Game won't even launch!

[1unusedname]

Well I tried what an earlier poster talked about,and I uninstalled my graphics driver,at which point I was able to have the launch menu load up normally.But of course all I could do was get to the game's main menu.Reinstalling my graphics driver of course resulted in the same problem.So it has to do with the graphics driver.Rune_74 what driver version are you using for your graphics card?I think mine is 197.16,the official mobile one from Nvidia,and the newest.

[1unusedname]

@Smeghead and Hoborg,did you guys figure out how to fix the problem?You guys haven't commented for a while,I figured maybe it's because you two have been enjoying Book 2

[HOBORG]

@Smeghead and Hoborg,did you guys figure out how to fix the problem?You guys haven't commented for a while,I figured maybe it's because you two have been enjoying Book 2

No.
I will not mess with drivers, i am happy with 10.4 catalyst and full DXVA acceleration right now - finally (i have ATI 5770).

All other games/app are working fine.

System is up to date, latest DX and vcredist installed.

I bet there is something wrong with game init/detection routine, hope next version will fix it.

[smeghead]

I HAVE GOT IT TO WORK!!!!

Just try killing processes in the background and you should get it working fine. I'll have to keep isolating to find out which one, but I killed Comodo Firewall, Anti-Vir, D3D overrider and ATi Tray Tools.

Try that!!

[1unusedname]

As soon as you said D3Doverrider I though "AHA!!!!!11!!" I disabled it,and lo and behold that was the problem all along Let us all praise our collective intelligences,do a little dance of joy,and finally enjoy Book 2
-HOORAY!! Thanks to everyone that tried to help,and especially Smeghead for finding the solution.So D3Doverrider and EB2 do not like each other.This info should maybe be posted somewhere for other people to know,as D3Doverrider is somewhat popular.

[Mike1957]

Same problem here: Game won't even launch!

After downloading from Impulse with successfull payment and registration, launching the game from Impulse, Desktop or directly from the game folder results in a short "busy cursor" then nothing happens anymore.
Opening the task manager, there is no application running.
Switching to the processes, I find the process "book_2.exe *32" running and using up processor power. It runs on four of my 8 cores and uses up 12% of my processing power.
I do have a Intel Core i7-CPU 920 @ 2.87 Ghz, 3.00 GB Memory, 64-Bit System, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card all from Alienware which I think is not a too shabby system.
I am using computers since 1979, programmed professional software in several languages and computer systems, so I am no greenhorn in computers at all. But I rarely had such a complete performance failure of a program before.
I tried everything said here, renewed all graphics drivers, DLded the config file, changed its rendering mode, tried XP SP3 compatibility, gave Administration rights, switched off several other processes...nothing worked.

So any help would be appreciated.
If you need any more specific info just say so. I just do not want to post a hundred pages of unneeded system infos...

[1unusedname]

Same problem here: Game won't even launch!

After downloading from Impulse with successfull payment and registration, launching the game from Impulse, Desktop or directly from the game folder results in a short "busy cursor" then nothing happens anymore.
Opening the task manager, there is no application running.
Switching to the processes, I find the process "book_2.exe *32" running and using up processor power. It runs on four of my 8 cores and uses up 12% of my processing power.
I do have a Intel Core i7-CPU 920 @ 2.87 Ghz, 3.00 GB Memory, 64-Bit System, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card all from Alienware which I think is not a too shabby system.
I am using computers since 1979, programmed professional software in several languages and computer systems, so I am no greenhorn in computers at all. But I rarely had such a complete performance failure of a program before.
I tried everything said here, renewed all graphics drivers, DLded the config file, changed its rendering mode, tried XP SP3 compatibility, gave Administration rights, switched off several other processes...nothing worked.

So any help would be appreciated.
If you need any more specific info just say so. I just do not want to post a hundred pages of unneeded system infos...

Do you have ANY type of program running that might be forcing vsync/triple buffering?Perhaps a global enforcement of vsync from your graphics driver is in place?If not any of that,maybe try to set the game to run on just one or two cores.Other than that,I got nothin'

[dfj]

I am also running w7 64bit on an i920 and was getting the dangling process without a window start-up problem.
Firing up a debugger showed the main thread was stuck in a bugged OpenAl enumeration loop. Hoping for better symbols I installed a copy of OpenAl from :
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... Items.aspx

Luckily, I din' need to install or debug further, though, since this got me to the options/registration screen.

Next patch I suggest a more aggressive confirmation that we bound to the correct version of the library - I presumably had an old version of OpenAl floating around that some game had installed behind my back. I didn't have it installed standalone, nor was it uninstallable in my installed apps list.

Given that, fer some folks, the problem has been some video indirection, and fer me the problem was OpenAl... I'm guessing some stuffier init code will be in the works, once more of the weird configurations have surfaced over the next while.

Irritatingly, I don't even know which version of OpenAl I was running before. Presumably since you folks have mentioned ensuring that OpenAl is not otherwise installed, you are familiar with this class of problem. Thing is, users can't tell if they have it installed... you'll eventually end up needing to confirm you linked to the right version and report an error ... which reminds me: is there command-line option to dump an error log? Does it dump already, when needed? Bah, I'm going to go play the game - sick of work, it's Friday after all, mumble....

Thanks for writing the game (and yes, I registered it).
g'luck all,
dfj

PS: Old-skule dev mike1957: fire it up under a debugger to see which libraries are borked. MS's standalone debugger (Debugging Tools for Windows) is available off of MS's dev page and is a fair bit more useful than the one tacked onto the free version of MS's IDE. Poor lizardlings here din' even get to report an error because the daft old version of OpenAl wasn't returning at all. Dll-hell problems are seriously irritating for small shops to QA for, do us a favour and find the bug? Let the dev worry about them game-logic, rather than supporting all the various configs under 'doze and Linux... at least mac-land has less configs to test for. :}

[BasiliskWrangler]

Given that, fer some folks, the problem has been some video indirection, and fer me the problem was OpenAl... I'm guessing some stuffier init code will be in the works, once more of the weird configurations have surfaced over the next while.

This is the only reason I've ever had a repeatable "game won't launch" problem here in the studio.

OpenAL drivers can be very screwy depending on how or when they were installed.

Eschalon will use OpenAL if you have the right drivers, but our game has no way of saving itself if the drivers are sketchy.

You can always get the latest from http://www.openal.org or check for the latest drivers from your sound card manufacturer.

[Mike1957]

Thanks to dfj and BasiliskWrangler, your tips did the trick!

You were absolutely right about the "OpenAL" problems.
I was just downloading the "oalinst" from

http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... Items.aspx

oalinst 577 KB

OpenAL Installer for Windows
Updated Summer 2009 : Version 2.0.7.0

The OpenAL Installer for Windows will install the OpenAL 1.1 libraries, enabling support for core OpenAL operations as well as extensions such as EAX and EFX. The installer supports both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

DLL Version numbers:

* OpenAL32.dll version 6.14.357.24
* wrap_oal.dll version 2.2.0.5

Changes and Bugfixes

* Fixed bugs and improved performance of the Capture extension
* "Generic Hardware" device returns more accurate 'Buffers Processed' count
* Various performance improvements in "Generic Hardware" and "Generic Software" devices
* Miscellanous bug fixes

and executed it...worked like a charm!

Instantly got to the startup screen and the game seems to run flawlessly now!
Darn "OpenAL" frizzed the whole startup procedure.

Thanks for the solution.
Michael