F.E.A.R. 2 In-Depth Crash Fix (With Images)

How to fix the F.E.A.R. 2 start-up Crash.

Introduction

It's a sad truth that, as computer technology progresses, we end up "breaking" a lot of games. You'd think that new, better technology would make running older games easier, but this isn't the reality. Games are designed with certain systems in-mind and the way the old system worked might not match future iterations.

F.E.A.R. 2 is especially prone to this due to the fact that it was designed for consoles first and then ported to PC. It wasn't designed with PC in mind to begin with, meaning problems are bound to arise. One of said problems is, upon installing the game on a newer system (windows 8 and up - rarely 7) the game crashes upon trying to boot. This fix for this is actually fairly simple.

The Fix

Step 1

Download 7-Zip

7-Zip is going to help us get into files we otherwise wouldn't be able to get into.

Step 2

Find your F.E.A.R. 2 Game Folder

This folder can be found wherever steam and your games are installed. (NOTE: The "Game Zone" is a custom folder of mine that I designated for installing games. You will not have this folder.)











Inside the FEAR2 game folder, you'll see this. Go into the Support folder and open the WMFADist app with 7-Zip ("Open archive" option).







Once inside the WMFDAist program, look for a file called l3codeca.acm. You see, on newer versions of windows, during the game's installation, this file, for some reason, is unable to be moved to the correct place automatically. You'll need to take this file and move it into the main game folder.





That's it!

This fix also works for the FEAR 1 start-up issue where all of the game's sound (except for the Siera Logo for some reason) is muted. It happens for the same reason.

[RETROCHUG]

Does not fix on W11 on April 2025

[Cosmic]

This worked like a charm (Win11 Pro), thank you!!!

[Pee Nutbutter]

hmm i started playing for the first time in years and it seems like the crashing issue is resolved now. i seem to remember the game getting a patch this year, so hopefully that's the case. it did crash the first time i tried opening the game, but when i tried again it loaded up and everything seems to run smoothly now. however, i cannot key bind mouse buttons 4 & 5 for some odd reason, which is super annoying.

[FreezeHard]

Thanks man!! I've been trying to figure out a solution on online forums for the no in-game sound and display screen sound for FEAR 1 for weeks!!! This is the only thing that helped me fix my fear 1 and 2. Again thank you very much!!

[FelixFTW #popurquakecherry]

every windows after 7 is so bad. i have no idea what microsoft was thinking. they created a beautiful OS in 2009 then decided to take a massive shit on it for no reason. the jump between 7 and 8 is like getting out of a perfect temperature hot tub with jets and then jumping into a freezing sewage treatment plant

[:::nowhere:::]

Sadly, this game is completely broken under Windows 11 Pro 64bit. Worked fine under Windows 10 64bit but no go in the new OS. I did try this method and countless others to play the game but, it seems to boil down to the same screen resolution bug that plague the game years ago. The funny thing is it works in Windowed mode by keyed in the command under the properties window. As I mentioned I've tried everything under the sun. Here's hoping that sometime in the future Microflop will release an update that could address this bad programming.

[One True Andrew]

This worked great! Thank you.

[Jiggle Jiggle™]

7-zip? i'm googling this; right?

[Mel]

Thank you so much bro,it helped!

[SatyrToon]

Dude, that doesn't excuse the fact that people who don't use Windows 10 N still have this issue.