black screen after first mission

[Ihrgoth]

I'm playing freedom force on windows 7 on steam. it has a lot of issues, the character running the wrong way and after the first mission it just shows Minuteman on a black background with nothing responding. is there a way to fix it?

[stumpy]

I assume you are just starting out, and are running vanilla FF, with no add-ons like FFX or custom skins or meshes. Is that right? I am not sure I will be able to help, but nailing down the situation will help anyone else who sees the thread and has a clue about what's going on.

I don't recognize the running the wrong way issue. Does that mean running normally, but not in the direction you clicked? Or running using the wrong animations? Or using the right animation and going to the right place, but facing the wrong way (e.g. playing the running animation but it looks like he should be going in another direction)?

The black background sort of sounds like either 1) the video drivers aren't interacting with the game well or, 2) the game had trouble loading some of the terrain or game objects or starting up the mission script. It may be useful to post your log files (scripts.log, ff.log, and ff.err) to see if there is a more specific error to look into. If you aren't sure how to get to or post those logs, look at this item in the Game FAQ. Post them using the code tags (use the button) and maybe we can see what the issue is.

[Randomdays]

I had the problem where with the disk version, I would click on a location nearby for the character to run to and instead he would just run all over the place. I found a post (some replies to an Amazon review) that mentioned that it could be due to the fact that the copy protection had a problem verifying that the disk was in the drive with Win7. I'm running Win7 32bit and other than that it runs fine. One of the commenters mentioned that he had major issues running the downloaded version on his Win7 64 bit even with compatability turned on. Its possible that some hardware/ software combos just can't run it.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2POSHPG9IHDFJ/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00005V8TW&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful

[Cyber Burn]

I'm playing freedom force on windows 7 on steam. it has a lot of issues, the character running the wrong way and after the first mission it just shows Minuteman on a black background with nothing responding. is there a way to fix it?

I apologize for the Necropost, but it seemed fitting to post this here.

Basically, after the first mission in FF1, the Screen goes black, and all we can see are Minute Man, and the Menu options (Save Game, Load Game, Etc.), which basically do nothing.

This is on a Windows 7 laptop, 64 Bit system, using the Steam version of the Games. I believe it is a Vanilla install.

I was asked for help, but I'm pretty stuck on how to fix this. Would anyone happen to have some ideas?

[stumpy]

You are saying that the first mission is finished when this happens? You capture Zhukov and the summary screens appear (with the mission goals, prestige gained, etc.), and then it goes black with MM visible but dead menus?

Make sure logging is enabled (see the FAQ for more info if it's not enabled) and post the logs for a session that does that. I don't recognize the issue right off, but that sort of thing can happen when a script breaks at the beginning of a mission or base. It sound a bit like the starting script for the base of the second mission is giving you trouble. If that's what's going on, the logs can help track it down or suggest a solution.

[Cyber Burn]

Thank you Stumpy, should I have him enable Logging, and then start the first Mission over? Would that be the best way to get the most accurate information?

[stumpy]

The most complete option is to enable logging and then replay the whole mission. But, if he has a saved game from somewhere before the end of the first mission (before any of the trouble has shown up), then it might be fine to replay it from there. Once the error recurs, the posted logs should help in finding out what's going on, or at least in determining which tests to run next.

[Cyber Burn]

Thanks Stumpy, I definitely appreciate you taking the time to help out.

As for the issue at hand, he said that he ran the game as "Administrator", and that seemed to solve the issue. He was supposed to play a bit further yesterday to make sure, and let me know today. I'll post back here if there are any other problems.

Thanks again for your help.