Suddenly my games won't respond.

[MEAagain]

Two days ago, 3 of my steam games, which all worked fine, suddenly stopped working. No error message or anything, the window opens but they refuse to respond. I made no changes to my system, so there was no reason for them to quit, as far as I can tell. Viridi was free, but I dropped $15 on inventory. No answer from support, naturally. I hear it takes months for them to respond. It seems to be some kind of conflict between versions of DirectX, but since I made no changes, I can only speculate as to why this suddenly happened. I've tried about 100 "fixes" I found online; none had any effect whatsoever. It irritates the h--- out of me, because my money only got me about a month's worth of so-so gaming and looks like a lost cause.

[The Giving One]

What is your operating system ?

What is your antivirus program ?

Have you changed to a different OS there at any time recently, such as an upgrade to Windows 10 ?

If so, post the exact info on the computer, as in model, model number, and manufacturer, exactly.

[MEAagain]

I've made zero changes to my OS, no updates except microsoft security essentials virus definitions. There is no problem with my firewall. I ran DirectX diagnosis which shows no problems.
My system is Vista Home premium, everything up to date. HP a1723, Intel Pentium R D CPU 2.8GHz , 1gig ram, 32 bit, nividia geforce7300, directX,9 and 11, everything latest version,
(I did update the nividia driver and ran malwarebytes after the games stopped working, but it did not help, so I tried a system restore to one day before the problem).

Microsoft security essentials, mcafee safe search on chrome, malwarebytes free version which I had not run in months. Ran after games stopped working: No viruses detected.
HPx20led monitor, new. Computer fills all requirements for the game. I made no changes, no updates, didn't even run an antivirus scan for about a week before the game stopped working.

I did receive a steam update just prior to the "non response", though. From the output log it appears to be a conflict between Directx9 and 11, (reads: failed to create D3D11 device...), but there is no way that I can find to disable ver. 11, other than adding -force-d3d9 to advanced Viridi launch preferences, which I did, but that didn't help either.

I deleted the steam dll, file, no change. Deleted the appcache, no change. Changed my screen resolution, disabled visual effects and aero (before initial steam installation), ran steam and viridi as admin, restarted my computer about a million times, ran computer in safe mode, uninstalled and reinstalled Viridi, nothing makes Viridi work. I can't even remember all the things I tried.

I read about changing the directx registry in my program files as a possible fix but I'm not a programmer so don't want to take the chance. I also lost the ability to play "Teddy floppy ears" and "the plan", 3d games seem to not work. I haven't tried second life in years and don't want to test it. 2d games seem to work OK.

Viridi never worked quite right; it only worked properly between 8pm and 11pm in the evening; the rest of the time the contents of the pot were black, but I could live with that. I wrote support about that and received no answer over a month ago. I also wrote them about a problem with wallet but received no answer to that, either. It gets frustrating.

Latest Viridi output log reads:
Initialize engine version: 5.2.3p2 (b5869bab0ca4)
GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1
d3d11: failed to create D3D11 device (0x887a0004)
GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 9.0c [nvd3dum.dll 9.18.13.783]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 377 MB (via DXGI)
Caps: Shader=30 DepthRT=1 NativeDepth=0 NativeShadow=1 DF16=0 INTZ=0 NULL=1 RESZ=0 SlowINTZ=0
Begin MonoManager ReloadAssembly
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-UnityScript-firstpass.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\Assembly-UnityScript-firstpass.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.UI.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.UI.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.Networking.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.Networking.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\System.Core.dll (this message is harmless)
- Completed reload, in 1.466 seconds
<RI> Initializing input.

<RI> Input initialized.

desktop: 1280x800 60Hz; virtual: 1280x800 at 0,0
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Viridi\Viridi_Data\Managed\System.dll (this message is harmless)
ExecutionEngineException: SIGILL
at (wrapper managed-to-native) Steamworks.NativeMethods:SteamAPI_InitSafe ()

at Steamworks.SteamAPI.Init () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at SteamManager.Awake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

(Filename: Line: -1)

[The Giving One]

Ummm...that is quite alot of info here...

Just to start off....only 1 GB of RAM ? Really ?

And Mcafee is on this list. I suggest you start with that possibility first.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

I will read through the rest of this now also....

EDIT..I assume these games are supported in Vista, then ?

Can you post some games that you have this issue with ?

And this also... geforce7300

You should consider an upgrade for sure.

[MEAagain]

As far as I know, Mcafee works only on chrome, it's just a chrome add-on "safe search", not antivirus. But I'll read the article.....Ram is a problem, but not a major one. As I wrote, I was able to use Viridi (with some effort) for more than a month, and between 8 and 11pm it worked just fine. Go figure.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by motchka:

As far as I know, Mcafee works only on chrome, it's just a chrome add-on "safe search", not antivirus. But I'll read the article.....Ram is a problem, but not a major one. As I wrote, I was able to use Viridi (with some effort) for more than a month, and between 8 and 11pm it worked just fine. Go figure.

Ok. Have you tried to run that game in compatability mode for XP SP 2 and XP SP 3 with run as admin and/or other options checked ?

Forgive me if I missed that in your post above.

[MEAagain]

I'm unsure about which compatability modes are available. I did try a number of them, (on my nividia panel), but it did nothing. I really think it's a directx problem, don't know what changed, but something obviously did. "Dx11 is incompatable with my video card, but I can find no way to disable it. I could be wrong, just guessing because of the log.

Also running ad-block on chrome, which should not interfere with steam, and never did during the month I did have Viridi.
I also tried shutting down all windows and browser before starting steam, that did not help, either.

I am already running steam in compatability mode for XP SP2, and always was.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by motchka:

I'm unsure about which compatability modes are available. I did try a number of them, (on my nividia panel), but it did nothing. I really think it's a directx problem, don't know what changed, but something obviously did. "Dx11 is incompatable with my video card, but I can find no way to disable it. I could be wrong, just guessing because of the log.

No. Not with Nvidia.

Go to the game's .exe file, right click it, then "properties" then the compatability tab. Use the options there in the drop menu. You should see older versions of Windows, but don't go back past XP, as the games minimum OS requirement is XP.

Originally posted by motchka:

Also running ad-block on chrome, which should not interfere with steam, and never did during the month I did have Viridi.
I also tried shutting down all windows and browser before starting steam, that did not help, either.

Go to control panel and take screenshots of all your installed programs on that computer. Post those here. You can use this site if you wish unless you know that already... imgur.com

[MEAagain]

Put screenshots of programs on profile under "artwork". I can't recall how to post them in a comment. I'll try this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657505013

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657505363

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657505566

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by motchka:

Put screenshots of programs on profile under "artwork". I can't recall how to post them in a comment.

You should be able to just post the imgur.com links here, if you use that site to host them. Ok, I will have a look...

[MEAagain]

I got them to show in my previous comment. Thanks.

[The Giving One]

Ok. I see one definite issue. I strongly suggest that you get rid of that Symantec (Norton) cancer on your computer. Uninstall all that ASAP and reboot. Uninstall both LiveUpdate programs from Symantec rather, and then reboot.

We may have to start all over here considering all the other changes you have made trying to troubleshoot this, but we will see.

After you reboot, do this exactly as said for that game..

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

[MEAagain]

I'll make them private as soon as possible, as they're not really the finest artwork on steam, lol.

[The Giving One]

You had Norton at some point, right ? Norton came on many Vista machines if I remember correctly here. I had one also with that on it. Norton really hates Steam.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

[MEAagain]

I've unchanged most of the changes I made. The deleted files are replaces each time I open steam, and nothing else is still changed. I changed everthing back. I'm pretty careful when it somes to changing my system.

[Pcnuttie]

Windows Vista is a system resource hog due to memory leaks. We went to Windows 7 because of that. You really should consider using Windows 7. Also your processor is very very old. Vista is a known system hog.