I need help, GOG version of FF is crashing right after the Crave logo appears

[Zeether]

Exactly what it says in the title. I bought both FF games on GOG (FFv3R works fine), using Windows 10 and the game crashes right after the Crave logo. I tried dgVoodoo but all it does is crash the game immediately instead of showing the EA and Crave logos. Tried compatibility settings too. I feel like I'm out of options and it's driving me insane. Please help!!

[Randomdays]

Welcome to the forums!

I wish I could help you with that - I've been lucky as never having a problem and I bought the original cd version when it came out.

As a guess - 1) try running it in administrator mode or 2 - I imagine the GOG game is patched to the newest version. Try to find the no cd patch and run that.

Good luck and maybe someone else can help you out more.

[Zeether]

I tried admin mode, no dice. Even did DEP on it but that also wasn't gonna work. GOG version I think is missing the 1.3 patch but I can't install that because it gives me an error saying FF isn't installed. Will attempt the no cd patch.

For what it's worth 3rd Reich DOES work, it's the original that's giving me trouble.

[Randomdays]

I'm not sure what the 1.3 patch changes - maybe just combatability with new systems back in the day. If the only thing that changed was the exe then you might be alright.

[Zeether]

I tried a no-CD exe, still nothing. Feels like I'm just out of options and will have to deal with only 3rd Reich working fine, but I'm going to end up not knowing the plot of the previous game...hopefully someone else can help because I've seen someone on GOG with the same issue but it's never been resolved.

[Randomdays]

I know that some people had problems with the Gog version, but not Steam, and vice versa - You might try that.

Also try this - make a shortcut to the game. In the target line of the shortcut, put this ""C:\Freedom Force\fforce.exe" -w"

Change the path to where the game is on your system.

This puts it windowed mode and might help if its a resolution problem.

[Zeether]

Window mode didn't do much, still did the same Crave logo crash. I'd try the Steam version but I may wait for a sale on that because I'm not sure if I can take a gamble

EDIT: Tried the demo for the Steam version and it just crashes period. I assume the full version would do the same. I'm officially stumped and straight up about to give up and only play FFv3R because it just seems like this game is destined to never work for me  I just hate that I might not be able to understand something from the previous game just because it assumes you've played the one that has such bloody spotty compatibility.

[Randomdays]

I'd have to look at the old mods, but there might be one that adapts the entire original game into FFvt3R

In brief - and its been many years since I played it..... Spoiler below

Edit...... Before you look at the spoiler!

There is a mod for FFvt3R that copies the FF campaign. Its not perfect, but it should get you going with hopefully only a few errors.

One of the best sites still active for both games is Alex's Freedom fortress. He's got a mod for FFvt3r called "Freedom Force Classic" that should give you what you want.

Read about it here;

http://www.freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=57424.msg828672#msg828672

and get it here;

http://www.alexff.com/mods.php

Spoiler

  Each mission in the game is presented with a retro comic book cover showing the mission. An Alien ruler is bored and decides to cause trouble on earth by sending canisters of "energy x" over for criminals to use. Being exposed to it gives you superpowers aligned with your personality. A "good" alien (Mentor) tries to get some to the good guys but gets shot down, spreading the canisters everywhere. In mission 1, and old man, who got shot while trying to stop secrets from being giving to the the Russians, winds up next to a canister. It rejuvenates him and makes him into a young, strong hero like Captain America (Minute Man)

The next mission you pick up a second hero, "El Diablo", a human torch like character, and then "Manbot", an Iron Man like character, and then Mentor.

As you play, you fight various bad guys not related to the main plot and pick up new characters. Max party size is 4 in each game. You finally fight the aliens and then travel to the nexus of time against the ultimate bad guy, where you lose Manbot to save the universe.

You can pick which members you have available to join your team in each mission, and your characters do grow in power the more you use them.

Its the equivalent of reading/ playing  through a dozen or so comic books.

There are mods for each game making custom missions for new adventures, that can't be exchanged between the two games. There are also custom maps and special effects for each game created by modders here and elsewhere.

You can upgrade custom characters from the first to the second though .

There are also custom maps and special effects for each game created by modders here and elsewhere.

There's so much to do and tinker with, that's one of the reasons the game is still around after 20 years.

[WyldFyre]

Have you tried running in compatibility mode? For me, it had to be Win7 SP3 to work. You can try different ones to see which works. Also, Administrator mode is needed as well.

One other thing I did was to install in the original directory structure. #:\Program Files (x86)\Irrational Games\Freedom Force\  this seemed to help in my particular case.

[Randomdays]

I did some searching on the web on this. For FF and Win10, some people have tried all of the above and more and nothing works, though FFvt3R runs okay.

To me, since the executable starts up okay, it sounds like the crash happens when the videos start coming up that yo can click through before the game actually starts.

It might have something to do with the drivers for the video - not sure what they used at the moment, but I think bink was popular at the time.

Putting it in the original directory is a good idea

Other things I saw that people tried;

In the shortcut, put resolution at 640x480 if you can

In the shortcut in the target line - add -winxp -32bit

get the voodoo grapics files -

Install dgVoodoo 2
Copied D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll, D3DImm.dll, DDraw.dll, dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf into Freedom Force game folder. This would be "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Freedom Force" since this is for the GOG version. But the screen was extremely dark. Playable, but too dark.

In the end, it may just be not win10 itsewlf, since some people can play on that version, but the video card that the computer has.

On my 1st win7 laptop, everything worked but FFedit. On my second laptop, FFedt worked fine.

[Zeether]

I've tried every suggestion and it doesn't work. Still crashes immediately after the Crave logo, and in the case of dgVoodoo it doesn't even start at all, just crashes right away before it can even get to the Electronic Arts logo. Directory doesn't matter either. If it's something to do with a movie codec I don't know if K-Lite would cause the issue because that's what I have installed codec wise and I don't recall it ever causing issues.

I feel like it's just never gonna work for me and I'll have to try that FF Classic mod instead. I don't know if it has all the voices and cutscenes from the original but I'd rather have that than trying to bang my head against the wall getting the original to work. I'm pretty frustrated.

If it helps any, my video card is one of those hybrid integrated + NVidia cards, and I have tried forcing it to use NVidia with the same end result, game just crashes after the Crave logo. I wish someone could reverse engineer and do a source port or something so that this couldn't be a constant headache for me and everyone else who's had the same issue.

[Randomdays]

There's a few other posts here with people with the exact same issue, and yet when they installed it on a different win10 computer it ran fine. One person even went so fsr as to by another computer to play it (that still didn't work)

I would say that a particular combination of factors prevents certain computers from running it, ever. I'm still thinking it has something to do with the video card/ drivers.

Now, the only other suggestion I can make which is a long shot, is someone mentioned Dosbox. I have no idea if it would work, but if you ran dosbox, mounted a fake c: drive, and installed win98 to it (if that's even possible) then you would be running the game under a true win98 environment.

Other than

[Zeether]

I've thought about maybe using a virtual machine, maybe running XP on it and then copying over the GOG installer.

Tried the FF Classic mod and it seems like that will do for the moment. I don't know if I'm missing out on any mods for original FF by not being able to play it but it seems v3R has quite a few.

[Randomdays]

There's plenty of mods for both, but probably more for FFvt3R. The two biggest are most likely by Benton Grey, one for DC and one for Marvel.

I'm going to send a pm about something, but would rather not put it on the board.

[Randomdays]

So, I was able to get Zeether up and running. Sent some files from my original disk version over and he had no problem with the game!

Now, my version has a bunch of changes to it since I installed it, but I don't see that as an issue since he never got to that point. Could be he was suing a different noc-cd patch, or Gog changed some other files.

Anyway, he says he's good to go and can enjoy the game

[Zeether]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal is with the GOG version or what files are different. Really weird.

[Randomdays]

So on further convo, it looks like GOG's executable with their version of a no-cd patch in it is probably is the problem.

Zeether, now that you're up and running, enjoy the game, the mods and all the extras floting around for it.

Welcome to the FF family!