Well I just went and picked this game up from Wal-Mart on the 20th I believe. I heard good and bad things so I like to learn from myself and make my own opinions. Unfortunately, I have barely gotten past the first introduction tutorial.
As soon as I finally got the game installed and patched with a rather large patch, I logged in. Created my character without a hitch and went to play the game. Initial cutscene started playing, then about 30 seconds in, crash to desktop.
I started up the client asked me to verify the files so I did which didn't take long. Load the game up, and now I watch another 30 seconds further then last time. Crash to desktop.
This process happened everytime I watched a bit of the initial cutscene until finally... the end of the cutscene, and then, I get a message saying, "Couldn't transfer character". So now, with my inital first impression not so impressionable I try to just cut through the cutscene thinking something glitched. I esc when the cutscene starts, push space when it starts, and always get "Couldn't transfer character".
So after a long extensive search on google and through the STO forums I found that others that were having a similar problem (some answered some left alone), just create a new character and it fixed their problems. So I make my way to a new character with some new hopes for a work around. And was I happy to get to the first part of the tutorial.
I learn to walk forward back move the camera (cause I've "never" played an mmo before :P) and well apparently my computer didn't like activating objects. So crash to desktop. Restart the launcher force-verify files again and log back into my second created character. I get through the door and I'm surprised. I was supposed to activate a console to talk to the ship but as soon as I do, crash to desktop.
Now I'm sure this is not the intended result for anyone, and I'm doubly sure that this doesn't happen to everyone. Now I might be an unfortunate victim of having one of the most unfortunate first impressions of a newly developed game and that there might just be some annoying underlying issue with what has happened. So in doing a little more research I found a post made by GM Litana and here are the results to those questions:
tl;dr - (too long; didn't read...... just in case)
A crash can be caused by many things, and it can occur in many places. Without additional information we can't normally track them down.
Here are a bunch of questions to consider:
"Where did you crash? Was it at character select, on map transfer/loading, during gameplay? What were you doing when it crashed?"
I explained a lot of this above. But tl:dr. On my first character was through the first initial cutscene and then couldn't transfer character. Second time was with a second character after I made it to the tutorial phase and trying to do actions as far as I could tell.
"Did the game lock up and force you to exit, crash to desktop, or possibly crash the entire computer?"
When the couldn't transfer character dialog popped up, it took me back to the login screen. Otherwise they were all crash to desktop. No other lock-ups.
"Did a CrypticError window pop up after you crashed? Did it give you a number?"
Probably but I was in a hurry to play the game and just figured it was glitched.
"Did you get an error message before or after you crashed, such as "could not extract file..."? What error message(s) did you get?"
Right before the "Couldn't Transfer Character" on my first attempted character I could just partially see a red dialog box popping up but it went by too quick to see if it said anything.
"Have you attempted to force-verify your files through the Launcher?"
A few times.
And on the technical side, there are also the following:
"Have you updated your drivers recently?"
I have ATI drivers and they are the most recent, 10.3.
"Have you considered running a utility to verify the integrity of your hard drive and memory?"
I built this machine just before the new year and I haven't had any issues with any other game or hardware. So no, I haven't considered testing my memory or hard drives.
"Are you running any programs such as anti-virus or firewall software?"
AVG Anti-Virus and the default windows firewall.
PC information:
Windows 7 32bit
4GB (3.25GB useable) RAM
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Processor 3.20GHz
ATI Radeon HD 5700 2GB
Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card
biggest thing on ati graphics right now is to turn off dynamic lighting.
second is to lower the number of lights used or turn off shadows.
third make sure you have installed in the default folder and not the program files folder.
4th. have the launcher and gameclient set to run as admin.
biggest thing on ati graphics right now is to turn off dynamic lighting.
second is to lower the number of lights used or turn off shadows.
third make sure you have installed in the default folder and not the program files folder.
4th. have the launcher and gameclient set to run as admin.
First one, I did already, it figures I forgot to mention it, kind of a long post and extremely late for me. I also turned Post Processing "off".
Just to clarify something, in most of my research, I haven't seen the rest of the suggestions but I will work with them for the time.
I have yet to try changing the number of lights (any recommended or just guess around?) or mess with shadows. I will do that in a minute.
Is there a reason for having this game installed in a different directory? Or why it would cause problems for it to be in a different directory? I'm kind of an organizational freak when it comes to my computer and I changed the path to the C:/Program Files/ directory. Has this been known to cause problems? But for giggles I'll reinstall the game into the new path.
Edit: New install in default directory. First crash: 1622134. My sound went away and in an attempt to change my sound output the game locked up for a few seconds and then crash to desktop.
I'd also like to point out that my first character that I created was still getting a "Couldn't Transfer Character" after the initial cutscene. So I deleted it, and created a new character and started playing him. I was doing good until my sound decided to kick off.
I turned off dynamic lighting and post processing, the number of lights was at "2" and could not be lowered any further and I turned off shadows completely.
The problem with installing under the program files directory is win7 has a habit of changing file /directory permissions that restrict a third party program from having full read write create and delete permissions . This can cause crashes of the game when the game program can no longer mofiy create delete files in the directory.
Hm, interesting. I've never really heard of something like that happening. I've used Vista before on a work computer without having any problems, and I've used Windows 7 both in a work and personal environment and have not seemed to have any issues. To me, it seems like its just this game as I don't have any recollection of it happening through past experiences. I play a lot of games, install a lot of programs and I've never had a problem like that. So, interesting.
Now I wonder if other people that are having the same problem in this section regarding crashes have done the same mistake and changed their default installation path. It has seemed to cleared up any and all traces of my crashing minus the sound related problem.
Also, I had to delete and recreate a new character in order to take advantage of my first created character due to a "Couldn't Transfer Character" problem.
Now I'm not computer illiterate by any means and most people wouldn't even consider coming to the forums. I like to buy a game install it and jump right in and start playing just as the next guy. It was a huge disappointment on my end to have these issues and I will have to explain the same things to a few of my friends that I will recommend this game too after a while. We all have some sort of organization going in our PCs.
But as I said in my first post, I know its a new game and I've got the patience to work through things as best as possible and get to playing.
PegasusMD, thank you for all your support with getting my problem, as far as I can tell, fixed. Cheers.
Comments
second is to lower the number of lights used or turn off shadows.
third make sure you have installed in the default folder and not the program files folder.
4th. have the launcher and gameclient set to run as admin.
First one, I did already, it figures I forgot to mention it, kind of a long post and extremely late for me. I also turned Post Processing "off".
Just to clarify something, in most of my research, I haven't seen the rest of the suggestions but I will work with them for the time.
I have yet to try changing the number of lights (any recommended or just guess around?) or mess with shadows. I will do that in a minute.
Is there a reason for having this game installed in a different directory? Or why it would cause problems for it to be in a different directory? I'm kind of an organizational freak when it comes to my computer and I changed the path to the C:/Program Files/ directory. Has this been known to cause problems? But for giggles I'll reinstall the game into the new path.
Edit: New install in default directory. First crash: 1622134. My sound went away and in an attempt to change my sound output the game locked up for a few seconds and then crash to desktop.
I'd also like to point out that my first character that I created was still getting a "Couldn't Transfer Character" after the initial cutscene. So I deleted it, and created a new character and started playing him. I was doing good until my sound decided to kick off.
I turned off dynamic lighting and post processing, the number of lights was at "2" and could not be lowered any further and I turned off shadows completely.
Now I wonder if other people that are having the same problem in this section regarding crashes have done the same mistake and changed their default installation path. It has seemed to cleared up any and all traces of my crashing minus the sound related problem.
Also, I had to delete and recreate a new character in order to take advantage of my first created character due to a "Couldn't Transfer Character" problem.
Now I'm not computer illiterate by any means and most people wouldn't even consider coming to the forums. I like to buy a game install it and jump right in and start playing just as the next guy. It was a huge disappointment on my end to have these issues and I will have to explain the same things to a few of my friends that I will recommend this game too after a while. We all have some sort of organization going in our PCs.
But as I said in my first post, I know its a new game and I've got the patience to work through things as best as possible and get to playing.
PegasusMD, thank you for all your support with getting my problem, as far as I can tell, fixed. Cheers.