Gk 3

[Sar]

I just picked up Gabriel Knight 3 and the disk appear to be in mint condition. But the thing won't run in XP. Just finished GK2 and it ran without any issues. Good old compatibility does nothing for it. Dosbox says it isn't a dos game, no can run. The error message GK3 gives when trying to execute the game reveals nothing, gives no detail, just says error encountered. When that happens the game request I place the disk in the pc. Well it's already there and reloading does nothing. I tried reinstalling while off line with the firewall and anti-virus turned off with the same result. Could it be that because I told it not to install Directx 6 during installation that it is having the problem? I have directx 9 installed. I know how much MS hates dealing with older versions of software and thought trying to install DX 6 when 9 was onboard it would create more problems.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[Sotaria]

That was a pain to get running in XP but I did get it running. There are several possible problems you could be encountering, but you will have to be very specific about when the game crashes, what the message says, if anything, etc.

One thing to try is turn OFF compatibility mode. I know it is strange, but the game WILL NOT run with compatibility mode on. It will only run natively on XP. You may also want to search through the forum here for other problems people have had on XP, but that fixed it for me.

[Tyrant]

I just picked up Gabriel Knight 3 and the disk appear to be in mint condition. But the thing won't run in XP. Just finished GK2 and it ran without any issues. Good old compatibility does nothing for it. Dosbox says it isn't a dos game, no can run. The error message GK3 gives when trying to execute the game reveals nothing, gives no detail, just says error encountered. When that happens the game request I place the disk in the pc. Well it's already there and reloading does nothing. I tried reinstalling while off line with the firewall and anti-virus turned off with the same result. Could it be that because I told it not to install Directx 6 during installation that it is having the problem? I have directx 9 installed. I know how much MS hates dealing with older versions of software and thought trying to install DX 6 when 9 was onboard it would create more problems.

Any ideas? Thanks.

GK3, as I mentioned before, runs fine in XP. I don't know what the problem is for you - I have Home Edition with service pack 2 - same as you probably.

Many Win95/98 games of the mid to late-nineties era need the compatability mode of their executable set accordingly (for example, Wing Commander: Prophecy and Secret Ops need to be set to Win95 or Win98).

However, this is not the case with GK3 - it runs perfectly without setting a compatability mode. The game WILL lock up however IF the compatability mode is changed to Win95 or Win 98 - it will launch but display a screen that cannot be bypassed asking you to insert CD1 (now isn't that strange?).

GK1 and GK2 on the other hand are much harder to get running. Instead of giving you a whole list of steps and programs to use, just visit this site: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/gkpatches/
This dude has tinkered to get these game working in XP - no need to use DosBox or VDMSound or whatever.

[Sar]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Tyrant

Oddly without using compatibility GK2 ran without issues, go figure. So I did not need the Vorgon program. Played the whole game without incident.

As for GK3, I have XP-pro with sp2 and when trying compatibility I got the screen asking for Disk 1. Same as you said.

Shutting off compatibility I got the fatal exception error but no info as to what the error was.

Sotaria

There is no message when the error pops up. Just a box that says Fatal Exception Error. There is a log file in the game folder on the hard drive. But the log file does not record any messages just repeats Fatal Error Exception and the time it occurred but again no detail.

I went to the Sierra GK forums and found many people had the same issues. The suggestions were to copy from disk two the .brn data files and paste them over the .brn files installed by the game on the HD. It seems many of the disk 1 cds had a corrupted day1.brn file and a day123.brn file. Interesting enough disk 2 and 3 did not have a day1.brn file to copy. But I did copy the 123 file and paste that. It did not help.

Another suggestion was to rename a windows system32 file
c\windows\system32\mpeg2dmx.ax The suggestion was changing the extension from .ax to .old. Of course the warning was added to remember to change it back once you finished playing. Well I tried that and the game loaded up. What do you know. Trouble is the graphics were rather muddy. When Gabriel walked across the screen things behind him blacked out. And things had a general dark appearance. I think what this is telling me the issue is with that mpeg2 file and how the game interprets it. But since there have been no issues with anything else the 18 months I owned this pc I am not inclined to mess with it.

Changing that file almost solved the problem but caused some graphics issues. For one thing the opening scene started when Gabriel was getting off the train. I know there was considerable stuff to be seen before that.

Again thanks for the replies any ideas are welcome.

[Sotaria]

Well, after giving advice on how to get this running, I now need help. I don't understand. I decided to play this game, which I had never finished before, and it started up fine and I played for a little while. I then quit, watched some TV, and then came back to play some more but now I get a BLACK SCREEN with the mouse cursor clearly visible, but nothing else.

When I check (CTRL-ALT-DLT) it says GK3 is "not responding" and I have to shut it down that way. I rebooted, and the same problem reoccurs. What on earth happened? There is nothing new or different on my computer and I did nothing between plays, but now it no longer works! Please help.