StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I'm trying to get Mech Warrior 4 Mercenaries to work. I don't really know much about the game, but hey, big robots. How bad can it be?

Now, the game installs fine, but when I try to start it, I get this:



This despite it being installed on a bog-standard XP SP2 install that has no other audio errors. I google'd the error and keep getting redirected to this, which is a workaround for 95/98 that doesn't have an XP equivalent.

Help?

Steam network may have a patch.

Coyote wrote:Steam network may have a patch.

....what? :ast O checked, Steam didn't offer Mechwarrior 4: Mercs.

I mean, sure, he should look for a patch, or shove the exact error message into Google and go from there, but what you said seems akin to me saying that the PSN should have a patch for Chromehounds or Halo.

I looked for patches on Fileplanet (the official site isn't working for me for some reason) and found just the one; no change. I'm going to try reinstalling my sound drivers, then reinstalling the game.

I've got gremlins.

Since everything else failed I tried running the game in 2K compatibility mode. It says my DirectX version is 7 and thus too low; fair enough, except DxDiag says I've got 8.1, and the DX9 installer says I've got 9.0c.

I don't know what the hell is going on here. I only use my XP install for games anymore, so it's just the bare-bones OS, no fancy customizations or special drivers or anything. What can make DX9 go all split-personality like that?

I'd ditch Windows, but my Ubuntu install is on the next partition and the last time I ended up killing the partition table. I'm not exactly forward to restoring that one manually again...

I've run MW4:Mercs on XP with no problem before, so it's not a compatibility problem. There's only one official patch as well, and it sounds like you've got it. Out of curiosity, do you have MW4:Vengeance? Mercs is an expansion for it, so maybe installing Vengeance first will add some missing files.

Thag wrote:I've run MW4:Mercs on XP with no problem before, so it's not a compatibility problem. There's only one official patch as well, and it sounds like you've got it. Out of curiosity, do you have MW4:Vengeance? Mercs is an expansion for it, so maybe installing Vengeance first will add some missing files.

I thought Mercs was stand-alone?

I don't remember, and unfortunately I can't find any of the manuals. I figured it might be something to look at before dissecting your system. I'll try digging in the closet and see if I can find the books.

Bounty wrote:

Thag wrote:I've run MW4:Mercs on XP with no problem before, so it's not a compatibility problem. There's only one official patch as well, and it sounds like you've got it. Out of curiosity, do you have MW4:Vengeance? Mercs is an expansion for it, so maybe installing Vengeance first will add some missing files.

I thought Mercs was stand-alone?

It was, yes. Black Knight was the x-pac you had to have the original for if I remember right.

Did you find and try this?

Hotfoot wrote:Did you find and try this?

Yes, it's at the bottom of my first post. The instructions don't work for XP; I eventually found a way to do it, but reinstalling all the default audio components (including audio compression) solves nothing.

I've managed to get past the Audio Compression problem by copying two files to System32 which apparently should have been installed but weren't (IMAADP32.ACM and MSADP32.ACM). Except now the game spits out a bunch of DirectSound errors and crashes right after the hardware autoconfig. I looked up the error message and ended up at Microsoft, who say it's an issue with a few of their products and provide a set of instructions for W98 that aren't valid for XP. Wunderbar.

Meanwhile, Crimson Skies - a game that I have run on this very XP install before - won't even begin to install because of this mystical "audio compression" error.

At this point I'm itching to just format and reinstall XP, but thanks to Windows' refusal to be reinstalled gracefully - setup won't even start if there's a trace of GRUB, it seems - that's a very painful option.

Bill Gates: fuck you.

I dropped a bus on Windows. At least this time it only killed the boot loader, I really wasn't looking forward to manually reviving the partition table again.

It works now. Begrijpe wie fucking begrijpe kan.

Bounty wrote:I dropped a bus on Windows. At least this time it only killed the boot loader, I really wasn't looking forward to manually reviving the partition table again.

It works now. Begrijpe wie fucking begrijpe kan.

Congratulations. I've been getting an old Win2KPro box up and running (involving what seems like hours and hours of updates and patch nonsense just to get everything non-gaming squared away). And your post reminded me I have MW4 so I am going to install that next.

I've been getting an old Win2KPro box up and running (involving what seems like hours and hours of updates and patch nonsense just to get everything non-gaming squared away). And your post reminded me I have MW4 so I am going to install that next.

I'm keeping Windows off the network this time. No network, no AV, no firewall, no updates, no nothing. Anything that needs to be patched will be patched through the data partition. That might hold off the next reformat for a few weeks or so...