Config File and General XP Weirdness

[Aku]

It seems like all these weird things are happening at the same time. First, I reinstalled Thief 2 so I could play some fan missions like Seventh Crystal. The first day, it runs fine. The next day, It crashes when loading a mission, saying that my video card is misreporting the texture mapping. I find a forum thread that tells me to uncomment a line in a config file to fix it. It works. But still, why did this problem emerge after I had been playing it. Why didn't it happen the first time I tried to load a mission?

Then, I reinstalled Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire. Having just won the space race in Civ 3, I was excited about continuing the story in SMAC once again. It crashes to desktop when trying to start a new game, with a funny error message. So, I find another forum FAQ which says to add an entry to the config file. The funny thing is, my config file is empty. Even when I reinstall the game, it is still empty. I used to play this game on Win 98, and the config file always had a bunch of entries in it - I know, because I would edit them. So, fortunately, someone had posted the contents of their config file and I just cut-and-pasted it into mine, with the extra entry. Game works now.

Now I find that since I updated to DirectX 9.B and the latest nVidia drivers, that Porsche Unleashed crashes to desktop now. I suppose I could roll back the drivers and see if that works, but I don't want to do that right now. NFS High Stakes needs a registry kludge to get the game to run correctly in XP off the video card, but I can't play it anyway because a.) the CDRW spins too fast for the game to load, and b) when running the game off the DVD the drive won't stop spinning and grinds during the game. But, I still have Midtown Madness 2 and NASCAR 2002 at least.

At least all my other games work, but that's a lot of weirdness lately. When it rains, it pours.

[moya]

Thief 2 - "Why didn't it happen the first time I tried to load a mission?" Problems like this are sometimes hit-or-miss. Could be to do with the specific mission you loaded, especially if it's an FM. Then again, if it works now I'd just be thankful.

SMAC - "The funny thing is, my config file is empty." A corrupted install maybe?

NFS High Stakes - "a.) the CDRW spins too fast for the game to load, and b) when running the game off the DVD the drive won't stop spinning and grinds during the game." Tried a No-CD patch? By the way, I hear the latest nVidia drivers aren't all that, especially for anything less than an FX. It's up to you if you want to roll back of course, but I'm happy with my 45.23s.

[Aku]

SMAC - "The funny thing is, my config file is empty." A corrupted install maybe?


I don't think so. I think maybe the WIN XP patch fix had something to do with it. It wasn't exactly empty - it had tag lines, just no content in between.

Thief 2 problem may have been caused by running a fan mission, but the first time I reinstalled it and ran the regular game, it did it again. But, the config fix did the trick.

Maybe I will uninstall those drivers tonight and go back to my old ones. I think I found a no cd patch for NFS, I'll have to give it a try.

[Aku]

The no cd crack I finally found for NFS: High Stakes worked. Now I can once again enjoy my all-time favorite arcade racer. :)

[bmunyan]

I've apparently been having similar problems with Alien Crossfire running on my Windows XP laptop. The patches don't solve the problem, and I don't know how to get around this problem. What was the change you made to the files? Thanks for your help.