Luser can't get five-year-old Russian video game to work on his four-year-old computer.

April 9, 2009 10:56 AM

Okay, so after the mention and the link to the review of Pathologic, I decided that a depressing Russian game sounded awesome and downloaded it. (Yes, I paid for it. Not that you asked.) However, as is usual when I try to do something interesting on the computer, I find out there is

a problem. It says that it can't start up because it can't find "Open AL 32 dll," that sound will not be enabled, and that the renderer cannot start. I do not know if these are related problems or not. (As far as I'm concerned, a computer is basically a Black Box.) I did some Googling and found several skeezy-looking sites which want me to run their scanning software and download the file I need "FOR FREE." As a proud owner of all of my current frontal lobes, I find this deeply suspicious.

Anyone know what the heck my missing file does and where I can find a non-sketchy copy? Any possible assistance with troubleshooting?

(I would gladly provide my computer's specs once someone tells me where I can find them. I know it has well more than the minimum recommended hard drive speed and RAM, but I have no earthly idea what kind of sound or video card I possess.)

posted by Scattercat to technology (20 comments total)

OpenAL is an audio library. I think you can get the offical installer from here. click the link labeled oalinst, unzip it, and run the installer inside.
posted by aubilenon at 11:03 AM on April 9

Also, the guys who made the game should have included this in their installer, or at least linked to where to get this.
posted by aubilenon at 11:04 AM on April 9

Also: the sites you found distributing OpenAL could have been legit - it's legal for people to do that. But you should get an installer rather than the dll, so that you the whole package.
posted by aubilenon at 11:07 AM on April 9

Oh, I know it could have been legit, but the whole "Click here to run our system scan and see what files you're missing!" combined with the overemphasis on free sets of all kinds of alarm bells in my head.

Danke for that link. Let's see if that was the only problem, shall we?
posted by Scattercat at 11:24 AM on April 9

Alas, no. Now I get an error saying "Error creating renderer." This is literally the only information I receive. Further thoughts, anyone?
posted by Scattercat at 11:28 AM on April 9

Citizen, Google is your friend!

Answer
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:40 AM on April 9

Heh. I got a bunch of Russian sites. Perhaps my Google-fu is weak. (In my defense, I was originally focusing on the OpenAL32dll thing, as that was the most technical-sounding doohickey in my series of errors, and I had not thought to try Googling for such a vague phrase as "Error creating renderer."
posted by Scattercat at 11:46 AM on April 9

Okay, I have reinstalled DirectX and put it in every folder I could think of within the Pathologic folder. Still getting the same error. No change.
posted by Scattercat at 11:57 AM on April 9

Have you updated your video card drivers? To find out what kind of video card you have, try going to the Device Manager (right-click on "My Computer," select "Properties," and the Device Manager should be one of the choices). Look under "Display adapters." Once you know what kind of card you have, it's easy to get the drivers from the manufacturer's website.
posted by sinfony at 12:14 PM on April 9

I don't think you need to put DirectX in the Pathologic folder... but you might want make sure you have up to date video card drivers and then re-installing DirectX.
posted by jrishel at 12:15 PM on April 9

There's a couple of posts about this error message in their forum. e.g.. Most of the time they just say get a new video card, or use something called "3d analyzer" (their link is dead but it's here) to make emulate pixel shaders or something.)

None of those threads end with someone saying "Okay it works now thanks!"
posted by aubilenon at 12:17 PM on April 9

"Search for updates" has resulted in my computer announcing it cannot imagine a better match for my drivers than the software I already have installed.

(I have an "Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family." The game says it wants a "GeForce2 at least." Is this, perhaps, the source of my problem? Remember, before you laugh at me, that to me these are both functionally random sequences of letters and numbers. I might as well be copying out encrypted data for all I know.)
posted by Scattercat at 12:20 PM on April 9

Hm. One of those developer-forum threads people is having the same problem, and he has a GeForce4. Unless bigger isn't better, then probably that isn't my problem...
posted by Scattercat at 12:23 PM on April 9

Hm. One of those developer-forum threads people is having the same problem, and he has a GeForce4. Unless bigger isn't better, then probably that isn't my problem...

Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that he has a different problem that exhibits the same symptoms.
I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure the Intel 8291G/GV/910GL Express doesn't qualify as "GeForce2 at least."
posted by juv3nal at 12:30 PM on April 9

The other possibility is that you are both experiencing the same problem, but your graphics setup is still very likely to crop up as an additional problem down the road even if/when you clear this hurdle.
posted by juv3nal at 12:32 PM on April 9

How cheery. Any advice on procuring a new video card? Bearing in mind the computer in question is a veritable dinosaur at a staggering four years old and will likely suffer some cataclysmic breakdown within a year or two? (Wife's comp is already groaning like it's about to give birth to a bouncing baby laptop.)
posted by Scattercat at 12:33 PM on April 9

You'll need to find out some information about your motherboard. Specifically, you'll need to know if it has AGP, PCI, or PCIe slots. Assuming that you've got a computer from a major manufacturer, some minor googling out to sort that info out for you. You won't have to spend very much on a videocard; the GeForce 2 is quite old and there are a lot of cheap cards out there that are as good as or better than a GeForce 2.
posted by sinfony at 12:52 PM on April 9

Have you tried getting the drivers straight from Intel? I know the Windows Update ones are sometimes (really) outdated.

I can't say with certainty that your hardware is underpowered, as a GeForce2 or equivalent is ancient in computer terms. If nothing else works, though, a used graphics card off eBay should do just fine. I don't have any specific recommendations, though. Your chipset supports PCIe, according to Intel, but I'd check just to be sure if there are any actual PCIe slots. The easiest way would be to actually crack the computer open and look inside. Google is your friend, here.

Okay, I have reinstalled DirectX and put it in every folder I could think of within the Pathologic folder.

This worried me a bit: when you say "you put it in every folder", what do you mean? You shouldn't need to change the default settings for the DirectX installation. Just let it do its thing.
posted by wsp at 1:01 PM on April 9

From the comments section of the RockPaperShot Gun review:

Brother None says:

I noticed some people were having trouble starting up Pathologic. There’s generally two issues that keep Pathologic from starting up or make it start without sound, I ran into it again too when replaying it, m’self. The solutions:
One is to simply install the WMV 10 Codec if you don’t have it, but most of us do.

What really helps is this (if the error the game gives is “can not find openall32.dll”):
/1) Download “foobar2000 OpenAL output component” http://www.bockholdt.com/fb2k/foo_output_oal.zip
2) Unzip the file defopenal32.dll.
3) Rename file defopenal32.dll into openal32.dll
4) Just copy this openal32.dll into game’s main executable folder (where “game.exe” located, check properties of the shortcut)./

Without openall32.dll, the game either doesn’t start or only starts without sound. With this file, it starts and runs fine, with sound.

Couldn’t find if it’d come up yet, but it’s a pretty key fix that helps deal with most people’s problems in running the game.
posted by now i'm piste at 2:08 PM on April 9

guh. I did the same damn thing and ran into the same damn problem. I managed to get past the "Error creating render" message using 3d analyzer (click the checkbox marked "emulate HW TnL caps") however, it crashed as soon as it had to load an environment outside a building. Adjusting the compatibility mode of the Game.exe file to "Windows 2000" and disabling visual themes got me out of the building, but it crashed pretty shortly thereafter.
posted by clockwork at 10:23 PM on April 11