Go to the screenshots section where Ive just posted FEAR screenies at max and tell me again that this game looks old, so far I havent seen a shooter with even half the particle effects that FEAR has, one of the most stunning tactical shooters in my opinion, just started it over again and stll enjoying its atmosphere as first time
http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?t=2844&page=24

Partical effects are what I mean by nice touches, but that's not enough for me. I can only run by so many cargo containers, barrels and boxes before I get to the lame hallways before I uninstall. I'm psyched for Call of Jaurez just because of the wonderful element of originality it launches. If you think that FEAR was original then you haven't played enough games imo. I'm having way more fun playing a tactical shooter called Ghost Recon Advanced Warrior. I didn't realize FEAR was a tactical shooter as I never really played the SP element, as I had my old 9600Pro and the game kinda reminded me of The Suffering when it's creepy parts kicked in so I didn't give it much attention, thank dog for "Try Before You Buy" methods...

Heres my problem, though it seems I'm not the only one with this problem. Whenever I click on the icon to launch the game, a dreaded message pops-up.

"F.E.A.R. has encountered a problem and needs to close.
We are sorry for the inconvience.

If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost.

For more information about this error, click here."

Talk about bad luck.
This error seems to be related to a software bug, not hardware related.

Now I believe that it is probably Creative or Realtek, or Onboard audio controllers that are the issue.

Another person with this issue here:
http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=29263&tstart=15
Another one,
http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=29295&tstart=0
And also,
http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=29068&tstart=0

Merged into main F.E.A.R. thread. Although its about the new free multiplayer FEAR, its still FEAR, so i've merged it into here - SortYa

I've renamed the thread to show that it covers both games, since FEAR Combat is just the multiplayer component of FEAR, there's no other real difference between the two.

I must say that I think the game is very good looking indeed.

Novaspy, I respect your opinion but you say you were running it all "Maxed-Out" but then you state you were using a 9600pro. In which case you would not be able to run it maxed out and I have the same procesoor and 512mb more ram than you. My 9800 pro can barely run the game and thats the card it recommends on the damn box!

I do think however it tries to be more tactical than it is. I like all the dust and debris flying off a wall as you empty your SMG clip into a group of people. So much depth in the game that was then and I think is now, really important in a game. The guns I thought acted well with the recoil and the sounds of them were so well done in my opinion.

Which is what it really boils down to....... Opinion.

My sound is a C-MEDIA which is based on an ac97 audio, have you got the latest drivers for your audio. I get mine from the VIA site.

^ jackc1990,

Yeah, I have the latest AC'97 Audio Codec Drivers from Realtek.

However, it still does not startup.

is there a F.EA.R combat configuration utility like there is with FEAR and Condemned. If there is, try disabling intro movies, sound, sound filters etc;)

:confused: I must say that I think the game is very good looking indeed.

Novaspy, I respect your opinion but you say you were running it all "Maxed-Out" but then you state you were using a 9600pro. In which case you would not be able to run it maxed out and I have the same procesoor and 512mb more ram than you. My 9800 pro can barely run the game and thats the card it recommends on the damn box!

I do think however it tries to be more tactical than it is. I like all the dust and debris flying off a wall as you empty your SMG clip into a group of people. So much depth in the game that was then and I think is now, really important in a game. The guns I thought acted well with the recoil and the sounds of them were so well done in my opinion.

Which is what it really boils down to....... Opinion.

I am running FEAR Combat with a 7800GS with all setting maxed out and if you are saying the FEAR single player has better graphics, then you will have a point, but if it's the same, then I'm not all that impressed. If this was the first PC game you ever saw, then you would think it was spectacular.

I am wondering if anyone has any advice on what download methods for COMBAT gave them the best speed?
It is important.

To start with, use a download manager like DownThemAll (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/201/) on Firefox to ensure you can resume the download, and that it also downloads at maximum speed from several links.

Then try downloading from a relatively stable source like Fileshack (http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/9272/F.E.A.R.+Combat+1.07) or one of the other major file hosting places. That way the file isn't suddenly removed or becomes hard to find (as can happen with torrents for example).

Running the game and I am extremely impressed; I am able to run the game at maximum (all) settings, soft shadows off, 2xAA, 4xAF, resolution 1280x1024 (settings.cfg), and consistently get 50~60fps.

FEAR Combat introduces a new setting, "RestartRenderBetweenMaps" "1.000000".
This restarts the renderer for optimized performance, and seems to be intended to reduce memory-related stutters and during gameplay. Having it "on", at least for me, increased loading times drastically...trying it both ways, I am not certain the benefit is considerable enough to leave the option enabled; maybe RAM limitations on my end are a factor.

The gameplay is pretty fun, but limited overall. It's similar in feel to a quick game of Unreal Tournament 2004 in some ways., but the maps seem to be small. The slow down is nice because they make it so that when you use it, EVERYONE experiences the slower motion.

Graphically, this is a good piece of "reference" software to show-off high-end hardware, so I recommend it for that reason.

i have a slight problem
Its the audio on fear combat. When i shoot my gun, it sounds very quiet. When a person is shooting next to me its much louder than my own shooting.
I have tried disabling hardware mixing - eax - eax advanced HD, they all seem to be working cause i can hear the difference, but the shooting is still very quiet.
I also tried the info in the guides troubleshooting part, but the problem remains.
Changing the audio settings to minimum or maximum doesnt change it either.
Maybe its ment to be like that ?
Thanks for any help :)
edit
Im not sure if my signature is working, i cant see it myself :S
this is what its supposed to show

6600GT (x1900GT arrives next week)| AMD Athlon X2 4200+ | 2x512MB Kingston DDR2-667 | 465W Enermax PSU | 120gb Seagate Barracuda Sata ll | Creative Sound Blaster Audigy LS (replacing) | MSI K9NU - Neo-V

I've been playing FEAR Combat for a bit now, good game love it! Only problem is im getting strange glitching in it.

For example, text would start to disappear and i'd get missing textures on character models.

I know these are the tell tale signs of Graphics card issues. I was reading somewhere on a forum that this might be an issue with the latest Catalyst drivers. The artifacting normally occurs after about 30mins of play. But now, it's occuring a lot earlier.

I played FEAR for about 1 minute and i started getting the Artifacting. I checked my GPU Temps and they where about 70C My idle temp was about 40 before that.

I've tried playing Condemed and no Artifacting has shown up in that, I've also ran the Artifact check in ATI Tray Tools, and when i run the 3D render my temps jump all the way up to about 80C

I've opened my Case to let more airflow in and also placed a fan directly over the case and still it looks like my cards getting to hot.

UPDATE:

Now i can't seem to find any servers. Says Error

I can't even start up my own game, says somethings wrong with the CD KEY.

CheechWizard

F.E.A.R ExtractioN Point Preview+Screenies and Videos

http://pc.ign.com/articles/727/727749p1.html


I like how its turning out and I think they actually have physics!!!! zomg

Pretty nice.

I understand Fear (im speaking of fear combat) is a very demanding game in terms of hardware but im at a bit of a loss. To avoid these questions my drivers are up to date ( cat 6.8 ) and non of my components are currently overclocked

The problem i am having is the game stutters quite badly apon map start up. ( its not as bad after 5min or so of gameplay but still appears frequently just in shorter durations)To give you an rough idea, its similar in feeling as attemping to play bf2 on high with 1024mb of memory or less, but somewhat worse.

I have few windows processes running (25 at launch) and perform frequent upkeeping and defrags. I have checked the commit charge and with all settings on high running at a 16:10 resolution , windows reports a commit charge of 1000mb. I have tryed running the game on lower settings and there seemed to be no notable difference. (tryed all high, all medium and all low or off)

Ive also disabled sound. None of these attempts appeared to help in any way so i started with lowering the resolution.(it ran faster as settings drop but this stuttering still exsisted regardless of resolution or texture size) The prediciment is im running on a wide screen lcd so i must run either native or a resolution to scale. I normally run 1680x1050. I lowered the resolution to around 1280x800 and there was no difference.

I dont know where else to look. In my eyes 512 of vram and 2gig of system ram should be enough. I just installed fear combat on my friends machine today( he has a 9800pro 128 and 2048 system ram with a amd3700+)It ran all settings medium at 1024x768 quite well with only a very small pause apon map start up. I have upgraded this computer since i had built it and i had tryed the fear demo when i had a 7800gt and only 1024 of ram and it ran medium with little stuttering ( never had tryed the multiplayer up to now so i dont have a reference point in that regard)

If anyone else has a similar issue please let me know.

Chicken

Try playing with the new option in the "video" meny. The 'restart render' one. Try enabling or disabling it and see if it has any effect.

I need help. My FEAR wont play becouse eevrytime i try to play it i get a error message, why is this hapening? I have patch 1.07 and SP and MP both dont work. i have the latest drivers and such.

what does the error message say ?

F.E.A.R. has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.


And when i click, see what error report contains on top it says:

AppName: fear.exe AppVer: 1.6.270.0 ModName: eax.dll
ModVer: 4.0.1.0 Offset: 00002e35

eax.dll
maybe try updating your soundcard drivers if you havent alrady
Also check the guides troubleshooting section, it has some good info that might help you
edit.
Open the fear configuration tool, chose options and disable everything.
If it now works you can start enabling them one by one and see which one is causing problems

I am having a problem getting the Combat Free version to install. I have downloaded it 4 times (aaarrrrrrr.......) from different sources, both the official torrent and regular downloads from like fileshack, and still every time a small dos window would pop up then disappear.

Finally, I got the little ms-dos window that pops up to stay up so I could read it say "Program too big to fit in memory"
I have 1 gig memory, and am actually running my rig in the Performance mode "Adjust for best performance" making it look like Windows 95.
I also shut down all extra running Processes, down to just 15 processes.
I tried it with normal performance setting also.

Still get the above error. I have plenty of virtual memory running for just in case, but still the error.

No spyware or virus. Also, in the FEAR forums they said a lot of people were having problems with rigs running emulation software, and I have never had that on here.

Any ideas out there? :(

"sig" removed - do not add any unnecessary images to posts

eax.dll
maybe try updating your soundcard drivers if you havent alrady
Also check the guides troubleshooting section, it has some good info that might help you
edit.
Open the fear configuration tool, chose options and disable everything.
If it now works you can start enabling them one by one and see which one is causing problems

K i did that and it still happens, my drivers are uptodate.

check this
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=fear+combat+not+responding+eax.dll+&btnG=Google+Search
you have to register on the forum to see the reply´s
Maybe theres a solution there...

Well my FEAR still isnt working but i found this on other forums:
http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=30113&tstart=90

It says to uninstall some windows update but im not sure if its good to uninstall windows components? can it harm my pc?

F.E.A.R. Extraction Point Demo Tomorrow

Sierra Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, is pleased
to announce that the demo for F.E.A.R. Extraction Point,
the first expansion pack for one of the most critically
acclaimed titles of 2005, will be released for download
tomorrow (Wed, September 13th) at 10 a.m. PST.

Read the full article here (http://www.sierra.com/en/home/news/product_news/091206_-_fear_exp.html)

Nice, too bad I got work tomorrow :(.

No need to see the demo on this one. Unless they absolutelly butchered the game, I'm 100% for more FEAR :)

I am really looking forward to the story, as I hear the game starts mere moments after the last one ended.

To me, a Demo would merely be a cruel tease. ;)

Aggies

Nice, too bad I got work tomorrow :(.

on a similar note i am actually off work. not bad. i can take a break from oblivion to check out the demo for dark messiah of might and magic and now fear extraction point. should be a fun day indeed. :D

Breaking News! F.E.A.R Demo released at 10AM PST Sept 13th!


if its 8:34 am now then it should be around in 2hrs

Beach, this was reported just a few posts above by Burning Fish. For once, you are just a few hours late with the news. :)

I can understand your excitement though. Eagerly waiting for it myself.

aww

but here's a download link :)
http://www.fileshack.com/file_download.x?fid=9443
http://au.gamespot.com/pc/action/fearextractionpoint/download.html?sid=6157496
http://downloads.gwn.com/downloads/file.php/id/7051

this one should be the fastest for us Aussies
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/24470

Anyone know how to set 1280 x 1024 in F.E.A.R. Extraction point??? Doesnt work the same way F.E.A.R. did. I dont see any file to edit for resolution. Thanks for any help.

Hah, the new mini-gun is insane. The only problem is you need more guards to rip apart, it's that powerful.

Anyway, It's a short demo which suprisingly gives quite a lot away. It's like they've thrown in all the new elements of the expansion in a very small area. The level feels like its been specially built for the demo, rather than being an area from the actual game.

This will be the fastest in north america

Fear extraction point demo
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/375

I'm downloading @ 600KB/s

Anyone know how to set 1280 x 1024 in F.E.A.R. Extraction point??? Doesnt work the same way F.E.A.R. did. I dont see any file to edit for resolution. Thanks for any help.

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\[shared] Documents\TimeGate Studios\FEARXP-SPDemo\settings.cfg" is the file you need to edit.

"ScreenWidth" "1280"
"ScreenHeight" "1024"

Additional Comment:
i'm really enjoying this demo. it is a little overdone like all demos. trying to cram a whole game experience into a tiny demo. i think it looks alot better than the original and runs better too. i have everything maxed out, 2xAA and 16xAF and i'm averaging over 80fps i would say. dropping to the 60's during fights and well over 100 alot of the time.
if i try using 4xAA i get texture corruption, happened with FEAR too. it's something to do with my SLi as it only appeared when i installed the second card. The opening video really shows how poorly this engine handles outdoors, but that's ok because the engine is amazing the rest of the time. Definately worth the download.

I tried out the demo and the minigun is pretty cool, but the performance was lacking. It dipped into the 20's and the teens way too often, something that never happened in the original FEAR with the same settings.

The content in the demo is alot more open than the first part of fear. There are higher polygon counts due to the increased detail, so performance will be lower.
There are some slowdowns at times ( mainly in the larger sections with lots of specular and shadows) My best suggest for those running higher resolutions and or wanting drastically better performance : simply disable the shadows all together. You do loose some realism but the game wont put the heavy strain on you gpu of calculating dozens on dynamic shadows in real time.

Sure i found the performance in single player with shadows go enough for me ( some areas would get as low as 15 or so ) but the majority was fine (eg 30fps-60fps). Disabling shadows all together helps tremendously. With everything else on high and max cpu options the game still looks and sounds amazing. For example on the fear stress test running all max @ 1680x1050 2xaa no softshadows, shadows on , i got 28 min 65 average and around 140 max. Disabling shadows brings that up to around 45min 85average and 190max. That is a very large difference and for those playing online i highly recommend going without shadows.

Ive also noticed some sound problems also in the demo. I am running a creative xfi with lastest drivers. I run fear combat with hw mixing , eax and advanced hd problem free.
For one reason or another with hw mixing enable in the demo, certain sounds are not played. Oddly enough i can turn off hw mixing and still use eax and advanced hd and it seems normal. May just be a bug on their part.

As for the new features the game seems like it will be more intense and larger inscale. They really seemed to have steped up the carnage , with better death animations and physics as well as increased dismemberment.

@ Atrophocy: I am quite sure that the intro video is pre rendered as it only appeared to be 1024x768 ( my widescreen only showed a box in the middle of the screen) Im not to sure what your meaning about poor outdoors performance. Its all to do with polycount and the amount of shader effects, all of which are quite low in that scene.

fun demo, if a little brief. performed really well with graphic settings all maxed. those new practically transparent creatures gave me a fright - they reminded me of those little annoying black assassins in the original half-life! i'm glad the developers have chosen to keep things fairly similar to the original, after all, it was quite a winning formula.

Is there HDR in the demo????
I remeber reading somewhere about HDR suport in the expansion

No, it looks exactly the same as the original. I can't see any engine upgrades.

Some mirrors for the people who haven't downloaded it yet:

GGMania (http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=22286)
ComputerGames.ro (http://www.computergames.ro/site/p/downloads/o/download-details/lng/en/dowid/7166/)
GWN (http://downloads.gwn.com/downloads/file.php/id/7051)
GBase (http://www.gbase.ch/pc/downloads/4215.html)
GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157499.html?tag=latestnews;title;4)
GameDemos (http://www.gamedemos.de/index.php?show=demos&action=details&did=803)
FileFront (http://files.filefront.com/FEAR+Extraction+Point+Singleplayer+Demo/;5499794;;/fileinfo.html)
FilePlanet (http://www.fileplanet.com/167510/160000/fileinfo/F.E.A.R.-Extraction-Point-Demo)
GameDaily (http://www.gamedaily.com/download/info/?packageid=0078701501)
KFiles (http://www.k-files.de/download.php?s=c&action=details&dlid=5802)
FileCloud (http://www.filecloud.com/file/3795/F.E.A.R.+Extraction+Point+Demo/)

Thanks to RDJ134 from Gamer.nl.

I also notice problems with FEAR (normal version SP and Combat too, not just this demo) and my surround sound. It seems like the front center channel is very quiet, and there is almost no bass; there is only bass if I turn on bass redirection. That's with all settings on, in-game and in the X-Fi control panel. The only way to get a decent "boom" out of the guns is to turn off hardware mixing in FEAR, but then it only gives out a stereo signal. Using the latest X-fi drivers as well.

Anyone else experience this?

This will be the fastest in north america

Fear extraction point demo
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/375

I'm downloading @ 600KB/s

well darn. im only managing a mere 170KB/s. of course i am on a wireless setup. :rolleyes:

@ Atrophocy: I am quite sure that the intro video is pre rendered as it only appeared to be 1024x768 ( my widescreen only showed a box in the middle of the screen) Im not to sure what your meaning about poor outdoors performance. Its all to do with polycount and the amount of shader effects, all of which are quite low in that scene.

it is prerendered, if you have fraps running, the counter sits at 999 throughout the movie, or it did for me anyway. What i ment was the landscape in the background of the helicopter scene and it's appearance not the performance [sorry i worded badly]. the only time i ever felt let down by the visuals in FEAR was the landscapes in the helicopter scenes. They just look very flat and unrealistic. clearly no effort has gone into making this engine work for outdoors and that's fine as there is never any need for a good outdoor engine in this style of game. and given the incredible job this engine does with claustrophobic, tight space enviroments you can hardly pick on them for it.

I think its justified, as the game isn't focused on outdoor scenery, although it would of been nice if they did put attention to detail with everything of course

then again it is a DEMO its ment to be downloadable :D

I played the demo last night, and I'm not sure I'll buy the full expansion. It looks, feels, and plays like the original FEAR, which itself was getting repetitive in the later levels.

After the expansions for the Half-Life games, I expect more from add-on packs than just extra adventures of the original game.

just finished the demo and i really enjoyed it. i am most def going to buy the expansion pack! the new "weapon" is ridiculously fun. i only refer to it as "weapon" so i don't spoil what it is for other people. but all together very nice demo. played better performance wise on my machine than FEAR itself. Same settings too! 1024x768, all settings max except soft shadows, and 2x aa and 4x af.

finished the short demo of extraction point and thanked god it ended where it did.
Im not the person for these kind of games, cant believe i finished f.e.a.r, cause after extraction point demo i was freaked out...
i could run it perfectly with 1280*1024 everything maxed besides soft shadows. Only during huge explosions i noticed 1gb of ram is lacking for todays games

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\[shared] Documents\TimeGate Studios\FEARXP-SPDemo\settings.cfg" is the file you need to edit.

"ScreenWidth" "1280"
"ScreenHeight" "1024"



Thanks so much for your help. I would have never figured that one out.

Do you think the expansion will work on my pc becouse the orginal FEAR dosnet work becouse of the windows august update?:confused:

After many warnings to do some basic research, not post unnecessary comments and several other breaches of rules, user is being banned

Do you think the expansion will work on my pc becouse the orginal FEAR dosnet work becouse of the windows august update?:confused:

well first off. this is a no brainer really. if the original FEAR doesnt work then i would "guess" the expansion pack won't work. also i find it very odd that updates from windows would cause a game to become unplayable. you have already been given a final warning by a mod about making useless posts. you really need to do some research by yourself before turning to other members for help...

I enjoyed the demo a lot and agree the new gun is awesome! :D It seemed to run better on my machine than FEAR for some reason. I play at 1280x1024 most graphics maxed with 2xaa / 2xaf and the cpu option on medium.

definitely getting it when it's released.

Im not sure I want to download the demo, just because Im afraid itll spoil the storyline for me! I loved the original and will certainly be getting the new expansion, but as for the demo, is it the first few levels of the expansion or just a teaser much like the original, I could always do with a FEAR fix:)

@ Atrophecy: Yeah, I get texture problems with AA too now, I dont think its SLI since It worked fine for me previously, but when I went from 1.01 to 1.07 something happened(here (http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/9773/textureexampleiw9.jpg) is an example) Anyone else have problems???

I also notice problems with FEAR (normal version SP and Combat too, not just this demo) and my surround sound. It seems like the front center channel is very quiet, and there is almost no bass; there is only bass if I turn on bass redirection. That's with all settings on, in-game and in the X-Fi control panel. The only way to get a decent "boom" out of the guns is to turn off hardware mixing in FEAR, but then it only gives out a stereo signal. Using the latest X-fi drivers as well.

Anyone else experience this?

I have surround working fine for me(although I agree that the centre seems a bit quiet) but my sound card is a bit unique in that FEAR doesnt seem to recognise it properly(EAX is disabled and i am unable to change HW mixing from 'On')

Im not sure I want to download the demo, just because Im afraid itll spoil the storyline for me! I loved the original and will certainly be getting the new expansion, but as for the demo, is it the first few levels of the expansion or just a teaser much like the original, I could always do with a FEAR fix:)

@ Atrophecy: Yeah, I get texture problems with AA too now, I dont think its SLI since It worked fine for me previously, but when I went from 1.01 to 1.07 something happened(here (http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/9773/textureexampleiw9.jpg) is an example) Anyone else have problems???



I have surround working fine for me(although I agree that the centre seems a bit quiet) but my sound card is a bit unique in that FEAR doesnt seem to recognise it properly(EAX is disabled and i am unable to change HW mixing from 'On')

I just installed, noticed no option to enable advanced HD EAX even though I have the X-fi Fatal1ty. Then I went to play the game... no sound. returned to windows... it had muted the sound somehow... returned to start another game... video had sound but when the level loaded I had no sound again... setup menu had both HD mixing and EAX 2.0 turned off now... turned them back on to no effect.

I will post fix/suspected cause if/when I find it.

e6600
pc-5300
P5W DH DLX (bios 1305, Inf 8.1.1.1001)
7800GT (NGO 91.47)
X-fi Fatal1ty(2_09_0001)

I just installed, noticed no option to enable advanced HD EAX even though I have the X-fi Fatal1ty. Then I went to play the game... no sound. returned to windows... it had muted the sound somehow... returned to start another game... video had sound but when the level loaded I had no sound again... setup menu had both HD mixing and EAX 2.0 turned off now... turned them back on to no effect.

I will post fix/suspected cause if/when I find it.

e6600
pc-5300
P5W DH DLX (bios 1305, Inf 8.1.1.1001)
7800GT (NGO 91.47)
X-fi Fatal1ty(2_09_0001)

Sol.fide,
You may already know this but I ran into the same problem with BF2. I have the X-Fi extreme music card and noticed that I had to be in game mode for the sound to work. If I booted the game in any other mode the sound would cut out and the game wouldn't recognize the card.

FYI: If this turns out to be the case you'll need to re-adjust all of your sound settings again in the game.

Good luck

Whoops, I made a mistake above, I dont know where I got those from! Under sound settings, HW mixing is disabled and unchangeable, EAX 2 is enabled and changeable, and EAX HD is switched off(I cant support it anyway)

EDIT: I found out what the texture problem was caused by, supersampling and AA both active, since supersampling isnt even officially supported for my cards(6600GT), I guess it was never checked for bugs like these. However, If you get a similar problem to my screen shot above, even with a 7xxx card, try turning supersampling off for FEAR.

I played FEAR Combat for the first time today and I must say wow is it fun. I also seem to be quite good at it. I'm suprised my PC can handle the game with max settings smoothly even when I got the Video Memory warning thing, only stutters when I go into someplace new and then it's fine when I visit that place again.

yeh when F.E.A.R first came out everyone was like ooh its a high end game but now we got Oblivion and Call Of Juarez and now F.E.A.R doesn't look as tough and even runs better now

strange aye

<3 F.E.A.R just give me more outdoor fights

yeh when F.E.A.R first came out everyone was like ooh its a high end game but now we got Oblivion and Call Of Juarez and now F.E.A.R doesn't look as tough and even runs better now

strange aye

<3 F.E.A.R just give me more outdoor fights
What do you mean by FEAR doesn't look as tough? It is still a GREAT looking game, like how Far Cry is still a GREAT looking game. I actually get better FPS in FEAR than Far Cry (I know, because of the big outdoor areas, but I get worse FPS in Far Cry when I'm indoors rather than outside). But I know what you eman, Oblivion and Call of Juarez are pretty demanding games if you wanna run it on high.

Also, I'm gonna have to dissagree with you about wanting more outdoor fights, I like the indoor close quater combat. Lol, chcuk a grenade down the hall and chances are, you will have gotten a kill. I also like how you respawn near your team mates rather than randomly.

Tough as in not a Comp Hog like it brought the best systems to its knees etc (esp with soft shadows!)

I'm not able to use the max texture setting in this game, and a few others, which I find odd since I have a xfx 7900GT w/ 256mb VRAM. In FEAR and BF2 I basically get really bad stuttering (Textures are being loaded off of the Hard drive). Yes, I have defragged. Yes, I am using a stripped down version of windows. Yes, I dont have crap running in the background.

System -
P5NSLI
Core2Duo E6600 @ 2.8ghz
XFX 7900GT W/ @ 256mb VRAM
2(DDR2 667 512mb 3-3-3-12 timing)
Audigy 2
2(WD 120GB 7200RPM)

I just dont get why this system cant run FEAR or BF2 with maximum texture settings. If I set it to medium, it runs butter smooth. Do these games use more then 256mb VRAM on max texture settings? It just doesnt seem right. Company of Heroes runs fine with the maximum texture setting, Doom3 engine based games run fine with the 'High' Texture setting that uses 256mb of VRAM. So why should these two games be any different?

Well, I have a system about half that power, although the same VRAM, and FEAR and BF2 run smoothly at 1280x1024 at max everything(cept soft shadows in FEAR.) Are those two HDs in RAID 0? Have you tried reinstalling? A long shot, but maybe they installed badly. Although by the sounds of it you have, have you gone through the TGTC, stuttering(mostly) stopped for me after I did, and I was first able to turn up texture size to maximum.

Well, I have a system about half that power, although the same VRAM, and FEAR and BF2 run smoothly at 1280x1024 at max everything(cept soft shadows in FEAR.) Are those two HDs in RAID 0? Have you tried reinstalling? A long shot, but maybe they installed badly. Although by the sounds of it you have, have you gone through the TGTC, stuttering(mostly) stopped for me after I did, and I was first able to turn up texture size to maximum.

They arent in Raid 0, but that shouldnt matter. Assuming the textures are completely loaded in my 1gb of ram, and my 256mb of ram, this issue should not be occuring.

I'm going to try rolling back to an older driver version for the GPU, and see if that helps. I doubt it though.

And yes, I took a gander at the tweakguides.com guide, but it wasn't anything new. I know this system like the back of my hand. The only thing I can really think of that is causing these issues is the Audigy 2. In the past on older system it was the cause of problems in games, and i'm not doubting it is the cause again.

Additional Comment:
Ok, well different drivers didnt help. I did find out something different though.

I turned off my speakers, and it seems that it isnt a hard drive access time issue. The hitches are occuring, and I dont hear any sounds coming from my hard drives. So there is an issue with my VRAM or my normal RAM. What the issue is I dont know. Help is appreciated. I have the ram set with their factory reccomended timings in my bios, so I dont really know what else to do.

This isn't the BF2 thread, but it's well known that BF2 requires 2GB of RAM to run smoothly. FEAR also requires more than 1GB of RAM to run relatively smoothly. If you don't believe me, here (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14844275), here (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=413219&r=6152347#r6152347) and here (http://www.pcstats.com/artvnl.cfm?articleID=1854) are some quick indicators of this.

Note don't assume that just because you have 1GB of RAM, mean all the textures can or will load into it. No game uses all your RAM to load textures, nor can they be forced to load into there. As you know, RAM isn't only for loading textures into, a lot of other data needs to be temporarily stored there.

Doom3 is completely different to FEAR and BF2, for better or worse (aside from being a year older than them as well), so you can't compare their performance to that in Doom 3.

If you've already tried optimizing your entire system using the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion and the BF2 and FEAR Tweak Guides, then as suggested a faster drive setup will help, but the biggest benefit will be in a RAM upgrade.

This isn't the BF2 thread, but it's well known that BF2 requires 2GB of RAM to run smoothly. FEAR also requires more than 1GB of RAM to run relatively smoothly. If you don't believe me, here (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14844275), here (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=413219&r=6152347#r6152347) and here (http://www.pcstats.com/artvnl.cfm?articleID=1854) are some quick indicators of this.

Note don't assume that just because you have 1GB of RAM, mean all the textures can or will load into it. No game uses all your RAM to load textures, nor can they be forced to load into there. As you know, RAM isn't only for loading textures into, a lot of other data needs to be temporarily stored there.

Doom3 is completely different to FEAR and BF2, for better or worse (aside from being a year older than them as well), so you can't compare their performance to that in Doom 3.

If you've already tried optimizing your entire system using the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion and the BF2 and FEAR Tweak Guides, then as suggested a faster drive setup will help, but the biggest benefit will be in a RAM upgrade.
Well with BF2, my HD is actually being used when the textures are being swapped in/out, but with FEAR my hard drive is not even being used. The video in the game will just stay frozen, and the audio will keep playing.

The video hitching you're describing shouldn't be all that common in FEAR, especially if you've set the Force Restart option to on.

I have a similar system to you (except using a 256MB 7800GTX which is roughly equal to the 7900GT), and a X2 4400+ which is obviously slower than your CPU but still dual core, as well as an Audigy 2ZS. Both BF2 and FEAR run smoothly for me without anything more than tiny loading pauses/stutter after initial level loads.

I run FEAR at 1280x1024 all settings max (soft shadows off), 2xAA 4xAF and it's very smooth. The only significant difference thus is my 2x 10,000RPM Raptor hard drives in RAID0 formation, and my 2GB of RAM.

That's not to say you can't improve things with general system optimization, or even making sure all your FEAR settings are correct, but since you're convinced that you've already done all that's wise in that area, that doesn't leave much room for improvement in the software department.

The video hitching you're describing shouldn't be all that common in FEAR, especially if you've set the Force Restart option to on.

I have a similar system to you (except using a 256MB 7800GTX which is roughly equal to the 7900GT), and a X2 4400+ which is obviously slower than your CPU but still dual core, as well as an Audigy 2ZS. Both BF2 and FEAR run smoothly for me without anything more than tiny loading pauses/stutter after initial level loads.

I run FEAR at 1280x1024 all settings max (soft shadows off), 2xAA 4xAF and it's very smooth. The only significant difference thus is my 2x 10,000RPM Raptor hard drives in RAID0 formation, and my 2GB of RAM.

That's not to say you can't improve things with general system optimization, or even making sure all your FEAR settings are correct, but since you're convinced that you've already done all that's wise in that area, that doesn't leave much room for improvement in the software department.
What usually causes this sort of issue? I've tried fooling around with different options in the nvidia control panel without any luck. And on the software end of things my system is just fine. (Only essential services running, and nothing running in the background).

I have a funny problem, or not so funny anymore after trying several times to update my 1.00 version directly to 1.07. I used UK patch and it installed it without problems. Then I tried to start the single player game and the following message appears: "Original disc could not be found or authenticated". Uninstalled everything and reinstalled 1.00, game starts, no problem. I installed 1.07UK-patch and the above happens again. I checked CD-key.ini and my key is OK. What could be the problem? On my game case i noticed there says: "Fear Export PC DVD, not to be distributed in UK. I bought this DVD in Finland. And what else? If I use the ingame update functionality it tries to update game to 1.07US version and then informs this version of the update is incompatible with the version installed. What can I do?

Edit: Just found out that this is an issue with SecuRom module and basically needs a new fear.exe -file. I patched to 1.03 and replaced fear.exe with the file received from SecuRom (link:http://www.securom.com/support/customers/vugames/FEAR_t224/FEAR.zip) for patch 1.05 and earlier. And it worked! However, I'm not sure this will work on newer patches, but I'll verify it myself ASAP.

Edit 2: And what happened! I updated game with full update from 1.00 to 1.07UK (even though I had 1.03UK installed) and now everything just works fine. I'm not using above mentioned replacement file anymore. At first I downloaded from Sierra 1.05enb file for UK version but that gave me message my game is not compatible with this patch. I believe now that Sierra has somehow mixed patches.

I have a funny problem, or not so funny anymore after trying several times to update my 1.00 version directly to 1.07. I used UK patch and it installed it without problems. Then I tried to start the single player game and the following message appears: "Original disc could not be found or authenticated". Uninstalled everything and reinstalled 1.00, game starts, no problem. I installed 1.07UK-patch and the above happens again. I checked CD-key.ini and my key is OK. What could be the problem? On my game case i noticed there says: "Fear Export PC DVD, not to be distributed in UK. I bought this DVD in Finland. And what else? If I use the ingame update functionality it tries to update game to 1.07US version and then informs this version of the update is incompatible with the version installed. What can I do?

Removed comment regarding bypassing copy protection. Such topics are not allowed to be discussed here and is clearly stated in the Forum Rules - SortYa

Hmm I sometimes get stuttering at heavy fire fights (Multiplay), with multiple enemy's at my screen. Is this because of my 1 GB RAM? I may buy 2x 1 GB Instead of 4x256 which I have now..

Please read the previous posts on this and the last couple of pages which also discuss stuttering and FEAR RAM usage.

I know, it is not new to anyone of you but what is strange with my case is that it is always locking up after that I'm dead! And not all the time, only after a while playing. Sometime can sucessfully do CTRl-ALT-DEL to bring the Task Man and ending my locked up FEAR but this only works 2 out of 10 times.

Of course, already tried everything about sound and video tweaking but no luck and can't find anybody having this same strange behaviour!

My Specs:
AMD64 X2 3800+ (not OC)
ATI-X1300 with 19" Flat Panel using HDVI
2 gigs RAM
150gig Maxtor HDD (two Partitions)
1 x DVD and 1 x CD
X-Fi Xtreme

Any hints, tips?:rolleyes:

just tried to log on a server and was told i didnt have the most up to date version. the Gamespy downloader is getting it off the sierra ftp now. it would appear to be around 45MB. can't find it at any fileplanet or gameshack or anything yet the only info i could find was at hte FEAR homepage to say it had been released. they linked to a page on the sierra site for downloads but it didnt appear to be working properly.

Downloading the 1.08 patch right now, and according the the release notes they've added Widescreen Support. Now that is good news for widescreen LCD owners with good enough hardware.

P.S. Don't expect fast download speeds at the Sierra website. FilePlanet's hosting it now. http://www.fileplanet.com/filelist.aspx?s=100580&v=90002

i'd advise people to wait a bit. very few server are using 1.08 yet and the ones that i've found that are, are having a few problems where they become unresponsive or say they are full when they're not.

as far as the patch itself goes, the only thing i have to say is i dont like the way your kills dont show up in the bottom left in bigger text now, only at the top right.

The change list is as follows:This update is for F.E.A.R. Combat and brings it up to v1.08. This is a required update.

Update Notes - Multiplayer:

* Added ability to pick up and reuse Proximity Mines and Remote Detonators that were thrown by yourself.
* Limited support for Spectator Mode in objective (CTF, Conquer All, and Control) game modes.
* Added code to improve spawn with buddies system in team game modes. Will be noticeable only in Stockpile and custom maps.
* Player kill/death messages are now shown in both system and chat messages. Player kills and deaths will only be displayed in the system message area.

Update Notes - Global:

* Added widescreen support.
* Fixed bug where FEAR.exe would not always start when switching from FEARMP.exe to FEAR.exe.

Hi everyone.

Load and install the 1.08 (the big one from sierra) and didn't play for hours but my problem seems to be fixed now and also notice smoother graphics.
Didn't had any crash during about two hours of playing.

Finnished that last two intervals and can't wait to see how 'extraction point' will look like.

Thought it might be good to let you know.

:thumbup:

Cheers.

Well what about the U.S patch for the Combat? I guess we have to wait a while.

I've been playing the F.E.A.R Extraction Point DEMO and everytime i get out of the game i either get a black screen and can only see my curser or reboots/blue screen of death. Anybody seen this issue with this demo because there is something wrong with this games setup, not sure everything was and is fine with my system just with this demo for some odd reason, anyone?

I'm not sure if that has to do with the patch or anything but since it came out I decided to reinstall the game and I noticed that the game was a lot smoother.

In some areas like the beginning of the game when you get out of the car it would really bog down on me but this time around it stayed as fluid as ever.

Anybody here having any issues with the F.E.A.R Extraction Point demo? Everytime i exit the game i get a black screen or BSOD. Everything else on my system is stable as a rock. Not sure if Panda Anti-Virus or WindowBlinds is cause this but i don't think those are related. Maybe some system have isue with the demo. Any inputs on this would be great, thank you in advance....

Try temporarily disabling your anti-virus. And wtf is WindowBlinds?

P.S. Seriously, what is WindowBlinds? I can't give a more detailed response without that info.

Well you can try going to the per application settings in WB and disable all skinning for FEAR and see if you still get the error

P.S. Seriously, what is WindowBlinds? I can't give a more detailed response without that info.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

Windows skinning utility.

Extraction Point is out!
F.E.A.R for Xbox 360 is out!

the Xbox 360 F.E.A.R has so far gotten great reviews while the expansion has been stated as abit of a let down

Yes, it seems that they haven't really gone the extra mile to provide much new content, aside from some more weapons and enemies. The reviews thus far aren't really complaining; after all, the original F.E.A.R. was good, so more of the same isn't bad. I guess it lacks length and replay value, more along the lines of the episodic gaming trend coming from Valve.

I reinstalled F.E.A.R. tonight for the first time after upgrading my rig, and man did I see a difference! However, I still came away somehow disappointed--not by the performance, but by the content. It made me wish that there was less attempted creepiness and more fighting. I've been in the mood lately to blast the enemy into oblivion (har, har) but F.E.A.R. didn't satisfy. I had forgotten how brief, albeit realistic, the firefights are. Maybe I've just gotten better, but I pretty much handed them their rumps in every encounter. Oh well. It can't be too long until some other worthy title graces our PCs. ;)

mmm. i have to agree with you there. less creepiness and more fighting. often i'd find myself walking around for 5 minutes or more in the dark with the scary noises wishing that there was more combat. especially given that the AI is quite exquisite, it's a shame there wasnt more battle scenes. i really loved the firefights when they came though. i have saved games right before alot of the major battles and when i play SP it's just to replay those fights. and everytime it's different.

FEAR multiplayer is exceptional if you're wanting "blast the enemy into oblivion" but still, nothing beats UT2004 :D

Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing when I was playing it today. Less "creepyness" and more action please. But when the action did happen to come by, it was worth it. I love the begginning levels of the Office mission.

Also, whats with the stupid things that pop out in the fire of the fire areas? I hate thoes things (because the do a decent amount of damage when they get you. Spoiler >> Especially at the end were all you fight are thoes things, it really just pissed me off rather than scared me. <<<< Dunno how to make the background black, so I made the text white.

i'm not really what you mean as i skipped the scary bits. i never went into the vault and when there was a creepy bit at the end of the level i'd just use the level skip command. i don't really do scary movies and the creepiness just pissed me off. Like in return to castle wolfenstein, i loved it until you started coming up against all those supernatural creatures. that's when i turned off and stopped playing.

But i absolutely love the combat in FEAR. especially the attention to detail like the very realistic blood spatter and opponents staggering after being hit badly. what i would really enjoy is a tactical shooter based on FEAR because the engine is amazing.

I never found the game scary at all because it would basically tell you when something "scary" is gonna happen. I just wished that there were more action sequences rather than walking round for 5 minutes, seeing Alma then fighting the soldiers and then the cycle repeates just about.

I'm going to have to disagree with you guys on this one. I love the scare factor in this game. There were many a night when I would have my headphones on as my wife and son were sleeping and found myself literally gasping out loud in a couple of parts. So much so that I turned off the game for fear of waking them up. Now I might be easily scared, I don't do haunted houses for example, but I just love that factor in this game. To me, it's what sets it apart from other shooters. Well that and the superb graphics and AI.

That's just my two cents. Happy holloween all!

I'll agree that the game was scary those invisible ninja monster things, anyone, but the scary moments involving Alma were always preceded by those static noises, telling you something's about to happen.

I agree with ASH3. For me the scare elements and horror atmosphere are very important in this game and make it more like good horror/s-f movie. Without it could be like a virtual paintball party. To tell You the true all this horror things keep me playing this game because without `em it`d be too boring for me.

those invisible ninja monster things, anyone
Yeah, but you rarely run into them. I can only remember only killing about 10 of them throughout the entire game.

i have been playing fearcombat for a few days now and really love the game. my problem i downloaded and installed the 1.08 update but it was the US update and im in the UK, the game still worked fine after i installed it. But now the game wont run at all, wen i click to start the game the screen goes blank and returns to windows and i get this msg "Failed to initialise client - unknown error", i tried to uninstall the game and it wont even let me do that i get "This update is only ocmpatible with the English (United States) version of F.E.A.R. Combat. Please use the correct update for the installed version of the game."
and also when i try to install the correct version of the update i get "F.E.A.R. is not currently installed. Update aborted."
Please any help would be much appreciated, i really wanna get back to playing this game

Merged into existing thread - search before posting

re-install and get the latest UK patch. That's the only way I can think of reverting to an older patch.

i tried that aswell and i get "string ERROR_WRONGVERSION was not found in string table."
So there is no way i can uninstall, re-install, re-apply the right patch.
i've even deleted the whole game off my comp and when i go to install game i get the same message as above.

Go to Control Panel>Add/Remove, tick the 'Show Updates' box, uninstall FEAR and any of its listed patches or add-ons.

After uninstalling the game you'll need to manually delete the game's folders \Program Files\Sierra\FEAR and \Documents and Settings\All Users\My Documents\Monolith Productions\FEAR (this deletes all your saved games, so back up the Save folder if you wish.

Then run a thorough clean of the registry (see Windows Registry chapter of the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion).

Then reboot and try installing the game. If that doesn't work you may well have to contact Sierra tech support to find a more complete fix.

Thank you for the advice but unfortunately that didnt work either. I got in touch with Sierra like you said and they gave me a different solution so i will try that out.

If it works please post it here so others can also see in case they have the same issues.

Well in the email i got they said i would have to uninstall the game manually by going into the registry editor. This is what the email said:

"WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use.

1)Click on "Start" and click on "Run" type "regedit".
2)Click on [+] Sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and locate Software and click on [+] Sign next to it.
3)Now locate "[+] Sign" Microsoft and click on it and try to locate Sierra games and click on [+] Sign next to it and delete the folder named F.E.A.R. Combat.
4)Now press Alt and F key together and press "X" key.

Before you reinstall the game I would recommend that you create a new user profile in Windows with administrator rights."

Unfortunately i could not do this because my computer is severly messed up, i do not have a run command in start up and also the shutdown is missing and cant access task manager either and apparently most commands i try say "disabled by your administrator", which is me and that just makes things more confusing. I've tried things like going to Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, and finding regedit.exe but none of those helped.:confused:

It sounds like you'd be better off with a full reformat and reinstall of Windows if your system is so messed up.

By the way the advice they gave you is effectively the same as I gave you - i.e. uninstall the game then use a registry cleaner (or Windows Registry Editor - both covered in the registry chapter of the TGTC) to remove the FEAR-related entries.

Just so you know Hus_lan, the only difference between the english and uk versions of the game is the FEARL.arch00 which contains the voice data. So if you wanted to install the US patch on a UK game, all you have to do is overwrite the UK FEARL.arch00 with the US version and it will be detected as such. I am not sure if posting a link to the US file is ok here (being as its part of the game) but doing a quick google of "fear english voice patch" should be enough. Obviously you need to reformat and start over, but I have noticed that the global patches are not always coming out at the same time as the US ones so I would recommend patching the game to the US version anyways.

Just finished the Extraction Point expansion, and I just can't get enough of Fear :) (although the ending was a bit meh)

I'm extremely frustrated, I purchased the game today, and when I launch the game it freezes on the copyright screen, and I let it sit for a couple of minutes to see if it will snap out of it.....no dice....when I check task manager it's not responding. I have uninstalling Daemon Tools and Alcohol %120 as the tweakguide suggested, and I am currently running the official Catalyst 6.11, and all other system drivers are fully up to date. Also, I am able to hear the high pitched sound that sounds like microphone feedback.
Also, I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition

Try disabling the intro movies (Page 9 of the guide) to see whether it's related to a glitch with the movie playback.

Yea I already tried that before I posted here; I thought that that might help. This issue is strange, considering that I've had no issues with any of my games on my PC....I keep great care of my PC, closely following the steps outlined the your tweaking companion guide for XP and the Catalyst Guide.

Well aside from what can be done using the guide, and the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion in particular, there's nothing specific to the game itself that causes this as far as I know. You may want to try Catalyst 6.10 to see if that makes a difference, or alternatively do a full clean uninstall/reinstall of 6.11. Check your graphics card for its temps straight after this happens, and also take the time to go through the various suggestions in this thread and perhaps a bit of online searching to see if others have had this problem with the X1950.

Ok I will...thanks for the tips, and sorry for the out of line PM. I have read the rules now. Also, I know that the card works okay with the game, as I have spoken to another person on Overclock.net, and he says that it's ok. I will try to reinstall the 6.11 drivers and clean with drivercleaner 3, but the 6.10s won't install for me and aren't supported for this card. I have searched through the official site forum, and this didn't yield anything important: however I did find some people with the same issue, but nobody responded to their posts, so I will check some other forums. Thanks for the tips and the excellent tweakguides, as I suggest them to many people.

Ok, and the issue with the PM was that if everyone were to PM me asking me for personal help/tech support then that is all I would do all day long. That is not the intention of these forums, nor what I want to do with all my time. As you can imagine I could hardly write guides or run this site if I even attempt to provide personal tech support.

You sound like you've covered your bases in most respects, however the issue could well be specific to certain X1950 Pro graphics cards under the 6.11 Catalysts, since it is a relatively new graphics card. In which case you might even have to wait for a further driver update to fix it if all else fails.

However keep experimenting and you may well crack the reason yourself - then people can come here to read your solution instead of vice versa. It could be for example that FEAR when run at a particular resolution/refresh rate crashes under your current environment, so look under the Advanced Tweaking section of the FEAR guide and try a different resolution to start with, try turning off Hardware Cursor for example, or set VSync to off. Or try reducing your DirectX acceleration a couple of notches under Display Properties>Settings>Advanced>Troubleshoot. These may help you launch the game.

Ok I'll give it a try. Thanks for your help! Also, I totally understand where you are coming from concerning the PM thing.

Additional Comment:
Still haven't fixed the problem....I've tried everything that I can think of, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know

Ok I'm really mad now....I completely reformatted my HDD and reinstalled windows today, thinking that surely THIS will fix the issue..........NOPE. Now I am currently at the conclusion that there is some sort of hardware incompatibility. I noticed under the system requirements something strange: a monitor that can display an aspect ratio of 4:3 is required. I know that mine can, because my monitor is a 27" TV, and I have played DVDs with this aspect ratio before......I have no idea because it isn't the sound (I've tried disabling all of the settings in the config section). I have a Microsoft Intellimouse, so that coudn't be it (if it is that is ridiculous) I am calling technical support on Monday, but I really doubt that they will be able to solve it. I am currently at my wits end, so if anyone has any ideas, please help me...I've spend over 8 hours troubleshooting this game.

Do you have a regular Windows XP version (ie non-media center)? Im not sure what the diffrences are, but media center might not be supported.

I technically have XP Professional with Media Center Edition Rollback 8, making it MCE 2005, guess Microsoft likes to confuse people....I don't see why the game wouldn't support MCE, it doesn't say that on the system requirements...if I doesn't I'm getting my money back because that is absurd. Here is my hardware info...well above system requirements..
I have DirectX 9.0c installed with October update...Catalyst 6.11
This info is from MSInfo32.exe, and I can post more, but I thought that it may have been a bit too long for the forum. The total length was really huge.

System Information report written at: 11/19/06 09:16:52
System Name: YOUR-4DACD0EA75
[System Summary]

Item Value
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name YOUR-4DACD0EA75
System Manufacturer HP Pavilion 061
System Model EX272AA-ABA a1520n
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 43 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2004 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 43 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2004 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.07, 4/13/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name YOUR-4DACD0EA75\HP_Administrator
Time Zone Central Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 682.64 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 2.90 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

[Hardware Resources]



[Conflicts/Sharing]

Resource Device
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x000003AF PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x000003AF Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Radeon X1950 Pro

IRQ 21 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
IRQ 21 NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator

IRQ 22 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
IRQ 22 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003DF PCI bus
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003DF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003DF Radeon X1950 Pro


[DMA]

Resource Device Status
Channel 4 Direct memory access controller OK

[Forced Hardware]

Device PNP Device ID

[I/O]

Resource Device Status
0x00000000-0x000003AF PCI bus OK
0x00000000-0x000003AF Direct memory access controller OK
0x000003B0-0x000003DF PCI bus OK
0x000003B0-0x000003DF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0x000003B0-0x000003DF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0x000003E0-0x00000CF7 PCI bus OK
0x00001000-0x0000FFFF PCI bus OK
0x0000E000-0x0000EFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0x0000C000-0x0000CFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0x000003C0-0x000003DF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0x000003C0-0x000003DF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0x0000CE00-0x0000CEFF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0x00000A79-0x00000A79 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK
0x00000279-0x00000279 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK
0x00000274-0x00000277 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK
0x00004C00-0x00004C3F NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management OK
0x00004C40-0x00004C7F NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management OK
0x0000FD00-0x0000FD0F Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x000001F0-0x000001F7 Primary IDE Channel OK
0x000003F6-0x000003F6 Primary IDE Channel OK
0x00000170-0x00000177 Secondary IDE Channel OK
0x00000376-0x00000376 Secondary IDE Channel OK
0x000009F0-0x000009F7 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000BF0-0x00000BF3 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000970-0x00000977 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000B70-0x00000B73 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x0000F800-0x0000F80F Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x000009E0-0x000009E7 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000BE0-0x00000BE3 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000960-0x00000967 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x00000B60-0x00000B63 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x0000F300-0x0000F30F Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0x0000F200-0x0000F207 NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator OK
0x00004000-0x0000407F Motherboard resources OK
0x00004080-0x000040FF Motherboard resources OK
0x00004400-0x0000447F Motherboard resources OK
0x00004480-0x000044FF Motherboard resources OK
0x00004800-0x0000487F Motherboard resources OK
0x00004880-0x000048FF Motherboard resources OK
0x00002000-0x0000207F Motherboard resources OK
0x00002080-0x000020FF Motherboard resources OK
0x00000010-0x0000001F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000022-0x0000003F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000044-0x0000005F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000062-0x00000063 Motherboard resources OK
0x00000065-0x0000006F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000074-0x0000007F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000091-0x00000093 Motherboard resources OK
0x000000A2-0x000000BF Motherboard resources OK
0x000000E0-0x000000EF Motherboard resources OK
0x000004D0-0x000004D1 Motherboard resources OK
0x00000800-0x0000087F Motherboard resources OK
0x00000020-0x00000021 Programmable interrupt controller OK
0x000000A0-0x000000A1 Programmable interrupt controller OK
0x00000080-0x00000090 Direct memory access controller OK
0x00000094-0x0000009F Direct memory access controller OK
0x000000C0-0x000000DF Direct memory access controller OK
0x00000040-0x00000043 System timer OK
0x00000070-0x00000073 System CMOS/real time clock OK
0x00000061-0x00000061 System speaker OK
0x000000F0-0x000000FF Numeric data processor OK
0x00000060-0x00000060 Enhanced Mulmedia PS/2 Keyboard OK
0x00000064-0x00000064 Enhanced Mulmedia PS/2 Keyboard OK

[IRQs]

Resource Device Status
IRQ 9 AMD ACPI-Compliant System OK
IRQ 16 Radeon X1950 Pro OK
IRQ 20 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller OK
IRQ 22 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
IRQ 22 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 21 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 21 NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator OK
IRQ 23 Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio OK
IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 1 Enhanced Mulmedia PS/2 Keyboard OK

[Memory]

Resource Device Status
0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus OK
0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0xA0000-0xBFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0x40000000-0xEFFFFFFF PCI bus OK
0xF4000000-0xFE02FFFF PCI bus OK
0xFDA00000-0xFDAFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0xFDE00000-0xFDEFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0xFDB00000-0xFDBFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge OK
0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0xFDBF0000-0xFDBFFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro OK
0xFDBE0000-0xFDBEFFFF Radeon X1950 Pro Secondary OK
0xFE02F000-0xFE02FFFF Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller OK
0xFE02E000-0xFE02E0FF Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
0xFE02D000-0xFE02DFFF Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0xFE02C000-0xFE02CFFF Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
0xFE024000-0xFE027FFF Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio OK
0xFE02B000-0xFE02BFFF NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator OK
0xF0000000-0xF3FFFFFF Motherboard resources OK
0xF0000-0xF3FFF System board OK
0xF4000-0xF7FFF System board OK
0xF8000-0xFBFFF System board OK
0xFC000-0xFFFFF System board OK
0x3FEF0000-0x3FEFFFFF System board OK
0xFFFF0000-0xFFFFFFFF System board OK
0x0000-0x9FFFF System board OK
0x100000-0x3FEEFFFF System board OK
0xFEC00000-0xFEC00FFF System board OK
0xFEE00000-0xFEEFFFFF System board OK
0xFEFFF000-0xFEFFFFFF System board OK
0xFFF80000-0xFFF80FFF System board OK
0xFFF90000-0xFFFBFFFF System board OK
0xFFFED000-0xFFFEFFFF System board OK

[Components]



[Multimedia]



[Audio Codecs]

CODEC Manufacturer Description Status File Version Size Creation Date
c:\windows\system32\msaud32.acm Microsoft Corporation Windows Media Audio Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSAUD32.ACM 8.00.00.4487 288.00 KB (294,912 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\l3codeca.acm Fraunhofer Institut Integrierte Schaltungen IIS Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\L3CODECA.ACM 1, 9, 0, 0305 284.00 KB (290,816 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\msg723.acm Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSG723.ACM 4.4.3400 116.00 KB (118,784 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\sl_anet.acm Sipro Lab Telecom Inc. Sipro Lab Telecom Audio Codec OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\SL_ANET.ACM 3.02 84.00 KB (86,016 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\iac25_32.ax Intel Corporation Indeo® audio software OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IAC25_32.AX 2.05.53 195.00 KB (199,680 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\msg711.acm Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSG711.ACM 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) 9.00 KB (9,216 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\tssoft32.acm DSP GROUP, INC. OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\TSSOFT32.ACM 1.01 8.00 KB (8,192 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\msgsm32.acm Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSGSM32.ACM 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) 19.50 KB (19,968 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\msadp32.acm Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSADP32.ACM 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 14.50 KB (14,848 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\imaadp32.acm Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMAADP32.ACM 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 16.00 KB (16,384 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM

[Video Codecs]

CODEC Manufacturer Description Status File Version Size Creation Date
c:\windows\system32\lcodccmp.dll LEAD Technologies, Inc. LEAD MCMP/MJPEG Codec (VFW) OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\LCODCCMP.DLL 1.0.0.013 356.00 KB (364,544 bytes) 4/24/2002 8:42 PM
c:\windows\system32\ir50_32.dll Intel Corporation Indeo® video 5.10 OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IR50_32.DLL R.5.10.15.2.55 737.50 KB (755,200 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\msh261.drv Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSH261.DRV 5.1.2600.2180 184.00 KB (188,416 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\ir32_32.dll Intel(R) Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IR32_32.DLL Not Available 194.50 KB (199,168 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\tsbyuv.dll Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\TSBYUV.DLL 5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148) 8.00 KB (8,192 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\msyuv.dll Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSYUV.DLL 5.3.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 17.00 KB (17,408 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\msvidc32.dll Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSVIDC32.DLL 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) 25.00 KB (25,600 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\ir41_32.ax Intel Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IR41_32.AX 4.51.16.03 828.50 KB (848,384 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\msh263.drv Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSH263.DRV 5.1.2600.2180 288.00 KB (294,912 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\iyuv_32.dll Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\IYUV_32.DLL 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 46.50 KB (47,616 bytes) 8/10/2004 6:00 AM
c:\windows\system32\iccvid.dll Radius Inc. OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\ICCVID.DLL 1.10.0.11 78.50 KB (80,384 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM
c:\windows\system32\msrle32.dll Microsoft Corporation OK C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSRLE32.DLL 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) 11.00 KB (11,264 bytes) 8/9/2004 11:00 PM

[CD-ROM]

Item Value
Drive E:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type CD-ROM
Name HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GSA-H21L
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate 1065.72 kbytes/sec
SCSI Target ID 0
PNP Device ID IDE\CDROMHL-DT-ST_DVDRRW_GSA-H21L________________L602____\5&3AD4A20C&0&0.0.0
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 48.38 KB (49,536 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

[Sound Device]

Item Value
Name Realtek High Definition Audio
Manufacturer Realtek
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0883&SUBSYS_103C2A3E&REV_1000\4&6FF05C4&0&0001
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\rtkhdaud.sys (5.10.00.5229 built by: WinDDK, 4.05 MB (4,246,016 bytes), 5/6/2006 10:11 PM)

[Display]

Item Value
Name Radeon X1950 Pro
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_7280&SUBSYS_E190174B&REV_00\4&13D46659&0&0020
Adapter Type Radeon X1950 Series (0x7280), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description Radeon X1950 Pro
Adapter RAM 256.00 MB (268,435,456 bytes)
Installed Drivers ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.6648
INF File oem23.inf (ati2mtag_R580 section)
Color Planes 1
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 800 x 600 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xFDBF0000-0xFDBFFFFF
I/O Port 0x0000CE00-0x0000CEFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 16
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003DF
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\ati2mtag.sys (6.14.10.6648, 1.69 MB (1,777,152 bytes), 8/22/2006 8:53 PM)

Name Radeon X1950 Pro Secondary
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_72A0&SUBSYS_E191174B&REV_00\4&13D46659&0&0120
Adapter Type Radeon X1950 Series Secondary (0x72A0), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description Radeon X1950 Pro Secondary
Adapter RAM 256.00 MB (268,435,456 bytes)
Installed Drivers ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.6648
INF File oem23.inf (ati2mtag_R580 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries Not Available
Resolution Not Available
Bits/Pixel Not Available
Memory Address 0xFDBE0000-0xFDBEFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\ati2mtag.sys (6.14.10.6648, 1.69 MB (1,777,152 bytes), 8/22/2006 8:53 PM)

[Infrared]

Item Value

[Input]



[Keyboard]

Item Value
Description Enhanced Mulmedia PS/2 Keyboard
Name Enhanced (101- or 102-key)
Layout 00000409
PNP Device ID ACPI\PNP0303\3&2411E6FE&0
Number of Function Keys 12
I/O Port 0x00000060-0x00000060
I/O Port 0x00000064-0x00000064
IRQ Channel IRQ 1
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\i8042prt.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 51.50 KB (52,736 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

[Pointing Device]

Item Value
Hardware Type HID-compliant mouse
Number of Buttons 5
Status OK
PNP Device ID HID\VID_045E&PID_0095&COL01\6&180F55EB&0&0000
Power Management Supported No
Double Click Threshold 6
Handedness Right Handed Operation
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\mouhid.sys (5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148), 11.88 KB (12,160 bytes), 11/18/2006 5:42 PM)

[Modem]

Item Value
Name Agere Systems PCI-SV92PP Soft Modem
Description Agere Systems PCI-SV92PP Soft Modem
Device ID PCI\VEN_11C1&DEV_0620&SUBSYS_062011C1&REV_00\4&DC268A3&0&5080
Device Type Internal Modem
Attached To COM3
Answer Mode Not Available
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_11C1&DEV_0620&SUBSYS_062011C1&REV_00\4&DC268A3&0&5080
Provider Name Agere
Modem INF Path oem8.inf
Modem INF Section PINBALL_Modem
Blind Off X4
Blind On X3
Compression Off %C0
Compression On %C1
Error Control Forced \N4
Error Control Off \N1
Error Control On \N3
Flow Control Hard &K3
Flow Control Off &K0
Flow Control Soft &K4
DCB &#x001c;
Default <
Inactivity Timeout 0
Modulation Bell B1B16B2
Modulation CCITT B0B15B2
Prefix AT
Pulse P
Reset AT&F<cr>
Responses Key Name Agere Systems PCI-SV92PP Soft Modem::Agere::Agere
Speaker Mode Dial M1
Speaker Mode Off M0
Speaker Mode On M2
Speaker Mode Setup M3
Speaker Volume High L3
Speaker Volume Low L0
Speaker Volume Med L2
String Format Not Available
Terminator <cr>
Tone T

[Network]



[Adapter]

Item Value
Name [00000001] HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type HP EN1207D-TX PCI 10/100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID Not Available
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 1
Service Name RTL8139
IP Address 74.194.30.7
IP Subnet 255.255.255.0
Default IP Gateway 74.194.30.1
DHCP Enabled Yes
DHCP Server 16.92.3.250
DHCP Lease Expires 9/15/2005 12:16 AM
DHCP Lease Obtained 8/31/2005 12:16 AM
MAC Address 00:17:31:A1:B4:2E

Name [00000002] NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
Adapter Type Ethernet 802.3
Product Type NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID {1A3E09BE-1E45-494B-9174-D7385B45BBF5}\NVNET_DEV0269\4&180DF4C5&0&01
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 2
Service Name NVENETFD
IP Address 74.194.30.7
IP Subnet 255.255.255.0
Default IP Gateway 74.194.30.1
DHCP Enabled Yes
DHCP Server 172.24.120.66
DHCP Lease Expires 11/20/2006 10:09 AM
DHCP Lease Obtained 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
MAC Address 00:17:31:A1:B4:2E
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvenetfd.sys (1.00.03.05024, 33.38 KB (34,176 bytes), 5/6/2006 10:14 PM)

Name [00000003] RAS Async Adapter
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type RAS Async Adapter
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID Not Available
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 3
Service Name AsyncMac
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address Not Available

Name [00000004] Packet Scheduler Miniport
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type Packet Scheduler Miniport
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PSCHEDMP\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 4
Service Name
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address Not Available
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\psched.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 67.50 KB (69,120 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000005] WAN Miniport (L2TP)
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type WAN Miniport (L2TP)
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_L2TPMINIPORT\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 5
Service Name Rasl2tp
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address Not Available
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\rasl2tp.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 50.13 KB (51,328 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000006] WAN Miniport (PPTP)
Adapter Type Wide Area Network (WAN)
Product Type WAN Miniport (PPTP)
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PPTPMINIPORT\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 6
Service Name PptpMiniport
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address 50:50:54:50:30:30
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\raspptp.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 47.25 KB (48,384 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000007] WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
Adapter Type Wide Area Network (WAN)
Product Type WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PPPOEMINIPORT\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 7
Service Name RasPppoe
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address 33:50:6F:45:30:30
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\raspppoe.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 40.50 KB (41,472 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000008] Direct Parallel
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type Direct Parallel
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PTIMINIPORT\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 8
Service Name Raspti
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address Not Available
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\raspti.sys (5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148), 16.13 KB (16,512 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000009] WAN Miniport (IP)
Adapter Type Not Available
Product Type WAN Miniport (IP)
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_NDISWANIP\0000
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 9
Service Name NdisWan
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address Not Available
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\ndiswan.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 89.63 KB (91,776 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000010] Packet Scheduler Miniport
Adapter Type Ethernet 802.3
Product Type Packet Scheduler Miniport
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PSCHEDMP\0001
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 10
Service Name
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address E2:C3:20:52:41:53
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\psched.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 67.50 KB (69,120 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name [00000011] Packet Scheduler Miniport
Adapter Type Ethernet 802.3
Product Type Packet Scheduler Miniport
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID ROOT\MS_PSCHEDMP\0002
Last Reset 11/19/2006 9:08 AM
Index 11
Service Name
IP Address Not Available
IP Subnet Not Available
Default IP Gateway Not Available
DHCP Enabled No
DHCP Server Not Available
DHCP Lease Expires Not Available
DHCP Lease Obtained Not Available
MAC Address 00:17:31:A1:B4:2E
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\psched.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 67.50 KB (69,120 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

[Protocol]

Item Value
Name MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 16 bytes
Maximum Message Size 0 bytes
Message Oriented No
Minimum Address Size 16 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data Yes
Supports Graceful Closing Yes
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 16 bytes
Maximum Message Size 63.93 KB (65,467 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 16 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting Yes

Name RSVP UDP Service Provider
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 16 bytes
Maximum Message Size 63.93 KB (65,467 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 16 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption Yes
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting Yes

Name RSVP TCP Service Provider
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 16 bytes
Maximum Message Size 0 bytes
Message Oriented No
Minimum Address Size 16 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption Yes
Supports Expedited Data Yes
Supports Graceful Closing Yes
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{2EE607DA-9937-4BD9-AB8E-8AD6C3BFB7A9}] SEQPACKET 1
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{2EE607DA-9937-4BD9-AB8E-8AD6C3BFB7A9}] DATAGRAM 1
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{892900FC-9814-4488-99C0-81491C1EE93D}] SEQPACKET 0
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{892900FC-9814-4488-99C0-81491C1EE93D}] DATAGRAM 0
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{4D589907-2D53-4DBA-8511-D302D05BE3EB}] SEQPACKET 2
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{4D589907-2D53-4DBA-8511-D302D05BE3EB}] DATAGRAM 2
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{FECA2202-8AB9-4832-997F-0DA2317240A6}] SEQPACKET 3
Connectionless Service No
Guarantees Delivery Yes
Guarantees Sequencing Yes
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting No
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{FECA2202-8AB9-4832-997F-0DA2317240A6}] DATAGRAM 3
Connectionless Service Yes
Guarantees Delivery No
Guarantees Sequencing No
Maximum Address Size 20 bytes
Maximum Message Size 62.50 KB (64,000 bytes)
Message Oriented Yes
Minimum Address Size 20 bytes
Pseudo Stream Oriented No
Supports Broadcasting Yes
Supports Connect Data No
Supports Disconnect Data No
Supports Encryption No
Supports Expedited Data No
Supports Graceful Closing No
Supports Guaranteed Bandwidth Yes
Supports Multicasting No

[WinSock]

Item Value
File c:\windows\system32\winsock.dll
Size 2.80 KB (2,864 bytes)
Version 3.10

File c:\windows\system32\wsock32.dll
Size 22.00 KB (22,528 bytes)
Version 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)

[Ports]



[Serial]

Item Value

[Parallel]

Item Value

[Storage]



[Drives]

Item Value
Drive C:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed No
File System NTFS
Size 224.08 GB (240,605,855,744 bytes)
Free Space 198.75 GB (213,403,639,808 bytes)
Volume Name HP_PAVILION
Volume Serial Number F8AFC8F4

Drive D:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed No
File System FAT32
Size 8.78 GB (9,432,375,296 bytes)
Free Space 785.96 MB (824,143,872 bytes)
Volume Name HP_RECOVERY
Volume Serial Number 4C17781C

Drive E:
Description CD-ROM Disc

Drive J:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed No
File System FAT32
Size 149.01 GB (160,000,147,456 bytes)
Free Space 1.79 GB (1,923,809,280 bytes)
Volume Name IOMEGA_HDD
Volume Serial Number 0C490F64

[Disks]

Item Value
Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model Maxtor 6L250S0
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed&#x0009;hard disk media
Partitions 2
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 1
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 232.88 GB (250,056,737,280 bytes)
Total Cylinders 30,401
Total Sectors 488,392,065
Total Tracks 7,752,255
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 224.08 GB (240,605,858,304 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 8.80 GB (9,450,846,720 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 240,605,890,560 bytes

Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model WDC WD16 00BB-22GUA0 USB Device
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed&#x0009;hard disk media
Partitions 1
SCSI Bus Not Available
SCSI Logical Unit Not Available
SCSI Port Not Available
SCSI Target ID Not Available
Sectors/Track 63
Size 149.05 GB (160,039,272,960 bytes)
Total Cylinders 19,457
Total Sectors 312,576,705
Total Tracks 4,961,535
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #1, Partition #0
Partition Size 149.05 GB (160,039,240,704 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes

[SCSI]

Item Value

[IDE]

Item Value
Name Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0265&SUBSYS_2A3E103C&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&0&68
I/O Port 0x0000FD00-0x0000FD0F
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\pciide.sys (5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148), 3.25 KB (3,328 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Primary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&1C4A38AD&0&0
I/O Port 0x000001F0-0x000001F7
I/O Port 0x000003F6-0x000003F6
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Secondary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&1C4A38AD&0&1
I/O Port 0x00000170-0x00000177
I/O Port 0x00000376-0x00000376
IRQ Channel IRQ 15
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0266&SUBSYS_2A3E103C&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&0&70
I/O Port 0x000009F0-0x000009F7
I/O Port 0x00000BF0-0x00000BF3
I/O Port 0x00000970-0x00000977
I/O Port 0x00000B70-0x00000B73
I/O Port 0x0000F800-0x0000F80F
Memory Address 0xFE02D000-0xFE02DFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 21
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\pciide.sys (5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148), 3.25 KB (3,328 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Primary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&27C572D7&0&0
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Secondary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&27C572D7&0&1
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0267&SUBSYS_2A3E103C&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&0&78
I/O Port 0x000009E0-0x000009E7
I/O Port 0x00000BE0-0x00000BE3
I/O Port 0x00000960-0x00000967
I/O Port 0x00000B60-0x00000B63
I/O Port 0x0000F300-0x0000F30F
Memory Address 0xFE02C000-0xFE02CFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 22
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\pciide.sys (5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148), 3.25 KB (3,328 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Primary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&2EFB3712&0&0
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

Name Secondary IDE Channel
Manufacturer (Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers)
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&2EFB3712&0&1
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 93.13 KB (95,360 bytes), 8/9/2004 11:00 PM)

[Printing]

Name Driver Port Name Server Name

[Problem Devices]

Device PNP Device ID Error Code
Generic USB SD Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_SD_READER&REV_1.00\2004888&0 This device is disabled.
Generic USB CF Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_CF_READER&REV_1.01\2004888&1 This device is disabled.
Generic USB SM Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_SM_READER&REV_1.02\2004888&2 This device is disabled.
Generic USB MS Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_MS_READER&REV_1.03\2004888&3 This device is disabled.
Agere Systems PCI-SV92PP Soft Modem PCI\VEN_11C1&DEV_0620&SUBSYS_062011C1&REV_00\4&DC268A3&0&5080 This device is disabled.

[USB]

Device PNP Device ID
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026D&SUBSYS_2A3E103C&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&0&58
USB Root Hub USB\ROOT_HUB\4&159C4694&0
USB Human Interface Device USB\VID_045E&PID_0095\5&360AF04C&0&5
HID-compliant mouse HID\VID_045E&PID_0095&COL01\6&180F55EB&0&0000
HID-compliant consumer control device HID\VID_045E&PID_0095&COL02\6&180F55EB&0&0001
HID-compliant consumer control device HID\VID_045E&PID_0095&COL03\6&180F55EB&0&0002
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro USB USB\VID_046D&PID_C215\5&360AF04C&0&6
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (HID) HID\VID_046D&PID_C215\6&331D2E5A&0&0000
USB Mass Storage Device USB\VID_058F&PID_9360\2004888
Generic USB SD Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_SD_READER&REV_1.00\2004888&0
Generic USB CF Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_CF_READER&REV_1.01\2004888&1
Generic USB SM Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_SM_READER&REV_1.02\2004888&2
Generic USB MS Reader USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_USB_MS_READER&REV_1.03\2004888&3
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026E&SUBSYS_2A3E103C&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&0&59
USB Root Hub USB\ROOT_HUB20\4&2B0B8F07&0
USB Mass Storage Device USB\VID_059B&PID_0177\7700000000059865
WDC WD16 00BB-22GUA0 USB Device USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_WDC_WD16&PROD_00BB-22GUA0&REV_08.0\7700000000059865&0

[Software Environment]

I'm also calling tech support tommorow, not that I'm expecting anything...I received an email from tech support last night...and I sent them a DXDiag report, so maybe we will solve this. If not I would greatly appreciate the help!

Use CODE tags to post large reports. ~Stryker

Ok thanks Stryker I was wondering how to do this...
PS------I know that Media Center Edition is support because I found someone on the Vivendi games forums running the game on it.
Also, I found someone with the exact same issue as me here:
http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?messageID=343465񓶩
They have the same OS, sound card, BIOS, and many other things, as me

Though fear has many,many,many,many ridiculous bugs, I don't remember seeing this one. I assume you have it updated to 1.08?

My friend and I were discussing FEAR last night. And he told me that Fettle and the Main Character (MC) are brothers. Now, I told him I haven't played Extraction Point yet and he tells me that this information was given in the first FEAR from the phone call messages and stuff. Now, I listened to every message I could find and didn't get any info like that (from what I remember). Also, after the credits, when the lady is talking to the President, was the test subject Alma or the MC. My friend tells me that its the MC that was the test subject to being the perfect super soldier.

Looks like I need to replay FEAR.


PS. Ooops, I hadn't realized there was a bug issue being asked, I didn't mean to derail the issue.

Ok I browsed the VU Forums and found that a few people have had this problem. Two people managed to fix it doing this. Considering you already reformatted (though maybe installed this hotfix before trying FEAR?) this might not help. Worth a try.

I fixed this problem (immediate crash on every startup of the game) by removing MS's hotfix KB917422.

At firs the hotfix showed up in add/remove programs as un-removable, but once I uninstalled SP2, then the hotfix had a remove button.

Removed the hotfix, reinstalled and patched FEAR and can now start the game without a crash.

Other then that, I doubt it is your video card. The people experiencing this problem have all different kinds of video cards. My first suspect would actually be sound related. For some reason this game was programmed with crappy sound compatibility and over half the problems with FEAR are caused bu codecs, on board sound, or a sound card itself. So if you have reformatted that takes care of the codecs, next I would try actually removing your sound card and using on board sound to see if it helps. I say this because I have major performance issues (lockups etc) from an old sound card and upgrading fixed it. Other then trying the hotfix removal, sound card removal, updating to 1.08, and trying FEAR combat (fixed this problem for 1 person), I am out of answers. Good Luck!

P.S. This is a common troubleshooting route that VU suggests using - http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?messageID=400563񡲳

Seeing this issue, and seeing the hotfix-removal solution suddenly made me recall an issue I had too some time ago.

I don't remember what game it was(could be FEAR), but I know that removing a specific hotfix from windows update fixed the issue of immediatly crashing while starting up the game. Sorry for being so vague, but I really can't remember what game it was...Anyway, chances are that it'll start up like it's supposed to after removing that hotfix.

Oh and @ this:
My friend and I were discussing FEAR last night. And he told me that Fettle and the Main Character (MC) are brothers. Now, I told him I haven't played Extraction Point yet and he tells me that this information was given in the first FEAR from the phone call messages and stuff. Now, I listened to every message I could find and didn't get any info like that (from what I remember). Also, after the credits, when the lady is talking to the President, was the test subject Alma or the MC. My friend tells me that its the MC that was the test subject to being the perfect super soldier.

Looks like I need to replay FEAR.


PS. Ooops, I hadn't realized there was a bug issue being asked, I didn't mean to derail the issue.

Your friend was right: MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!!

You and Fettel are the children of Alma. Alma gave birth to you and Fettel when she was 8. It all shows near the ending, probably the last 3-4 levels or so..

Your friend was right: MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!!

You and Fettel are the children of Alma. Alma gave birth to you and Fettel when she was 8. It all shows near the ending, probably the last 3-4 levels or so..
Well, I do remember whne you finally reach Fettle and need to execute him, when he takes you to the pitch-black area and he is talking, I found it hard to concentrate with all of the ghosts comming after me. Those things piss me the hell off, especially in the Ground Zero mission.

I also heard that Extraction Point didn't fill in all the mysteries, but just made more. The story is so complex. Before I knew this, all I knew is that Alma was just killing everyone involved with the experiments on her.

Ok I'm going to try and remove the hotfix......man this is absurd: the game has been patched 8 times, and they still haven't fixed this, despite the number of people with the exact same issue? WOW! I have spoken with tech support about this, and they are stumped. BTW I have an onboard Realtek High Definition Audio, no added sound card.

Isn't KB917422 the update with the copy protection issues?

Google revealed some information and I remember reading somewhere that there was a update available from Microsoft that fixed those issues and though I can't find it right now i'm certain that I read about some problems with KB917422 and Microsoft releasing a updated version of it to fix those problems.

I've no idea what the update actually does aside from the information about added kernel protection to avoid people to take control over the computer using some exploit, but i'll try to find the patch for the update since it's probably needed for security reasons. :)

EDIT: (Thanks google :p)
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=33&threadid=1946776
(More information about the update)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=71E96AFC-BC4D-4666-998B-49857007E539&displaylang=en
(The update itself)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924867/
(Patch for above update)

EDIT2: Spelling and better post structure/formation, also added a link to the problematic update itself. :)

I don't see that update on my PC....I also have BF2142 and I have heard about this hotfix causing issues, hmmm....looking for it now.
LMAO nevermind I found it....downloading fixes now! Thanks for the help guys, tech support couldn't figure it out!


Ok, I installed the hotfix, and additionally some updates that aren't critical, such as a security update to .NET framework 2.0, as this is suggested on the Sierra forum.
The game will not launch: same response. I am giving up for now and playing Battlefield 2142, and I will reinstall tommorow: I have to work tommorow and can't troubleshoot all night. This is absolutely ludicrous, and I don't know how Vivendi games can get away with releasing such garbage. Their software conflicts with the OS that is operates upon? I mean come on, I thought that BF2142 was buggy, but FEAR was released in 2005, been patched 8 times, and still won't run on a large amount of people's PCs. Unless they make some groundbreaking game, I will never buy a game from Vivendi again.

Hi, in case your problem is not solved, I just wanted to add, that I ran it with no problems on an MCE machine. I had the AMD driver and optimizer installed and also the ms hotfix for dualcores.

Hi, in case your problem is not solved, I just wanted to add, that I ran it with no problems on an MCE machine. I had the AMD driver and optimizer installed and also the ms hotfix for dualcores.

Which MS Hotfix for dual-cores are you referring to? I have all of the applicable drivers/optimizers from AMD.com, but I wasn't aware of a MS hotfix for dual-cores.

binormalkilla, you've made several post in this thread now about your issues with Fear and members have kindly tried to help to their best of knowledge. Your going to have to do some basic research on your behalf before posting several questions. Your now lacking on this and have received a infraction.

The hotfix can normally only be found by contacting Microsoft but the english version can also be downloaded from amdzone.com:

I also found this link a while ago wich explains how to use the driver:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81429
(Easy to follow instructions, though I only use the dual core optimizer on the AMD machine and everything still works fine)

Ok I tried this hotfix also, no dice. At this point I'm just going to wait for tech support to find out the issue, as I've exhausted all of my resources (VU games forums, this forum, FEAR Tweakguide, etc.) Also, I did very extensive research before posting here, not really sure why I was chastised. :(
Thanks for the help guys! I will post the solution as soon as I discover it.

Sierra/Vivendi had a list of incompatible software that could cause trouble with the copy protection but I can't seem to access that website right now.

The protection is usually updated with every patch so try the latest patch if you haven't already.

http://www.sierra.com/en/home/games/game_info.tab-downloadtab.prod-L2NvbnRlbnQvc2llcnJhL2VuL3Byb2R1Y3RzL2ZfZV9hX3JfX3 JlZ3VsYXJfZWRpdGlvbg%3d%3d.platform-pc.html

You can also try to reset securom by deleting this value with regedit:
HKEY_Current_User/Software/Securom/
(Will be recreated when you launch any securom game)

That's all I can do, can't think of anything else right now, hope you manage to solve the issue somehow. :)

EDIT: Sierra has the longest link I've ever seen. :p
(Isn't there a URL command?, will have to experiment)

EDIT2: Sorry to hear that, copy protections are needed but it's true that they sometimes backfire due to the amount of protection they offer and it's quite annoying when that happens.
(Early starforce 3 and securom 7 had quite a few issues but the same can probably be said for most newer software)

Yea I updated to 1.08 when I installed the game first...tried running it after reinstalling windows before the update, but it didn't run. I really appreciate all of the help. Tech support couldn't solve the issue and they haven't even called me back, so I'm stuck with a $30 coaster for now :(
Ok my problem is solved. The issue was: my Microsoft Intellimouse. Under Device Manager>Human Interface Devices, my mouse was showing up twice. It is displayed there as:
HID Compliant Consumer Control Device
All I had to do was disable on of these, and the game worked. Really weird, but I can play now nonetheless. Hope this helps anyone having the same issue!

I'm running FEAR:XP with FEAR patched to 1.08. The FEAR Extraction Point configuration utility does not have the same widescreen resolution options that the FEAR configuration utility has. I'm trying to enable widescreen resolutions via the FEARXP settings.inf, yet whenever I start a game, it defaults back to 640x480. Can someone lend a hand?

Regards,

-Doc

Merged with pre-existing, stickied FEAR thread. I can see that you posted in this thread then deleted your post and started a new thread. Don't do that again. - spectre

Additional Comment:
Yes, I did do that after doing a search and verifying that there are other threads that are not part of the Alll-Things-Mashed-Together sticky threads.

I'm not really accustomed to how sticky threads are utilized here. Typically they are based on a specific, common issue and not a broad-spectrum topic composed of interweaving responses to varying issues. A single chat session with a group of people discussing multiple issues at the same time comes to mind: Frustrating to follow, time-consuming to parse non-contiguous responses, and easy for things to be missed.

A sub-forum for a game where topics and questions can be posted as individual threads is a solution with more organization and ease of use built in. In a single, coherent thread you have a Problem Statement, Suggested Fixes, and a Final Resolution. (How Do I Do This? , Try This, That Fixed It) It's a complete bug report in one thread, it's easy to find with a title search, and the answer to the issue in question is quickly found. The sub-forum becomes an organized database of individually labeled* and sorted solutions. (*Mods can make sure titles are clear and to the point.)

Did my question belong on it's own in the general PC Games forum? Not really, but again, I did verify that the precedent had already been set. I was not trying to be a rogue, and my reply here is meant only as a constructive observation based on a decade of bug tracking at a sizable software company.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately even dedicated subforums for games will result in people posting the same question/issue over and over in a new thread to get attention. The precedent is fairly clear, and spelled out in the forum rules - where a thread exists on a particular topic (game, app, etc.) then the question should be posted in that thread. We can't have threads for each issue, as every person insists their issue is "unique". Mods do not have the time to manually sort posts and threads into specific topics as a sort of a tech support/ticketing system - that is not the purpose of these forums.

Of course the most important part of all of this is: How do I get Extraction Point to play in widescreen? :-)

Best regards,

-Doc

Hi, I've searched everywhere but I can't seem to find a solution. Anyway, while playing EP, I noticed some windows have some kind white smear effect, and this effect happened during one the Alma hallucinations, where everything had an afterimage or a trail of images (like when you set the pointer to have a trail). This happened only on certain windows that you can't break and I've pretty much tried everything, using different drivers and such. Now I can't use the newest drivers because they make my computer freeze while playing videos (using Geforce 6200). Anyway, I'd liked to hear anybody who can present a solution.

P.S. If you must need my computer info, you can search for HP Pavilion a1240n, only the graphics card is not Intel, its the BFG Geforce 6200 Overclocked. DirectX info can be made available upon request. Sorry, but I didn't take any screenshots. Graphic drivers are version 84.26 and FEAR is patched to 1.07 US and EP has no patch though it can certainly use one.

This is me right now: :confused:

hey guys just wanted to know is 1280x768 a 16:10 widescreen resolution?

You can answer this yourself using some maths or a basic search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1280x768+16%3A10&btnG=Google+Search), or by looking at the Resolution (http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_6.html) chapter of the Graphics Guide

After installing the XP expansion pack, Both FEAR and FEAR-XP sound settings show all 3 Sound HW related settings as disabled (HW Mixing, EAX 2.0, and EAX Advanced HD).

It used to work just fine before installing 1.07 update + XP.

I installed the latest SB drivers from creative, and still no go. This is the only game in which I get this side effect.

Any idea what causes this or how to resolve?

Thanks,
-Birsch

Well, a small Google search on 'FEAR EAX disabled' didn't give me any links to a solution. Perhaps some further research on official tech support sites etc. would help. Do you have the 1.08 patch installed? I don't know whether or not that patch would fix such issues as my onboard sound chip won't let me use EAX in F.E.A.R. (it only supports EAX 1.0 and 2.0). You could try a reinstall and then a full patch to bring it up to 1.08 again. Make sure to delete any directories related to F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point, and clean your registry too, with an app like RegCleaner or RegSupreme. See if that helps,

Whizzer

Edit:
Try this one: http://220.226.203.21/Vivendi_Current/(tl5taeeefbazhwuaubi5yq45)/Pages/ViewFAQ.aspx?FAQID=1967

Thanks Whizzer. Haven't updated to 1.08 yet, but I didn't notice anything relevant in the changes list (mostly SDK support). I've Googled enough to know that this was also happening with some Creative X-Fi cards (where a "Game Mode" in the audio console could kick things back into place) but nothing relevant for Audigy 2 ZS.

The game seems to work fine without HW mixing, so it's more of an annoyance than anything else :)

I'm currently playing the Extraction Point expansion. However, I'm getting extremely annoyed with momentary hitching that I experience every minute or so, especially when I go around corners. I Alt-Tabbed out and saw that my page file usage was almost 1.3GB! I'm wondering if the hitching is being caused by the game loading textures from my hard drive all the time even though I have plenty of RAM. I play it at 1600x1200, 16xAF, 2xAA, and the in-game performance testing gives me an average of ~64FPS with a minimum of ~35. So I don't think that my settings are having an impact.

Any input would be truly appreciated. :)

The momentary hitching is most likely due to texture/RAM usage yes. Just because you get 65FPS doesn't mean your settings can't be optimized to reduce hitching.

Since your system is already quite powerful, the solution lies in running through the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion, especially the Memory Optimization, Drive Optimization chapters, as well as the Startup Programs and Services Chapters.

Obviously you should also go through the FEAR tweak guide as well, especially checking the 'Force Restart' option on page 5 of the guide.

Oh, believe me, I've been using your guide since you first put it out. I have absolutely squat running in the background and I've used Black Viper's process guide to keep those at an absolute minimum.

I think I discovered the problem though. I was tinkering with my overclock and loosened up the timings on my RAM. I have the G.Skill HV series, which is rated to run at 3-3-2-8 at 250Mhz. I changed them to 3-4-3-8 and the hitching is almost completely eliminated. I'm kind of ticked that I have to loosen them up a bit but the benefit is definitely worth it.

Good to hear, and as always with any game, my advice has been that if you have a problem, always suspect your overclock first.

The hitching is a problem with FEAR itself and for some people always tends to happen. I have a e6600, 2gigs of ddr2-1000 ram, a raptor 150gb hdd, and a x-fi sound card, yet sometimes I will still get the hitching. I am
"pro" and play with many other "pros" who know what they are doing (not to mention all pros tend to play on minimum everything) and we still will get hitching. The solution for those of us with 2gig, fast systems who are experiencing hitching still seems to lie with bad dual core optimization. After dedicating only 1 core to FEAR, it takes care of it. Give it a try and keep in mind that not having a a powerful sound card is actually worse for hitching in FEAR then having only a gig of ram. If that is the case (like when I had my old rig with on-board sound) the only fix was to open dxdiag and turn off all sound acceleration so my comp would just drop extra sounds when it got overloaded. Hope you get it working.

The solution for those of us with 2gig, fast systems who are experiencing hitching still seems to lie with bad dual core optimization. After dedicating only 1 core to FEAR, it takes care of it.

He doesn't have a dual core system so "bad" dual core optimization doesn't affect his hitching, the problem is most likely his system processes information faster then it can be read off the hard drive causing his system to pause and wait for new information.

He doesn't have a dual core system so "bad" dual core optimization doesn't affect his hitching, the problem is most likely his system processes information faster then it can be read off the hard drive causing his system to pause and wait for new information.

Actually my Opty 175 is dual-core. It's stock rating is 2.2 Ghz with 1MB L2 cache. I have it easily overclocked to 2.75 Ghz but I usually just run it at 2.7 because the extra 50 Mhz really doesn't make a difference in my games and demands an extra .0250v to get there.

I loosened up the timings on my RAM slightly and enabled the Force Restart feature and all seems to be well.

Additional Comment:
The hitching is a problem with FEAR itself and for some people always tends to happen. I have a e6600, 2gigs of ddr2-1000 ram, a raptor 150gb hdd, and a x-fi sound card, yet sometimes I will still get the hitching. I am
"pro" and play with many other "pros" who know what they are doing (not to mention all pros tend to play on minimum everything) and we still will get hitching. The solution for those of us with 2gig, fast systems who are experiencing hitching still seems to lie with bad dual core optimization. After dedicating only 1 core to FEAR, it takes care of it. Give it a try and keep in mind that not having a a powerful sound card is actually worse for hitching in FEAR then having only a gig of ram. If that is the case (like when I had my old rig with on-board sound) the only fix was to open dxdiag and turn off all sound acceleration so my comp would just drop extra sounds when it got overloaded. Hope you get it working.

I've had zero problems with the sound and my X-Fi Xtreme Music is a great card. I've loosened my RAM timings a bit and enabled Force Restart. So far, so good. :)

I'm playing it now, as I posted elsewhere I'm having a problem in a particular spot; I think it's a bug in the game code, or it could be my computor. Seems pretty fun though, kind of more of the same.
Blainehof

Well I did some snooping around and found out that F.E.A.R. MP (the .exe file that was created as of the 1.07 patch) does not use the Disc Check. Wise move, considering it's pretty much free anyways. Course I'm willing to bet that if you went to Single Player mode via the Menu Screen it'll ask for the disc. Minor news, but I thought I should share it never the less, espcially considering it wasn't noted on the Tweak Guide nor this forum. (but was noted with CoD2's multiplayer mode)

You're right, I should mention this in the guide - I've updated Page 4 to mention this aspect, thanks.

Now i can't seem to find any servers. Says Error

I can't even start up my own game, says somethings wrong with the CD KEY.

CheechWizard

I am having the same issue. I am able to play FEAR as well as the expansion pack. I have updated to v1.08. This is the only forum that I have found that someone else has or had this issue. I have read and applied the TweakGuides -TweakingCompanion 3.3:thumbup: , and the FEAR TweakGuide:thumbup: . I just can't figure out why this occurs. Any suggestions?

Hi everybody. I need help.

I have a problem with online play and nobody knows what is the problem.

In Multilayer every time I click FIND SERVERS it says ERROR. The thing is that everything worked fine for couple days, and now it doesn't.


Can any one help me locate problem and tell me how to fix it???

We would need your system specs, including what OS you are running to even start identifying your problem. Did you install anything recently after which you got the problem? Anti-Virus? Firewall? Updates? Patches?

Thanks for the reply.

I have Pentium 4, windows XP.

I have peerguardian, virus-scan, and firewall.
Virus-scan dosen't block anything, and I turned off the firewall.

You see, I could connect on line before, but...



Oh ****, I just checked and it works. turns out the peerguardian was blocking everything.
Thank you very much for you help, I wouldn't of noticed it otherwise.

Well in the email i got they said i would have to uninstall the game manually by going into the registry editor. This is what the email said:

"WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use.

1)Click on "Start" and click on "Run" type "regedit".
2)Click on [+] Sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and locate Software and click on [+] Sign next to it.
3)Now locate "[+] Sign" Microsoft and click on it and try to locate Sierra games and click on [+] Sign next to it and delete the folder named F.E.A.R. Combat.
4)Now press Alt and F key together and press "X" key.

Before you reinstall the game I would recommend that you create a new user profile in Windows with administrator rights."

Unfortunately i could not do this because my computer is severly messed up, i do not have a run command in start up and also the shutdown is missing and cant access task manager either and apparently most commands i try say "disabled by your administrator", which is me and that just makes things more confusing. I've tried things like going to Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, and finding regedit.exe but none of those helped.:confused:




I'd like to just say that i have this same problem ... I have an error when trying to install fear combat that says;
String ERROR_WRONGVERSION was not found in string table

so i cant un-install, re-install, update, nothing. I've followed the steps outlined by hus_lan, and unlike him, my pc is not completley royally toast. so i can say with great certanty that this did not fix the problem. I also have used a registry cleaner and that did not work. also i have gone in and manually deleted the registry file and that also did not work. I've done numerous searches in numerous search engines looking for something of any use. each and every search i do brings me to this very thred so i joined because it seems that i will either get an answere or at least be able to voice my frusteration. the folks at sierra are useless because they don't or cant look at your e'mail with specific concern, but instead lump it in a general category and respond with a sort of form letter. their response to my problem led me to believe both times that they hadn't even read my e'mail.

please please if anyone can help with this it would save me from having to reformat my pc. a sickening thought at this point.

Regcleaner. That should remove all invalid registry files. If not, you may have to do a reformat to be honest.

Yes do a regcleane but also try this tool Windows Installer Clean Up and remove everything that it has
relation to FEAR Combat. Heres the Microsoft article about the windows installer cleanup http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301. Hope it helps

http://pc.ign.com/articles/810/810893p1.html

IGN preview of the upcomming F.E.A.R sequel.
(Seems this franchise is growing, first F.E.A.R then Extraction Point and now Perseus Mandate and Fear Files this winter and after that it's this soon-to-be-named sequel.)

EDIT: Extra links to the two other F.E.A.R titles I mentioned. :)

F.E.A.R Files:
IGN page - http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/949/949607.html
GameTrailers link - http://www.gametrailers.com/game/5195.html

Perseus Mandate:
IGN page - http://pc.ign.com/objects/949/949606.html
GameTrailers link - http://www.gametrailers.com/game/5190.html

EDIT: New trailers available via the gametrailers link above. :)

"F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate is an all-new stand-alone expansion pack for Windows PC which offers the ability to jump-in and experience the fright with a brand new team in an all-new experience that presents a different perspective of the events that occur at Armacham. The campaign reveals a parallel story allowing players to take the role of a different F.E.A.R. soldier and battle new enemies that the original team never saw coming." -GamersHell

http://www.gamershell.com/download_21382.shtml

Nice one, found this thread as I searched before posting almost exactly the same thing :) Downloading off Fileplanet now.

More of the same of FEAR. Liked the new weapons. I really wish they would update the graphics.

F.E.A.R files got 6.7 from IGN (which has been loading VERY slowly)

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/832/832968p2.html

6.5 Presentation
The pacing, story and scare tactics aren't used with the same efficency of the original.
6.0 Graphics
Disappointing on all fronts.
8.0 Sound
Still a high point in the series.
7.5 Gameplay
The F.E.A.R. gameplay is still fun, but the essence of the original feels lost.
6.5 Lasting Appeal
There's a lot on the disc, but you'll quickly realize it isn't worth spending much time with.
6.7 Overall

I feel its justified, Vivendi are obviously just milking the original

also,would it be possible if we can have all the F.E.A.R games in one thread, I noticed that Perseus Mandate has its own thread and to avoid confusion for future F.E.A.R expansion/sequel discussion
http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?t=6881&highlight=f.e.a.r

also,would it be possible if we can have all the F.E.A.R games in one thread,

Good idea. :) Merged.

So I just played the PM XP demo. Contains everything I love about FEAR and XP1, with a couple new enemies and weapons thrown in. Ya the gfx/physics are a bit dated. In fact they are exactly like FEAR and XP1 *surprise surprise*. I won't be buying this for full price as I agree with Beach, this is just a milking of the franchise. But I will probably pick it up when the price comes down 50% or more.

Bring on Project Origin I say!

I can't tell you why, but I have an urge to write game reviews. I don't know how long said urge will last, but I'd like to get good at it. At least, I'd like to get better at it than I am now.

I wanted to run it by you guys for some constructive feedback, but I first wanted to make sure that the act of posting a something so opinionated and of such length would not be annoying. I also need to review the forum rules to ensure that I do not run afoul of them.

Let me know what you think.

You can post a mini-review here, or if it's quite long, it's best to post it on your own site and then link to it. If you have a question about forum rules, please contact the moderators for more information.

It's not really that long. I'm not a master writer, but I have mastered the art of getting to the point. Apart from that, I just wanted to make sure that my choice of words won't be frowned-upon. ;)

As long as you use mature language and are not abusive about anything/anyone in the review, there shouldn't be any problems.

There is a Zero Punctuation review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2675-Zero-Punctuation-F-E-A-R-Perseus-Mandate) of Perseus Mandate. TBH, it reinforces my decision not to get Extraction Point or Perseus Mandate despite enjoying the original.

There is a Zero Punctuation review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2675-Zero-Punctuation-F-E-A-R-Perseus-Mandate) of Perseus Mandate. TBH, it reinforces my decision not to get Extraction Point or Perseus Mandate despite enjoying the original.

I wish that he would review Crysis or CoD4 or something more "popular"

I agree with his review, even the previews screamed the dull repetative gameplay..

Vivendi tried to pull a EA and failed