Deus Ex: GOTY wont start

[jeejish]

The game was starting up and running fine until recently (probably after the recent steam update) then it stopped working. The game wont start when i click play. It just cranks up the CPU to 100% till i kill the rundll32 process. My OS is Win 7 64-Bit.

Did anyone face this issue ?

[Reginald CZ]

Try using Deus Exe[kentie.net].

[Weezer (Blue Album)]

Originally posted by Reginald CZ:

Try using Deus Exe[kentie.net].

Worked for me

[Sexy Sadie]

I'm having the exact same problem, game used to work straight out of the box but not anymore. No renderer available 9 times out of 10, maxed-out CPU usage that doesn't stop even after I kill the process linked to the game... I have no idea what the hell happened but I hope it will be fixed.

[jeejish]

Originally posted by Reginald CZ:

Try using Deus Exe[kentie.net].

Didnt work for me

[Snake Eater]

Didn't work for me either.

[BadMojo]

Kenties launcher and the direct3d10 renderer from kentie.net, use the launcher to set the renderer then run the game.

[Neray]

Same issue here. Kenties stuff is a bit pointless, because something prevents even its own launcher from, well, launching. Seems like it might be a Steam related problem, as jeejish suggested.

[BadMojo]

Originally posted by Neray:

Same issue here. Kenties stuff is a bit pointless, because something prevents even its own launcher from, well, launching. Seems like it might be a Steam related problem, as jeejish suggested.

Did you install the vcredist file? It's right next to the launcher download. If you bothered to read the install instructions you'd know that it's needed for the launcher to launch.

[Neray]

Originally posted by BadMojo:

Did you install the vcredist file? It's right next to the launcher download. If you bothered to read the install instructions you'd know that it's needed for the launcher to launch.

You'll be hard pressed to find people without visual these days, especially among the ones playing old games, since those tend to have both old and new releases. No, the way it "doesn't work" is exactly the same as OP explained, which means there's something inherently wrong with steam version files. Otherwise replacing executable with custom one would at the very least make it act a bit differently compared to stock launching.

As a side note, I've tried to play around with .ini files, including changing rendering methods, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. Which again leads to "steam ♥♥♥♥♥♥ something up" idea.

[BadMojo]

Hang on.. Take a step back, did you install vcredist_x86.exe or are you just assuming it's already installed?

[Neray]

Originally posted by BadMojo:

Hang on.. Take a step back, did you install vcredist_x86.exe or are you just assuming it's already installed?

*sighs* Yes, it's installed. Yes, I've even tried reinstalling it when I first found that launcher isn't gettin' anywhere (who knows what might've become corrupted, right?). Whatever the issue here is it's happening before the game itself even starts - thus the whole rundll (some library isn't doing what it should) CPU overload. Don't forget that all steam games have this little nasty phase where they check if your steam is running - could be our culprit, huh? After all, according to OP the game was running just fine out of the box until recently.
Oh, and btw, this launcher is using the same process as deus ex game itself, so whatever might be preventing it from running as a process does so to it as well.
Now, the question is - does it only happen with Windows 7? If so, are these odd rare cases (common enough to start this discussion, at least) or do all Win7 users suffer from it?

Did you encounter this particular behavior in unpatched game before? I personally wasn't able to find it in guides and sources that have "halp stuff ain't working" sections - the ones that suggest using the launcher / custom rendering in cases where original isn't working.

UPD: It seems that the issue isn't related to Steam after all - took a shot at unrelated GOTY version, and it suffered the same situation. Launcher doesn't work here as well. Gonna try messing with pre-GOTY versions now.
UPD2: Ha-ha, yeah, enough with conspiracy theories. Something just doesn't work and it's totally unrelated to game version. Figuring it out will take a while.

[BadMojo]

Yea its not steam related, the launcher disables all of that. Ok well, heres another option for ya: https://coding.hanfling.de/launch/

This is hanflings launcher, it doesnt have the extra features that kenties launcher does, but it does get updated frequently, and is better than using the vanilla deusex.exe that comes with the game.

let me know how that turns out

[Neray]

Originally posted by BadMojo:

Yea its not steam related, the launcher disables all of that. Ok well, heres another option for ya: https://coding.hanfling.de/launch/

This is hanflings launcher, it doesnt have the extra features that kenties launcher does, but it does get updated frequently, and is better than using the vanilla deusex.exe that comes with the game.

let me know how that turns out

A-a-and, it works! Thanks, mate!
I still wonder what might've caused the issue though...

[BadMojo]

You could try rolling back kenties launcher to an older version, v5.3 is on the download page with the latest version 8.1... I wonder if that might make a difference. Well anyhow, Im glad its working atleast.

[Neray]

I'll give it a shot later, but something tells me it will suffer from the same invisible curse of deus ex process. This other launcher keeps everything in its own process and thus nothing odd is happening with related dlls. Truly, a mystery.