Dark Messiah won't launch from Steam in Windows 10

[lukeparke0]

Hey!

I have been trying to find a solution to this problem for a few days now, and nothing seems to work. After finally finding a post by Blin D Nero (I hope I spelled that right), I discovered that every old fix for the game does not work, and simply redownloading the game or verifying the file cache should solve the problem. It didn't. This is the link to the page that seemed to have the end all fix: http://www.blindnero.com/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2&p=2&hilit=missing+background01#p2

What is odd is that I can launch the game from the mm.exe file in the game directory. However, the screen flashes white while playing the movie audio, but after the credits and opening scene the screen goes black and the game crashes. Running in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode revealed that the reason for the crash is that the game is looking for a background01 file found under materials/console/background01.vtf. I have looked for a download of this file to no avail.

If anyone knows the answer to my problems, please share your findings. I haven't figured anything out yet. Thanks for your help!

I run an AMD Radeon 7800 series graphics card
AMD FX 8325 8 core processor

I more than meet the specs to run this game.

[Genesis]

What other files do you have in your "materials/console" folder?

Some Half-Life 2 mods have a similar error (they're looking for a "background_widescreen.vtf"). The fix is to duplicate the other "background.vtf" file and rename the duplicate as "background_widescreen.vtf".

You could also grab any "background.vtf" from any HL2 game/mod, your menu background won't be the original one but at least you'll be able to get past the issue.

I also read that copying "binkw32.dll" from the "bin" folder to the main directory could help.

[lukeparke0]

Thanks man! I'll check it out. I don't actually have a console folder that I can find, so I created one to test if the game would actually call the file. It said that the file was corrupted, so I know where to put it. The binkw32.dll fix does not work for the current version of Dark Messiah.

I appreciate your help and I will see what I can find.

[lukeparke0]

The issue that I am still having is that I can't run the game from Steam. I feel like that is the main cause of problems, and I doubt it has anything to do with calling the wrong file. Has anyone else had the same issue? When I click to play the game from my Steam Library, it acts like it is running, says the game is running, and then stops running without anything more than a flash of the first time setup window.

[lukeparke0]

I found another background01.vtf and used it only to run into another problem where the game can't run a collision_table.txt in the scripts folder. Do I just have a faulty install (after verifying the game cache 3 times :P ) or am I using the wrong compatibility mode, or...

I don't understand how so many files can be missing from a game that works for other people.

[Corvus]

I downloaded it just today and everything is fine, iam on Win 10, Intel and Nvidia.
Maybe you should re-download it and start it without any Compatibility Modes, only as Admin and after it Starts try to Tab out and set the Cores to 4 instead of 8 in the Taskmanager.

Good Luck!

[SpaceCodet]

If you go into your files on your computer and find the .exe for the game. You can right click on it and have it work through trouble shooting and change it to an earlier version. Guess I'm late for that to matter.

[Genesis]

I redownloaded it on Win7 64bits, there was indeed no "background01.vtf" and the game worked just fine. I don't have any clue besides running the game as admin or in compatibility mode.

[SpaceCodet]

XP games and old have a bad case of windows. Some work fine and others say that somethings wrong. Have no clue as to why it's never fixed by windows. The only thing that comes to mind is they want you to buy new programs not old ones.

[lukeparke0]

It turned out to be a bad download link for me. I redownloaded it numerous times, and I finally just asked to be refunded for the game. I found the game on Amazon for a buck cheaper, and thought I'd give it a try. The game works great now with zero problems running it. I think that I just had an issue with my internet or the source I kept downloading it from was faulty. It seems that I had a unique issue, though, and I am glad to see that others are successfully downloading and playing the game through steam. I can only conclude that it was my specific set of circumstances that caused some malfunction in the downloading process.

Thanks for the help guys!

[Corvus]

Nice to hear that its working now, have fun!

[R Kely P N on U]

I had this problem earlier today. I simply updated my bios to the newest version and now I'm able to play Messiah as well as other woul-be broken games like Crysis

[Unmori]

In Windows Defender, all protection switches must be disabled, including sending samples. then everything will work even for those who did not get to fix the game on Windows 10.

[Chillin]

Unmori a écrit :

In Windows Defender, all protection switches must be disabled, including sending samples. then everything will work even for those who did not get to fix the game on Windows 10.

i dont agree with this i have all my switches enabled and i run the game just fine... my bet is that if anyone is having issues running this game its down to missing redistributable runtime librarys

[headholo]

The "missing files" are not actually missing .
They're packed in the vpk files in the vpk folder.

I used a program called Gcfscape.v1.84 to extract them all and put them in the mm folder.
Opening depot_2102_dir.vpk will extract all depot_2012 vpk's
Carry on till you opened all of the *.dir.vpk.
You don't extract from vpk's but from dir_vpk's.

Anyway ,it didn't really help in my case on win10.
I stopped getting the missing materials\console\background01.vtf error.
as i had the file unpacked in the materials\console\ folder
But i still had a white screen with audio playing and then a crash.

So unpacking doesn't help ,the problem seems to be elsewhere.
I'm waiting for a friend to see if can provide a working fix.

[V]

Dont know what i did but it worked