Alpha Protocol not starting [FIXED]

[zment]

EDIT 2019-11-19
Extracting the PhysXLoader.dll from the install file can be done without installation of PhysX. Opening a command prompt (shift-click, open command prompt here) and running

msiexec /a PhysX-9.13.0604-SystemSoftware.msi /qb TARGETDIR=%cd%\PhysX

and then you can just copy the "PhysX\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common\PhysXLoader.dll" to the game's Binaries folder.

EDIT5: Managed to fix it!

In my case it seemed that there was PhysXLoader.dll missing. So I installed PhysX from here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.13.0604-driver.html

After installing, I went to Program Files (or Program Files (x86) if on x64)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common and copied the PhysXLoader.dll to the game's Binaries folder. Now it starts! I don't know if it works as it should, but at least I can now get to the main menu.

EDIT6: It still doesn't start from the Launcher, but at least it now starts when trying to run it manually by using Binaries/APGame.exe

OLD MESSAGE:

Hay guise! Alpha Protocol used to work just fine when I first played it (months ago? years ago?) in Steam. But now that I wanted to start playing again, it doesn't start AT ALL. Well, okay, the splash opens up (where you can select Play and so on) but the game doesn't start when I select Play. It just closes the splash window and nothing happens.

I have the current Steam Beta client (Sep 27 2013), Windows 7 x64 Pro, 6GB RAM, AMD Athlon II X4 645 @3.1GHz, and should have plenty of HDD space.

I have the latest Steam version of Alpha Protocol. I checked the integrity of local files, but it didn't do any good (and it said everything is in working order). Anyone have any ideas? (Maybe I'll try reinstalling Alpha Protocol)

All help greatly appreciated! Thanks!

EDIT: Oh yeah, my graphics card is AMD Radeon HD 6570 w/ 4GB and Catalyst 13.4 drivers. Hmm, driver update might help as well if there are new drivers...

EDIT2: Updated drivers to 13.9, still not starting after splash.

EDIT3: On another forum there was talk of OpenAL32.dll preventing the game to start and to update it. I updated with the 2.1.0.0 version from this thread: http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=548634
However, there was no change - the game still doesn't start.

EDIT4: Checked the logs of Alpha Protocol. No information in the log file, but the dump files were there. I checked the dump with Visual Studio, and it seems it doesn't find some specific DLL it needs. With Dependency Walker http://dependencywalker.com/ it seems that the missing DLL is PHYSXLOADER.DLL. Next logical step is to install PhysX again.

[Tiax]

Worked like a charm, thanks a lot for writing this!

[Holy Avatar]

Thx a lot, this helped me too!

[CBlade]

Thankyou so much , the Physx worked for me, I find it so stupid that people like us who have AMD cards require PhysX to run some games ...

[sovietxrobot]

how did you check the log/dump files? where are they located?

[zment]

Unfortunately this was so long ago that I have no memory about it whatsoever. Sorry!

[Blowout]

Any solution for AMD users?

[zment]

I did this with an AMD card. The PhysX installer should install just fine without and Nvidia card, and it then just doesn't use any GPU/PhysX acceleration if it doesn't find an Nvidia card. The only thing we need is the PhysXLoader.dll, which comes with the linked package.

[Bushwhacker2k]

This fixed my problem, thank you.

[WhispersOfTheWind]

No way I'm installing an older version of physics or whatever it's spelled. Just out of the question but maybe someone could fix the game for us maybe?

[zment]

As far as I know, the game has been completely abandoned so the chances are slim to none for the devs fixing the game. However, the fix should be possible to do without actually installing anything, just adding the dll in the game folder with a version that works with AMD cards should do it.

EDIT: I quickly checked the correct procedure to do it, you can actually extract all the files and just copy the one needed to the correct folder without having to actually install anything, using just the basic Windows -provided tools. I updated the main post accordingly. I can't test whether this works or not, as my current setup does not trigger the bug even though I'm on an AMD.

[WhispersOfTheWind]

What if I've got an Nvidia card; is there a fix for that?

[zment]

This issue fixes only the missing PhysXLoader.dll, which might be restricted to only older AMD cards, driver versions and/or Windows versions, so it doesn't really help if you already have an NV card, where PhysX should come with the drivers and should be hardware accelerated. In case it doesn't, and whether there is a fix that works with an NV card, I unfortunately have no idea as I can't really test it out, let alone fix it, as I actually don't even know your specific issue and I don't have the hardware.

The method presented here is quite simple to try out though and the new method is non-destructive so it might still be worth a try. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

[Steve-O]

@zment:

I was having this problem myself just now (despite the game working fine the last time I had it installed on this same PC.) I have an nVidia GPU and am running the most current version of Windows 10, yet it still didn't work. This thread fixed it for me.

I didn't need to install the PhysX drviers since I did indeed already have them installed, but copying the "PhysXLoader.dll" file from the default install location and pasting it into the Binaries folder inside the Alpha Protocol directory did allow the game to launch properly (when launched from Binaries\APgame.exe, as noted by OP.)

It's not enough for the DLL to exist on your system, it would seem. It has to exist in the game's Binaries folder, apparently. So anyone who's struggling with this, even if you have an nVidia card, go ahead and try this fix.

Just check if you already have the named DLL file before installing the PhysX package. And if you do, copy it (don't move it!) to avoid potentially messing with other programs that expect it in the default location.

PS: I actually had two DLLs; PhysXLoader.dll and PhysXLoader64.dll. I copied the former file (no 64.)

[Princess Penally]

I'm really not smart when it comes to computers and I also don't really understand all of this Command Prompt stuff. What am I meant to actually do in order to get the game to work?

[Steve-O]

Originally posted by Penally1:

I'm really not smart when it comes to computers and I also don't really understand all of this Command Prompt stuff. What am I meant to actually do in order to get the game to work?

First things first: do you have an nVidia graphics card? If so, then like me, you probably already have the file you need on your computer. So do what I did:

1) Open a File Explorer window.
2) go to the C drive (on my Windows 10 PC the default name is "OS (C:)"
3) click in the "Search" box (top right)
4) type "PhysXLoader.dll" and wait while it searches for the file. This might take a while, so be patient.
5) assuming the search finds the file, click it.
6) COPY that file
7) go to the Alpha Protocol install folder. In that folder there should be another folder called "Binaries." Go in there.
8) PASTE the copied file here. You should also see a file called "APgame.exe" (depending on your computer's settings it might hide the ".exe" extension.)
9) Launch the game by clicking on that APgame.exe file. Make a shortcut to it if you like, or edit your launcher program to point there, if you can.

If you don't have an nVidia graphics card, or if the search didn't turn anything up, then you'll probably need to download and install that package the OP linked to. Then do the search and proceed as above.

FYI: The most current driver version appears to be here:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/physx/physx-9-19-0218-driver/

If that doesn't work, you could try the older version linked in OP's post.