Topic: Loads Of Issues With Descent 3 Reinstall

[Kaizerwolf]

Hey all. I have to explain this first before my question will make sense, so bear with this next bit of text.

Descent 3 had been installed on an older machine, running Windows XP Service Pack 2. The hard ware was not very advanced, and Descent 3 ran wonderfully.

Just this past April, i received a new computer from my brother. All the way up to Windows 7 64 Bit, top of the line and up to date hardware, all the works. I had simply transferred Descent 3 from the old WinXP hard drive to the new Win7 hard drive. It still ran alright, but there were some noticeable oddities. They weren't game breaking, and didn't happen all that often. However, the game was never really installed in the Win7 machine, merely transferred over.

So, to alleviate such a problem, I figured, "Hell, why not reinstall the game. It might fix those issues." Turns out I was wrong. It made them worse, and, in fact, added new issues.

To start;
-I cannot load any levels. It gets around halfway through the second red loading bar, then the screen goes black and the mouse appears. If I hit "Escape", i go back to the desktop.
-The screen is somehow brighter after hitting Escape from the first bullet. Simply logging off and back on to my Win7 account takes care of the brightness. Now, I have to use the Task Manager to close 'MAIN.EXE' when this black screen appears. Using the Task Manager to end the program does not cause the brighter screen.
-Resolution is messy. When I get that black screen and hit Escape, or even when just quitting from the game, the screen resolution stays at what Descent 3 is set to; 640x480. This is very annoying, and is fixed by logging off and on. Again, using the Task Manager does not cause this resolution error.

I talked to InsanityBringer for a bit about this, and we tried to set the compatibility of MAIN.exe to Windows XP, but this did not work. I have no idea what to do, now. It's really very frustrating...

If anyone can help, I would literally love you forever. I can provide system information if needed. At the moment, I can tell you that I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit. The graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260.

-Kw

[Fennecfox]

I'm not sure, but did you burn the descent discs and then installed from them? Or does that not matter...

[Thomas]

Descent 3 is old enough to not run on Windows 7 anymore - at least not out of the box without spending a lot of time on it.

First thing to do is turn that stupid compatibility mode off again. Note that uninstalling the game or deleting all files will not turn it off. If you re-install later, you'll have it back, together with all the trouble.

Descent 3 doesn't work properly if it's just been copied over from one computer to another one - never has. At least Mercenary doesn't. You get several different errors in that case (some bot.oof missing and could not load mercx).

You pretty much got two options:

- Play with permissions and re-install the game without compatibility mode. Spend at least two days on it, most likely more. If you've installed a GOG version, that'll make it worse. You need to remove the compatibility mode in the HKLM registry hive manually.

- Go to http://www.dateiliste.com/en/descent-3/26-descent-3-installation-updates-and-modifications/120-download-the-full-version-of-descent-3.html and download that thing in two hours, install it in another 15 minutes. Copy your pilot file in after that and you're done.

[Thomas]

I forgot to mention that if you re-installed Mercenary already, you have to do some more work.

Remove (or better, rename) your current D3 folder to preserve what you may still need. Then run a registry cleaner (there's a free one called Eusing Reg Cleaner or similar; don't fall for any spamware trick when acquiring a registry cleaner) to remove all invalid D3 entries. Clean your startmenu manually (delete everything that has the name Descent 3).

Mercenary creates its startmenu entries for the current user (which is a bug) while Descent 3 creates them for all users.

Honestly, it's almost a crime to install Descent 3 and Mercenary from the original CDs.
Never do it again.

[Kaizerwolf]

It was a Dual Jewel case, bought it from Amazon. Mercenary was included. Thomas, I appreciate the help, but I really have no idea what you want me to do. This is all very confusing to me.  :'(

[Matthew]

The resolution and screen brightness problems are nothing new, does that to me every time it crashes. D3 isn't the most well-coded software to begin with, even worse when running Vista/7. I got my copy working on Vista, but I can't for the life of me tell you how, sorry :/

[Thomas]

Kaiz,

Ok, step by step.

The Dual Jewel Case contains D3 and Merc. Because you have installed or attempted to install this on Windows 7 64 Bit already, you got quite a mess on your computer now.

Since it suggested to install to "C:\Games\Descent3", simply locate this directory and rename that folder to "C\Games_\Descemt3" or anything else you can think of. Just make sure you rename that folder. If the system doesn't allow you to rename it, open the task manager and find all "Main.exe" processes and kill them. Then try to rename that folder again.

Then download and install a registry cleaner. I'd suggest that one here: http://www.eusing.com/Download.htm, but any other one that doesn't contain spyware would do as well.

Run it to clean your registry. It'll remove the important Descent 3 registry entries. Make sure you tell it to clean it properly by running it again a second time.

Then go to your startmenu folder (usually by right-clicking on the start button) and remove all Descent 3 related files and folders. This will get rid of any Descent 3 startmenu entries. You can check this by using the startmenu. If there are still entries/folders left somewhere, delelte them.

The registry cleaner usually takes care of the compatibility mode too, because it can't find the software anymore (you renamed its folder, right?). It'll remove the entries automatically.

Go to Dateiliste to get Descent 3. Don't install this Descent 3 into the same directory than the Descent 3 you already have installed but renamed. This shouldn't be an issue anyway, normally. The version from Dateiliste suggests a different installation folder anyway.

Copy your pilot file (.plt) from your old Descent 3 installation over to the new one (by default C:\Program files\Descent3).

Run Descent 3 and go through the configuration steps (video, sound).

If you get a weird looking output in Descent 3, use the command line switch -nomultitexture. That fixes it in 90 percent of the cases.

[Thomas]

The resolution and screen brightness problems are nothing new, does that to me every time it crashes.

http://www.dateiliste.com/en/descent-3/6-descent-3-files-section/44-restdisp-restore-display-after-the-game-crashed.html

That's not so new.

[Kaizerwolf]

Okay, I'm waiting on that Dateiliste website to give me a response. I used the registry cleaner and removed all entries of Descent 3 from my start menu. The Descent 3 folder has been renamed to "Descemte 3". All i have to do is wait now?

[Matthew]

Wouldn't just running the uninstaller work just as well as using a registry cleaner?

[Thomas]

Wouldn't just running the uninstaller work just as well as using a registry cleaner?

I'm not sure about the Dual Jewel version, but it doesn't work for the normal CDs I have.

One reason is that the uninstallers don't know anything about the compatibility mode. The one from Dateiliste doesn't either, by the way (but it doesn't know about it on purpose).

Another thing is that the compatibility entries could be in HKLM as well as in HKCU, depending on whether he ran it elevated or not.

[Matthew]

I guess I'm not quite sure what windows compatibility mode has to do with uninstalling D3.

[Thomas]

The compatibility mode is a pointer in the registry. It points to the executable file for which it has been turned on. Uninstalling the software does not remove that pointer. As soon as you re-install you get your compatibility settings back.

[Kaizerwolf]

Thomas, I quite honestly love you now. Thanks a bunch for helping me out, it works like a charm again.

[-<WillyP>-]

+1 for Thomas!