PC Gaming Hell
Okay I've got a story of torment, anguish, and suffering I'd like to share with you all today. I enjoy writting so I posted it for those that enjoy reading. Sorry so long, but it's been a very emotional thing for me.
Oh yeah, this is why I drifted away from PC games.
Farcry has five install disks. I could feel my heart rate climb a little. FIVE DISKS. I had called EB back begging to hear them tell me there was a DVD version I could buy, but no.
The baby was eating in his high chair next to me, Jackie was off at the store, now was a good time to install.
The first thing the install asked is whether or not I wanted the latest version of windows graphics drivers (Direct X). I said sure, why not? During it's little install, a window popped up stating that this program wasn't certified with Microsoft, which was funny, because it was from Microsoft. So I ignored it.
Later when the window popped up asking for Disk 3, I ran into the instruction book for the game in the center of the large plastic jewel case they give you to hold all those disks, which slowed me down I guess. Without opening it I set it aside and searched for the third disk, I must have taken too long because an error popped up above the 'please insert' window stating that "the incorrect volume is in drive F: Please insert the correct disc".
Incorrect volume? I knew what it meant but couldn't help but think "Well turn it up or down!" I put in disk three and pressed the retry button.
"Bink!" said my computer.
Like someone hoping an elevator will somehow get down faster if you keep hitting the button, I pressed it probably eight more times and got a BINK with every press.
Great.
I could still see the "Please insert disk 3" window behind the error, so I figured what the heck and pressed IT'S okay button.
The installation continued with the error window out in front. I stood up and starting cleaning up the baby. Enough time had gone by that he had finished eating and was now looking at me with curiosity.
I set him down and he starting playing with his toys.
I turned toward the kitchen and my computer suddenly starting BINKING.
BINK BINK BINK
You see I call him "the baby", but he's actually the "little hacker in training" equipped with eyes in the back of his head to see when your not looking. This 2 yr old literally closes, drag and drops, mins, maxes, and moves around a computer like you wouldn't believe.
"NO! NO! NO!" I shouted and pulled him away from hitting YES on the "cancel everything?" window he had brought up.
Whew! I managed to get the rest of the disks in there one at a time.
After the installation, it asked me if I'd like to install a special INSTANT MESSAGER FOR GAMERS. I said no, and made a mental note to ONCE AGAIN swept through my system looking for spyware and other fun things corporations enjoy installing on my machine.
Okay. Now all we have left is the error window complaining about the volume.
I'll just reboot - BINK! , it won't reboot
Logout - BINK!
Shutdown - BINK!
Cancel in task manager - BINK!
Between each bink were long pauses where the computer would consider what I was asking for. Should it do it? Should it reboot?
After many tries it finally decided to do it, and now the game is installed, right?
Wrong.
Next up I have to update my Graphics card drivers. Thought we already did that? No, that was windows drivers, these are NVIDIA's.
After downloading and installing that, it wanted to reboot. Okay.
It comes up with the wallpaper, but no icons and no task bar at the bottom. All I can do is bring up the task manager. So now I'm basically locked out of my machine.
SUPER.
Once I figured out that XP was trying to send an "authentication packet" to the internet and that my fire wall wasn't happy about that, the problem was fixed. Okay, we're done installing the game now, right?
Wrong.
Now I have to download the patch for the game. I find where I'm suppose to do this and start clicking down the list of download sites to get the file.
Are you a member? no, try another site
Wait in line for the file? no, try another site
Download a program to do the download for you? no, try another site
Server's Full try again in 10 minutes? no, try another site
Finally I find a site that will just GIVE ME THE FILE and install the patch. Okay, ready to play, right?
Wrong.
An hour has gone by, and I've got other things to do, so I'm going to have to check the game out later. My nerves are rattled and I feel like I've been working for the past hour. Gosh, I forgot how fun PC gaming can be.
The next evening I find a little time to sit down and play the game. Time for the fun, Right?
Wrong a-gain.
To my shock and dismay, well, maybe not to my shock, but dismay, Farcry informs me that my computer is not so hot anymore. The last two games I'd played on the machine (Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty), I could have the graphics settings all the way up and it ran beautifully. Not so with Farcry.
So I'm messing with the settings. Messing messing messing. Trying to tune the game to my machine.
At best, I can play it on MEDIUM graphics settings, and it will probably slow down when the action is greatest. I look up to the heavens and cried. I guess you could say it was a Farcry.
Now I know why they named it that.
That is classic
Thanks for posting. I laughed really hard 
Install routines are on eof the areas where PC games have just never ''got it''. Why, oh why is it so screwy?
Xbox Live: hubbinsd
How long do you think it''ll be before someone tries a console style game cd where it dosn''t try to install anything. You just put in the cd, it autodetects everything and lets you play. Maybe, maybe uses a bit of hard-drive space for saved games.
Something like knoppixs for gamers.
http://www.knoppix.org/
Anyone else think it''s time for the industry to standardize on DVD media? I mean it''s only $55 CDN right now for a basic DVD-ROM drive.
Codexica - GWJ Alliance
Well, there''s a simple solution for this: move to Europe since Farcry (or Deus Ex 2 and soon Thief III) are available on DVD over here.
Gentoo games used to do this with UT2003 and Americas Army. You put in the CD, it boots Gentoo and detects all your hardware then it plays the game. Very quick bootup. However the site seems to be gone. I was sorta hoping for a version for UT2004.
"If I was Obama I'd have made a joke about that. Then again, if I was Obama I'd have f*cked up my own campaign long ago by making c*ck jokes." - 1Dgaf
"Poor Achmed, only three days away from retirement ... from Jihad." - Mike Nelson
Hehehe - great story, Ridlin! Installation is still a giant PITA for both gamers and developers. Those who remember the Bad Old Days of computer gaming, however (Voodoo memory manager, anyone?), know that it''s vastly improved from where it was.
That''s actually one of my favorite things about consoles - just put the disc in and it *works*. No new drivers required. No ""Oh no, this won''t run on my hardware!"". No sitting there for 30 minutes switching out discs. It. Just. Works. Amazing.
Everything can be debated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's debatable.
--Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City
Wow, Ridlin, that story sounds exactly like what I went through last night. Certis, Gaald, Elysium and I decided to play a little Pandora Tomorrow. We had all played before and had already spent the requisite 2 hours foodling about until we all actually showed up in the same game. We figured this time we''d be able to jump right in.
Well, Ubi came out with a patch for the game so we dutifully downloaded and installed. When Gaald went to start, the game told him it wouldn''t run because he had emulation software installed. We checked the forums and lots of people were getting this message. You didn''t even have to have any disk image software installed to get the message. So Gaald wasn''t going to be able to play.
Since we couldn''t uninstall the patch, we decided to uninstall the game and reinstall. This is a 3CD game and my reinstall was just as painful as Ridlin''s story. The first CD installed. The second CD installed and, instead of asking for the third CD, it asked me for the first CD. I put the first CD in and it wouldn''t recognize it. bink - Try Again - bink - Try Again - bink - Try Again - Fatal Error: Install End.
Super. It didn''t make it into my Add/Remove Programs list yet so I rebooted and started the install again. This time after Disc 1 it asked me for Disc 2, but wouldn''t recognize it. bink - Try Again - bink - Try Again - bink - Try...Oh, wait...at some point during all the disc swapping I put the poorly labeled discs back in the case in the wrong order. I was giving it Disc 3. Found Disc 2 and put that in. It finishes Disc 2 and I give it Disc 3. It finishes Disc 3 and it asks for Disc 1. Cool, that''s a good sign. I give it Disc 1 and it finishes the install. Is Disc 1 the Play Disc? No, of course not. Once you try and play, you need to put Disc 3 back in. Duh.
Oh, and in the most brilliant bit of packaging, the CD Key is printed on the inside of the CD case liner and barely visible through the transparent CD case. Duh.
I went through a few of those, ""Why do I do this to myself?"" moments during that. Oh yeah, and Elysium''s reinstall prevented him from even starting up the game until he scoured the forums for a fix. Essentially the only advantage the PC version has over the Xbox version, for me, is a higher resolution. So for a few prettier textures I sacrifice hours of troubleshooting.
UT2K4, on the other hand, installed and ran beautifully off of the DVD.
"If you're not a stinky-stink, you're not addicted to anything!" - Reaper
I''m such a geek sometimes. I read this about six times, trying to figure what file terminators (EOF == end of file) had to do with game installs...
MechaSlinky wrote:
-on L4DDon''t feel bad - I was wondering the same thing.
Everything can be debated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's debatable.
--Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City
Wait a second - didn''t UbiSoft just go through this with another game, insisting that it wasn''t their fault (blaming their copy protection supplier instead)? One time''s forgivable - mistakes happen. The second time? Not so much a mistake as a ""deliberate decision""...
Everything can be debated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's debatable.
--Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City
I have to admit it is a little better than the old days. I used to keep a different config.sys for every game I had. And setting the damn soundblaster settings wrong could lock you out or cause funny things to happen.
They need to go with some more standards. DVD!!! I''m jealous of Spunior now.
Go easy on the devs, guys - Installshield and its bretheren are buggy and arcane at best. I''ve written several Installshield setups, and it is not fun. MS is releasing Windows Installer v3 with XPSP2 though, so there is some hope on the horizon.
I never minded piracy. Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn't going to buy it anyway! -Warren Spector
sh*t I just speant 5 minutes trying to figure that out.
SteamId = RevenantKel
I''m so used to seeing typo''s from my friends and little sister on AIM and such that it didn''t phase me one bit... hehe, must be that I''m a youngin too! ^_^
"Just remember that sometimes you need to allow problems to just roll like water off of a duckilama's back." ~Reaper
Why is this the case? Do more Europeans own DVD drives than Americans do?
Give us a DVD option stupid publishers!
Credulous at best, your desire to believe in angels in the hearts of men.
I was still scratching my head trying to figure out what end of file had to do with what he was saying, until I read Chumpy''s post. Boy, we are some geeks aren''t we
Tobyus
Still searching for the perfect game...
Last edited by Tobyus on Sep 14, 2006 - 02:06 PM; edited 1,000,000 times in total
I get that wrong volume error sometimes when installing. I find that if I actually remember to turn off norton before I start the install that virtually never happens though.
Must be joking, most of us are still using 7inch disks x600 .
Nah we are just guinea pigs to see if the take up is sufficient to allow a gradual shift to DVDs. If you''re going to test it, you may as well only risk irritating your least favoured customer. Us.
Still working well so far, here''s to a digitally versitile future!
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Churchill
Yes, appears to be the case.
DVD software sales to US software industry: ""You first!""
US Software industry to DVD sales: ""No, you first!""
There ought to be tons of DVD drives out there. The Dell/Gateway/Compaq companies have been putting them in instead of a base CDROM for over a year. Granted those aren''t the typical gaming rig suppliers, but gamers who build their own systems tend to be pretty responsive to new technologies.
My own suspicion is that some bean-counter has convinced a fair chunk of the industry that it is somehow financially risky or overly expensive to produce games on DVD.
Whoa, being a software developer (not a game developer, but sometimes I wish I were), I do not in any way blame the developers of the game for what happen. It was install shield, and it was just the simple fact that throwing in 5 disks in a row is just more prone to something going wrong.
I had Norton off,
but you know what? I didn''t turn off Xp''s autodetect. That may have started the rukus.
The game kicks major arise, by the way, even on medium graphics settings.
Why do I admire videogames so much?
There's nothing else on earth that entwines art and science so closely.
Sorry if I missed it but is there already a console version out, or will there even be one?
Quintin_Stone wrote:
lunabean wrote:I won''t buy any Ubi game until the publicly state they will stop hassling people with their spy ware and trying to peak around a private citizens computer and force them to muck with things that are working just fine and serve perfectly legal purposes, it''s none of their business what you have on your computer, none, zero zip. I don''t even own any emulation software but this is line in the sand kind of thing for me. f*ckers. Sombombody seroulsy needs to sue them over this, it''s just plain wrong on every conceivable level. You right whatever you like in your EUL but as so many softeare companies have found out that dosn''t mean it will stand up. I don''t even care if they don''t put it on every game, I want them to publicly admit to being peeping smucks and swear never again, I want my pound of Ubi flesh over this issue.
-Griffon
Did Samurai Jack ever get back to the past?
I''ve heard, actually read, blurbs that an Xbox version is coming.
End of line
I really haven''t had any problems with PC installs in some time. The last game/software I had a problems with was a conflict between Battlefield: 1942 and my video driver that caused bluescreen errors. An updated driver fixed the problem.
I''m not much of a sampler when it comes to games. I usually only buy the games that really interest me, so I probably have fewer chances for mishap.
Actually for DE2IW, Farcry, BFV and UT2K4 here in the UK I''ve yet to see a PC ROM version of any of theses games.
Which is good for me!
MUST...STOP ...PLAYING ....SWG! MUST GET REAL LIFE BACK AGAIN!
Well it might take longer to get most games out in Europe, but at least they show up on the right format.