Advice for stable running of OPT in Vista / Win7?

[Seppel]

OPT seems to give people who run OPT in Vista or Win7 an error message 19 out of 20 times.

The other 1 time, it loads properly.

This seems to happen even when using XP Compatibility mode.

Any advice on how to make OPT more stable for Vista and Win7 users?

[Huggybaby]

What is the message?

[Jorbes]

First time I hear about this and I know Vista users have been trying OPT for a long time, but I could investigate as soon as I have a system running Windows 7 (not going to bother with Vista, because that OS won't be around for much longer)

[Strainer]

Have been running OPT succesfully on Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64. Never once had an error message.

[Basque]

Salutations! ^^ I'm one of the people who have been having some problems with OPT.

My computer is running Vista Home Premium Service Package 1. Most of the time can run OPT okay, but every time after I exit the program I get an error from Program Compatibility Assistant "This program requires a missing Windows component. This program requires D3DRM.dll, which is no longer included in this version of Windows." However, this error message doesn't seem to affect the functionality of the program at all.

Of more concern is on occasion the program will crash, the window goes black and an error saying something along the lines of "Access Violation at address 34554f" appears. Unfortunately at this time I'm unable to provide an exact copy of the error message. For some reason, possibly the title of the error message I'm unable to recall at the time, I believe it's a graphics issue. I'm using an HP Pavilion dv6 laptop and whenever I run Steam it doesn't recognize my graphics card but it still runs.

I apologize for bothering you gentlemen with this issue. This is only somewhat frequently an error on my system but some other friends are completely unable to run the program, encountering the aforementioned "Access Violation" error every time they try to run OPT. If anyone provides any kind of assistance I'd really greatly appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

[kristijanH]

I had the same problem once (and only once). I'm using two computers both with Windows 7.

[Jorbes]

I will fix the D3DRM issue in the next release.
The fault lies within DirectX. Now didn't I say we had switched to OpenGL by default? Yes, I did. However, that was for the graphics engine, the sound engine is still DirectSound
Unfortunately, to compile the project, the "crap" for the directx graphics will join the build, so I am just going to look for a better sound engine, any ideas or tips are welcome.

Once I get rid of the DirectX completely, the Vista compatibility issues will be reduced to mostly my own code, let's hope I am doing an OK job there.

[Huggybaby]

The other sound engine I know of is OpenAL:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/default.aspx
I think of it as OpenGL for audio.

I don't know how easy it is to implement but the installer is small and fast and it works fine.

I first became aware of it through Freespace Open but plenty of games use it:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... Games.aspx

[Jorbes]

The other sound engine I know of is OpenAL:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/default.aspx
I think of it as OpenGL for audio.

I don't know how easy it is to implement but the installer is small and fast and it works fine.

I first became aware of it through Freespace Open but plenty of games use it:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... Games.aspx

Thanks, but for now I've changed it to use the sndPlaySound API function of windows, I'm sure Vista still has it.
The OpenAL might be interesting for mp3/ogg playback, but I just don't have the time to look into it right now.

[Tegome]

I'm running Windows 7 x86 on an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600, 2GB RAM, more than enough HDD space. Two monitors on an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card, which might be causing this trouble...

The game loads fine and shuts down fine, with the exception of the known compatibility error. Whenever I Minimize the game for the first time, though, I'm given the error "Access violation at address 635A60FB. Read of address 635A60FB." exactly four times. I'm given the same error, except at address 6D6560FB any time I Restore the window, and address 6D5060FB whenever I Maximize or Resize the window. Moving the window doesn't generate an error message, and neither does Minimizing the window after having Minimized it once already.

Hope that helps squash something. =D