX component can't create object."

2) When I click on Utility Set, I get "ActiveX component can't create object."

3) When I click on Play Maximum Football, I get "RTE 91 Object variable or With block variable not set."

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop with a 2GHz P4 processor, 1 Gb of RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility video card with 64 Mb of memory and fairly up-to-date drivers (Catalyst 6.2). Based on a lot of posts I have read since the initial release, I felt that the game would run on my laptop with at least low resolution, even though there isn't 128 Mb of video memory. If it is my sound drivers, I cannot find any drivers more current than I already have.

Attached is my DXDiag info. Can the game be run on this laptop?

Make sure you select the option to install all components. It sounds like part of the game didnt' get installed properly.

I did that with 2 different installation attempts (with an uninstall in between). Even though I think my version of DirectX 9.0c may have been more up-to-date than what came with the download (I had a Feb. 2006 update from Microsoft installed).

I tried running it after the initial install (v1.0095) and after applying the v1.0106 beta patch. Same results.

Is there any other system file(s) that I should be looking at to make sure it's/they're current?

Thanks!

By the way, am I the only person who has problems using the Search function on this forum?

I tried to search for RTE 91 and RTE 429 and came up with nothing, even though I know there are previous posts concerning these 2 RTE's. I just don't want to have to look at every Support post from the last month.

Try updating your video drivers

then uninstall and then reinstall to make sure it's a clean install

I had problems after the first install and tried updating the driveres after I installed the game and still had all sorts of errors
but then uninstalled the game
rebooted and reinstalled and all the problems went away.

there was some other guy that had that Active X error but he was trying to install it from work and it was believed to be something from his work computer preventing him from starting up the game.

Dunno what it was tho

Based on the description, it sounds very much like DBEngine.dll is not being registered properly on your system. This is why I asked you to ensure that you're installing all components when installing the game.

I may have to differ to Erik for installation issues.

Dirk,

This really sounds like an installation issue with some of the game components not being installed. The game doesn't have those issues if installed correctly, those are all generally "incorrect installation" errors.

Based on your DxDiag, I don't see anything unusual about a Windows XP installation in C:\Windows that would cause a problem. Your sound drivers are from 2002 so I would update those if possible, but I still think this has to be an installation issue.

Were any errors reported during installation? Do you have anything running like McAfee or Norton in the background while installation is running that might interfere with the game component installation?

Try going to your Maximum-Football installation folder, then going to the \Full\Redist\GameCom sub-folder and double-clicking on "MatrixGamesMM.msi". Reboot and see if that helps.

You can also try going to a command prompt, navigating to your Maximum-Football installation folder and typing "regsvr32 dbengine.dll" (without the quotes). It should give you a message that it's registered the file. Try running the game again.

Regards,

- Erik

Okay, here is what I did:

1) I uninstalled Maximum Football and manually deleted what was left of the installation folder.

2) I re-installed Maximum Football (v1.0095). There were no errors during installation. I re-booted and tried the game. Same RTE's as above.

3) I double-clicked on MatrixGamesMM.msi. I tried Remove, then Complete Installation. No difference. I tried Repair. No difference.

4) I ran the regsvr32 command. I got a message saying that dbengine.dll was successfully registered. I re-booted again and tried the game. Same RTE's.

My video drivers are as up-to-date (1/2006) as I can get (Radeon Catalyst 6.2 from www.omegadrivers.net). I have not been able to find any sound drivers more current than what I already have.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

2.3 drivers came out today
it's worth a shot

I don't think the drivers are the issue here. (although always best to keep them up to date regardless). There are three or four activex objects that need to be installed. Some of them are OCX controls used by the PDS, the other is the COM DLL that is the core database engine for the game. There is something unusual with this particular system that is preventing the proper registration of one or more of the activex objects.

I saw that www.omegadrivers.net had come out with the Radeon Catalyst 6.3 drivers today, so I downloaded and installed them. As you may have guessed, that made no difference in getting MF to run successfully.

Given that I received no errors when I selected all components to be installed, what files can I look at to see if they got installed correctly?

Thanks!

These are the activex components that the game uses.

scrun.dll (microsoft file)
msvbvm60.dll (microsoft file)
comcat.dll (microsoft file)
mscomctl.ocx (microsoft file)
tabctl32.ocx (microsoft file)
comdlg32.ocx (microsoft file)
truevision3d.dll (3rd party file)
dbengine.dll (wintervalley file)

Now there is a large number of database files that the game needs (specifally the JET 2.5 files) and there are a number of those. But, the error message you're getting does not lead me to believe any of those files would be causing the problem. If you wish to try to install those manually, they're here: MDAC from Microsoft

In fact, the only file I can think of that would give that specific error message in the places you're getting it is the DBEngine.dll file. And that, from your report, looks to be installing okay.

I have all of the above files in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32, except DBEngine.dll which is in C:\Matrix Games\Maximum-Football and scrun.dll which does not exist anywhere on my C: drive.

I have scrrun.dll in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. Is this what you meant? If not, how do I get scrun.dll (It doesn't exist on the other PC in the house either)? If you meant scrrun.dll, what other files should I be looking for?

Thanks!

Sorry.. yes I meant scrrun.dll (two r's). It's actually a system file that should be on your machine (it's part of internet explorer) already.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but should all of the above needed files also be in the Maximum-Football folder (in addition to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder) for MF to work properly?

Not a dumb question but no, the only one that needs to be in the game folder is DBEngine.dll. All others are windows system files.

I know this is going to sound like a dumb question, but do you have access to another computer can you try the installation on? I ask because this seems like a one off problem. Meaning, that there is something specific with your system that is causing this issue.

I had my son install it on his desktop, and it worked fine, other than some known bugs with v1.095.

I do not have Access installed on my laptop (I have OpenOffice Base instead). Is Access needed, or are there any Access run-time modules that are needed?

In a post above, you mention JET 2.5 files being needed. I probably have them, but what would those be?

Thanks!

Access is not a requirement of the game but many use it for doing direct edits of the databases. You certainly don't need it for the game though.

I don't have a full list of the jet 2.5 files but there are many of them (I think about 30). The game should install all the ones you need though. I'm not sure what OpenOffice Base is... Can you tell me what that is?

OpenOffice Base (as in DataBase) is an open source equivalent of Access. There are OpenOffice versions of Word (word processor), Excel (spreadsheet), Access (database), etc. for free download from www.openoffice.org.

Another question -- After running the regsvr32 command for C:\Matrix Games\Maximum-Football\DBEngine.dll as Erik suggested above, I received the message "DllRegisterServer in DBEngine.dll succeeded." Shouldn't I be seeing C:\Matrix Games\Maximum-Football\DBEngine.dll somewhere in the Registry? All I am seeing are entries for C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DBEngine.dll from when I copied the file into that folder to see if it would correct my problem.

Yes you should not be getting registry entries in windows sytem32.

You can use the regsvr32.exe /u flag to unregister the dbengine.dll, move it to the correct folder (the game folder) and reregister it.

That may help.