Intro movie hangs - Windows Vista

[mrisher]

Hi:
I just downloaded the demo and installed it without any errors on Windows Vista PC.

Every time the intro movie starts up, it gets to where a man with a torch enters from the right side and then freezes while the audio gets stuck in a loop.

I have tried all of the WinSetup options, as well as the Vista/XP "compatibility mode" options, but to no avail. I also downloaded and installed the DirectX 9 drivers again.

Any other tips? Has anyone else encountered a similar problem?

Thank you,
/m

[GameDevChris]

We've never tested the game on Vista before, and I'm not sure if anyone else has ever tried it on Vista either.  So I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest.

Since you mentioned that the cutscene movie actually plays briefly, it seems that the movie itself may not be the problem. The cutscenes use the MPEG-1 format for the video stream and ogg vorbis (played through the game engine - not Windows Media Player) for audio. AGS simply hijacks Windows Media player in order to play video files. So if your Vista system is able to play variable bitrate MPEG-1 files in Media Player, they should work in the game too.

Does the Himalaya Studios Logo (which plays when you first load the game) experience the same difficulties? Or does it reach the end without any problems?

The only thing I can really think of is that your particular system may have a problem with variable bitrate MPEG-1 video files. You could load the winsetup.exe file that comes with the game and try to run the game in windowed mode or letterboxed mode (or using with the 2x-Graphics filter enabled) to see if that makes any difference.

Additionally, if the game does freeze like this, you can press ALT-X to exit out of it cleanly.

[yve]

Dear all,

I've installed the demo version on a Vista PC.

I have the 'freeze' symptom (Alt-x worked fine  but - as with old games - exited from the game *** that's not what I'd like *** I would like to give a chance to this game).

When I switch to another task (Alt-Tab), when I come back to the game I have the video that continues... for another 10 or 20 seconds until it freezes again...

Even on the title game (new game, load game...) the video and (more tricky) the mouse freezes...

I'll give the game a chance with my daughter's XP PC (but she only starts german - thus does a german demo exist ?).

All the best,

yves

[GameDevChris]

Try this suggestion from the game's readme file:

Q) I run the game and the screen freezes at a black screen and doesn't go any further (sometimes automatically exiting back to the desktop without giving an error message). Or I run the game and the cutscene movies freeze up shortly after they begin playing.

This is very likely to be an issue that DirectShow has on your system when attempting to render the cutscene's video stream using the FFDShow filters. In order to fix the problem, you will need to tell FFDShow to ignore the Al Emmo application, so that it will not use the FFDShow filters to render cutscene movies in the game.

Assuming that you don't have a "Configure FFDShow" shortcut somewhere in your start menu or desktop, you will need to create one.   Firstly, find out where FFDShow is installed on your system. The file is called ffdshow.ax. Perform a search for that file and note the location.  If FFDShow was installed to its typical directory on your system, then its location should be in C:\Program Files\ffdshow

Once you have located ffdshow.ax, create a shortcut to it on your desktop. Then right-click the shortcut and, from the menu, click on "Properties" to go to the new shortcut's properties page.  Add the text (rundll32.exe) to the start of the Target box, and (,configure) to the end, both without the parenthesis.  It should appear something like:

      Target:
      rundll32.exe "C:\Program Files\FFDShow\ffdshow.ax",configure

Press OK.  Double-click the shortcut.


Next, go to the "Info & debug" panel and tick the "Don't use ffdshow in:" box.  If there's nothing in the box under the check box, simply type in Al_Emmo.exe.  If there's already something listed there, just put a semicolon between the last entry and your new Al_Emmo.exe entry.  For example:

      explorer.exe;movplay.exe;Al_Emmo.exe

Apply the settings, and then run the game again. Things should work correctly now.



Failing that, you can always try re-encoding the movies to a different video format (like DivX) which is explained in this thread:

http://www.himalayaforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=557

[yve]

Thank for your input.

I found a workaround solution : just setup the game in 'windowed' (not in full-screen) ; then it runs without problem.

I'll give a try to your other solution (thus I searched the dll you are referring on my PC, and did not found it).