EA can ah heck off and die...

[TraumaRN]

Not because it doesn't look awesome and cool from the screen shots because it does. Not because C&C was and still is one of my favorite RTS to play...but I want my friggin money back because I can't even get the game to load correctly!

Hell It doesn't even get past the first EA logo with the tiberium growing out it...because I see that logo and 10 seconds later....blackness. Nothing. Game does nothing after that. I can walk away for 5, 10, 30 minutes....come back to a black frickin screen.

And the tech support is even more of a joke. YES my computer more than meets the minimum specs you retards. I update my drivers as often as possible. No, my DVD drive isn't corrupted and the DVD disk itself has NO scrapes, scratches, or any other damage flaming retard tech support guy on the phone and/or online. Yes I have a wide screen monitor but it says right in the readme file that my 1440x900 monitor is supported...

I mean seriously. I even waited for a few patches cuz I know how notorious EA is with new games released at like alpha stage. But nope. Won't work. I'm at my wits end. I just want my dang 50 bucks back.

On that note if anyone here on AT has any bright ideas on getting the game to work, by all means enlighten me, PLEASE.

 

[Acanthus]

What hardware, and what version of windows?

 

[TraumaRN]

WinXP 32bit
Athlon X2 4200+ dual core
Nvidia 7800 GT
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS
1GB RAM
Wireless microsoft mouse/keyboard

I'm trying a different set of NVIDIA drivers now....see if that does anything.
Doubt it will.

 

[Acanthus]

Let us know if driver updates fix your issue.

 

[Coolone]

is there a program conflicting with it? Have you tried closing all non-essential processes and running it afterwards?

 

[TraumaRN]

Well a different set of drivers did all of nothing.

I've shut every non-essential windows program down and nothing. I've turned off every firewall, anti-virus/spyware I've got. I basically had windows as barebones as possible. And nothing. Loads the EA logo then blackness.

I've really at wits end. I know that EA tech support will blame it on me.

I blame on their sh!t for brains programmers that can't program a decent game to save their lives.

The bitterly ironic part is that the C&C3 Engine is just a highly modified version of the engine used for C&C: Generals and Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2 and I never had ANY problems with any of those games.

 

[TraumaRN]

Well actually it finally booted....once....

I exited out to post the 'good' news if you want to call it that.

Basically restarted windows barebones. only using 180 of memory according to task manager when windows finished loading Then clicked the button to load the game and out of sheer rage and furious was pounding on the keyboard and mouse and for whatever reason it loaded.

Whatever.

I still raise a middle finger to EA.

 

[Crizza]

Sounds like a personal problem, I have the exact same setup except a 4800+ and it runs like a champ. Don't blame EA for everything.

 

[Skacer]

"WinXP 32bit
Athlon X2 4200+ dual core
Nvidia 7800 GT
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS
1GB RAM
Wireless microsoft mouse/keyboard "

Similar setup, but I have 2GB of memory. Played C&C3 out of box when it first came out without ever running into so much as a hiccup.

 

[Bateluer]

I work with a guy who had similar problem, but he had completely different system requirements. In his case, his Radeon Xpress 200 needed its drivers updated to run C&C3.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Random thoughts (since you said everything is updated):

This game uses Sony's SecuROM DRM (I believe), whose presence can be verified with RootKit Revealer (once the game is installed)

So if you have virtual drive software (like alcohol or Daemon Tools), use add / remove programs to uninstall it and then run the Duplex Secure utility (which doubles as an uninstaller) which can dispose of the SPTD (which Daemon Tools and Alcohol both use for their virtual drives), note you need to click the uninstall button on it (if it is not grayed out), other wise close it.

SecuROM has a very extensive blacklist which includes Microsoft's (sysinternals) process explorer (I guess they do not want you to see what it is doing behind the scenes), Daemon Tools, Alcohol, etc. SecuROM will also stay on your system long after you remove all of the games that use it, in the form of undeleteable registry keys (you have to use special tools to purge it) and hidden folders.


[*]Download the July 2007 build of DirectX: Link
[*]check for system stability (bad memory can screw the installs, happened to me)
[*]Find a way to disable intro movies

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Random thoughts (since you said everything is updated):

This game uses Sony's SecuROM DRM (I believe), whose presence can be verified with RootKit Revealer (once the game is installed)

So if you have virtual drive software (like alcohol or Daemon Tools), use add / remove programs to uninstall it and then run the Duplex Secure utility (which doubles as an uninstaller) which can dispose of the SPTD (which Daemon Tools and Alcohol both use for their virtual drives), note you need to click the uninstall button on it (if it is not grayed out), other wise close it.

SecuROM has a very extensive blacklist which includes Microsoft's (sysinternals) process explorer (I guess they do not want you to see what it is doing behind the scenes), Daemon Tools, Alcohol, etc. SecuROM will also stay on your system long after you remove all of the games that use it, in the form of undeleteable registry keys (you have to use special tools to purge it) and hidden folders.


[*]Download the July 2007 build of DirectX: Link
[*]check for system stability (bad memory can screw the installs, happened to me)
[*]Find a way to disable intro movies

Yea I ended up having to do that last night(had daemon tools installed) along with updating my vid card drivers.

At others mentioning it as a 'personal' problem....and not to blame EA, sorry I'm going to blame EA because for whatever reason the last 2-3 games I've bought from them I end up having to spend an entire day monkeying with my computer just to get a game to work. Thats total crap. I'm sorry but if I pay 52 dollars after tax for a game I do have the right to expect that it will work right out of the box given that I have met the minimum specs etc. There is absolutely no reason why I should have to spend that long getting a game to work(not even mentioning the game has been patched 6 times in roughly 4 months).

I mean it's like buying a car only to find out that to make it start you have to tear the engine apart, rebuild it THEN it'll start. I don't think you'd be buying that car.

 

[duragezic]

It is unfortunate you had all of those problems, and all the time you had to spend just to load the game. I'm guessing it was something simple, and out of all the things you did, one ended up being the fix... probably the pounding on the keyboard.

Though, for an EA developed and published product, I found C&C3 to be pretty damn good. I haven't played MP, and I've read that as not the greatest, but everything else is of very good quality. It runs good, looks good, has WS support (normally shouldn't be a pro, but with EA products it is), stable, good campaign, and great movies.

C&C3 never complained about having Daemon Tools installed for me. The few products that gave me crap about Daemon being installed, I usually was just a version or two behind on Daemon which fixed the problem.

 

[TehMac]

I heard Games for Windows demands some of these probs fixed, or else. C&C3 came out after CoH which was a GFW, and C&C3 wasn't. Guess EA didn't want to show MS how lazy they could be.
Crysis is the only GFW EA game I've seen.

 

[CP5670]

I never had C&C3 install Securom 7 on my machine. The original game didn't come with it, although it's possible that one of the patches has added it in.

C&C3 is otherwise an excellent game and one of the few recent titles that I haven't had any technical problems with.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: CP5670
I never had C&C3 install Securom 7 on my machine.

From what I have read, Tiberium Wars ships with SecuROM 7.29.0008 and the latest patch updates SecuROM to 7.33.00012.

Sony's SecuROM DRM should not be confused with Starforce (which is FAR worse).

Did you buy it retail or via EA link? You can use Rootkit Revealer to detect SecuROM 7.

 

[CP5670]

It was the retail version. It didn't create the UAService7 thing or place an extra key in the registry in the Securom section, which I have had all other Securom games do. I haven't played it in a while though and it's possible that one of the patches may have changed the behavior.

 

[Schadenfroh]

It didn't create the UAService7 thing

That only happens if it detects that you have a limited user account.