Can't get it to run, not even with dgVoodoo2

[Sturm]

I tried all the tips in other posts, including using dgVoodoo2. Without dgVoodo2, the main.exe won't even load and I have to close it with task manager. When using dgVoodoo2, I get the first loading screen (with the red bar on the right filling up), but once the loading bar is full, the game exits immediately.

Any tips anyone? This game has been sitting in my library for a really long time now, and for a really long time, I've been unable to play it :(

[American Dove Mitten]

Did you try relocating the game's folder?

[Sturm]

Yep, didn't work. For an overview, here's the things I tried:
- setting compatibility mode to Windows XP SP2
- moving the game folder
- using dgVoodoo2
- editing the .bin file to change the anti-alias settings manually
- renaming the libpandadx9.dll file

With all of that, the closest I got was getting the loading screen to show up (which is more than I got with just the game "as is", so as far as I can see, dgVoodoo2 is at least doing something), but the game immediately exiting after the loading bar fills up.

Oh, by the way, I get the same result with Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island (from the same developer and using the same game engine, AFAIK). After tweaking, it starts in windowed mode, it shows the loading screen, and then exits immediately after the bar fills up.

[CipherΞHawk]

Try either this guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1994207956, or what was done in this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/313870/discussions/0/1753520396983496165/. For my hardware this fix works. But as you can see different systems are able to either run out of the box, or with the fix. You may need to do a little tweaking to get things running properly.

[Sturm]

Originally posted by Cíphęr廾awK:

Try either this guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1994207956, or what was done in this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/313870/discussions/0/1753520396983496165/. For my hardware this fix works. But as you can see different systems are able to either run out of the box, or with the fix. You may need to do a little tweakign to get things running properly.

Thanks for your reply, but I already followed that guide. I followed it to the letter, and I also did a lot of tweaking with various settings. Can't get it to work. It's nice and all that other people can run it "out of the box", but honestly, that doesn't do me any good, nor does it help me in finding out how -I- can get it to run...

(Sorry, don't want to come across salty, but it's a bit demoralizing when reading all the comments about people saying "just follow this guide" or "just try to tweak with the settings". Those are just vague terms that don't add much to solving my problems with the game).

What -would- be of help, is someone pointing out "hey, I had the exact same problem as you have with the game still crashing after the loading screen even while using dgVoodoo2, and these are the five steps that I did that solved it" :) (or the original devs fixing the issues, since the game is still being actively sold here on Steam...)

[CipherΞHawk]

No worries I totally understand the frustration in trying to get things to work. My system is running with a Radeon RX 580 with essentially the latest drivers available. The fix is certainly not a very clean solution, just a simple workaround for the most part.

I was running into a similar issue to yours so the only thing that worked for me was to apply the dgVoodoo 2.62.3 fix to the original installation directory of the game (I never moved the directory). So if you have made any changes I would uninstall the game and start with a new fresh copy.

- From the Voodoo install files [..3DFX/x86/] there are three DLL's that have to be put into the games directory for anything to work (Glide.dll, Glide2x.dll, Glide3x.dll) didn't see this mentioned in your post so if that is done that part is essential.

- From the [../MS/x86] directory (within Voodoo install) there are four more files (D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll, D3Dlmm.dll, DDraw.dll), these also have to be copied into the game's install directory. Once all this is done you should be able to apply the VooDoo fix (make sure the game's install directory is selected), otherwise it will not work.

- The only other thing I would look at is to see if there is an issue with your video drivers, if they are up to date then you are probably ok.

- These were the only changes I made, I did not manually edit or rename any files, other than what the VooDoo application fixed.

I also made a quick video a while back showing some of this so if you have not seen it, you may want to take a quick look to see if something is missing or not set properly (it did take me a bit to get it configured correctly):

https://youtu.be/8NkA1nPabN0

Not a clean fix at all. I do hope the developer issues a patch for this so it can run properly. Hence why my review for this game is a negative one. But good luck!

[Sturm]

Edits: formatting.

Ok, so I gave it another go.

First, here's my system specs (not all of them, since I don't think anything else would be relevant, although I'd happily provide more if needed):

• AMD Ryzen 3900X
  
• Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming OC with latest drivers (445.87) installed, running at 2560x1440
  
• 32Gb memory

And here's what I did, step by step:

1. Uninstalled the game completely from Steam
2. Re-installed the game (it shouldn't matter, but the game's location is E:\Steam\steamapps\common\A Vampyre Story\ )
3. Tried to launch the game "out of the box"

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #1:

• The Windows mouse pointer changes into the loading cursor for a bit
  
• "A Vampyre Story" appears in the Windows taskbar for a second or two, then vanishes
  
• In Steam, the game is still shown as "Running"
  
• In Windows task manager, the "main.exe" is running at ~5.5% CPU and 47,5Mb memory load
  
• Tried to stop the game through the "Stop" button in Steam, doesn't work
  
• Killed main.exe in task manager

4. Went to the game folder and changed the properties of main.exe

• Set compatibility mode to Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
  
• The option "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" isn't available directly on the "Compatibility" tab anymore
  
• Went to "Change high DPI settings" and ticked the box "Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by:" --> selected "Application"

5. Tried to launch the game

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #2:

• Exact same result as with #1

6. Downloaded the latest version of dgVoodoo2 (2.64) from http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2.html

7. Copied the following files from the ZIP file to E:\Steam\steamapps\common\A Vampyre Story\game (BTW, I didn't mention this in my original post, but I also did this the first time; also, I suspect that the Glide dll's are not even necessary, since I believe the game is a Direct3D game and not a Glide game; but whatever, a few kB's won't hurt my disk, so I copied them anyway ;))

• Glide.dll (from the x64 directory in the ZIP, since I use 64-bit Windows)
  
• Glide2x.dll (x64)
  
• Glide3x.dll (x64)
  
• D3D9.dll (x64)
  
• D3D8.dll (x86, since there's no 64)
  
• D3Dlmm.dll (x86)
  
• DDraw.dll (x86)
  
• dgVoodooCpl.exe

8. Tried to launch the game with dgVoodoo2 "out of the box"

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #3:

• As the game starts up, the screen goes black for a second; resolution appears to be changing
  
• The screen then flickers between black and my Windows desktop / Steam client a few times
  
• No game screens are shown; the game absuptly exits and I am thrown back to my desktop / Steam (which, incidently, has moved to my secondary monitor, but I digress)
  
• In Steam, the game is showing as "stopped" (i.e., the game's launch button doesn't have "Stop" on it, but has returned to "Play")
  
• In Windows task manager, "main.exe" is not running

THOUGHTS #1:
So it appears that dgVoodoo2 is already doing -something-, although the game is obivously not running.

9. Opened dgVoodooCpl.exe and changed the following settings, resulting in the settings matching those in this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1994207956

• Config folder / Running instance: from its default value to E:\Steam\steamapps\common\A Vampyre Story\game
  
• General --> Adapter(s) to use / enable: switched from "All of them" to "NVidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti"
  
• DirectX --> Videocard: switched from "dgVoodoo Virtual 3D Accelerated Card" to "GeForce FX 5700 Ultra"

10. Tried to launch the game

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #4:

• Exact same results as with #3

11. Edited the assets/scripts/14793.bin file and set the anti-alias level to 0 (as in the guide; I noticed a slight difference though, as the guide says that the value in the file is set at 2, whereas mine was set to 4)

12. Tried to launch the game

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #5:

• Exact same results as with #3

13. Went back to the file properties of "main.exe" in Explorer

14. On the "Compatibility" tab, this time I also did the following:

• Checked the "Reduced color mode" box, set it to 8-bit
  
• Checked the "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution" box
  
• Checked the "Disable fullscreen optimizations" box

15. Tried to launch the game

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #6:

• At first, the game behaves exactly like result #3 (i.e., the resolution adjustments, the screen flickering)
  
• Then, the game's loading screen pops up (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885350321) <-- don't know why Steam considers this to be a potentially dangerous link, it's just a link to a screenshot on their own platform :-/
  
• As soon as the bar on the right is filled up completely, the game crashes / exits back to desktop / Steam

THOUGHTS #2:
Ok, at least an actual game screen is now showing. Apparently, resolution and/or color depth is a factor as well.

16. Tried various combinations of compatibility settings (changed from 8-bit to 16-bit and tried all possible combinations of check boxes)

17. Tried to launch the game

INTERMEDIATE RESULT #7:

• Exact same as with #6

(SEMI?) FINAL THOUGHTS & ATTEMPTS:
After all of the above, I also did various attempts with different settings in dgVoodoo2. Based on my hunch that resolution might be the culprit, I mainly focused on settings related to that (i.e., fullscreen vs. windowed, forced vs. unforced aspect ratio, forcing specific resolutions, etc.). None of them were successful, though. A last thought that came up, is that resolution might not be the problem, but perhaps the intro / cutscene that (I think) tries to play immediately after the loading screen might be causing issues. So the very last thing I tried, was doing the "rename or remove the libpandadx9.dll file" trick. Unfortunately, also without success :( So at this point, I'm pretty much out of ideas as to how I can get the game to run.

I know that there's several options that I haven't tried yet. But there's just too many variables to be able to try them all (well, I could, but that would take hours and hours of my time, and at this point, I'd rather spend my time on other things, TBH :))

[CipherΞHawk]

Very thorough indeed, I certainly do not have your specific system specs. It looks like you have run through the gauntlet for configuration attempts. I do have another system with a 1080 TI and may install it on that system and see the difference between the Radeon and Nvidia configuration (albeit Radeon seems to be a little more config friendly to older games, especially this RX580). Perhaps there is some configuration setting (as it regards resolution) that Nvidia may be overriding.

Here is the Radeon graphics profile I have set for the game (I may have tweaked it, just don't recall):

- https://share.getcloudapp.com/JruLGmEJ (image1)
- https://share.getcloudapp.com/7KumqXN4 (image 2)

Perhaps if you mirror some of the settings it may work.

Given your system specs, another option could be to just run this in a basic Windows 7 VM (I run the original Diablo on a Windows 95 VM, though not sure if it would be worth the effort for this game , although I may try and test this myself). Other than that I am not sure where else to look, but I will let you know how things fare on the 1080 TI.

[Sturm]

Thanks, I will look into this somewhere within the next few days :) Yeah, I'm probably not going to install a VM specifically for this game (and it's "brother", Ghost Pirates). One last thing I might try, though, is unplugging my secondary monitor. I read in another post that someone got it to run that way. Unplugging is done quick enough, for sure, so I'm curious if that would work... would be really dumb though, if that would be the issue. Then again, I've seen dumber things ;)

[CipherΞHawk]

Oh and I did forget to mention that when I ran dgVoodoo, it did place a configuration file within the game's directory ../game/x64 here are the settings in that file (I did not touch this however, I think it was auto generated), you could diff the two and see if there is anything that stands out:

https://pastebin.com/spshdBsQ

[FrostbiteRose]

Was wondering if there was ever a resolution to this thread. I have tried everything that Sturm has tried with no success.

[Sturm]

Originally posted by FrostbiteRose:

Was wondering if there was ever a resolution to this thread. I have tried everything that Sturm has tried with no success.

Nope, I've never gotten it to run. Didn't get around to unplugging my 2nd and 3rd monitor, though (as in: really unplug it, not just turn it off with the power button). Couldn't be bothered anymore by these games, decided to go the "Ella from Frozen" route and let it go ;)

[Nino]

This tutorial should help:
https://youtu.be/sdO4ZlPp-_4

[Nox Noir]

I don't know if you are still interested in the game, but it has been patched and is now running.

[Sturm]

Except that the patch isn't working for everyone (including me)... but the devs should be looking into this (I sent them several DxDiag logs and videos showing what's happening when I try to run the game). So fingers crossed that there's more patches coming :)

[1stCheater]

Still a no