GFW Live

Belthan · Post by **Belthan** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:14 am

Just got Fallout 3 for PC (been playing awhile on 360), but I can't run it because Games For Windows Live won't install (requires SP2). Machine is otherwise fully compatible (gfx card w/ATI 1600 chipset, 2G RAM, etc.) but I'm still on XP SP1 because SP2 is incompatible with my pro audio interface (Aardvark Q10). The manufacturer is out of business and the only drivers available for it aren't compatible with SP2 or Vista. Is there any way to either A) fool Fallout 3 into thinking I have GFW Live installed, or B) fool GFW Live into thinking I have SP2 so I can install it?

(Yes, I have a legal copy of the game, and no, shelling out another $700+ for a pro audio interface that's compatible with XP SP2 or Vista isn't an option).

It would be one thing if I was trying to install a MMORPG, but why in the name of all that is holy do I need GFW Live to play a single-player RPG anyway?

Lucita · Post by **Lucita** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:36 am

Another question, please don't take it as an insult but....

....you are still working on an SP 1 machine ? You know how much security risk you present to yourself and anybody you know by having an unpatched machine ?
Have you checked for any Omega drivers you could use for your audio system ? Aren't any tech fan projects out there who developed their own drivers ?

Belthan · Post by **Belthan** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:52 am

No offense taken. I appreciate your concern. I have all the up to date SP1 patches, I just never took SP2. Well, actually I did once, which is how I found out that the incompatibility between the Aardvark driver and SP2 was unresolvable, so I reverted to SP1 (by reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows, and then getting all of the patches for SP1). Plus I have multi-layered antivirus and anti-spyware defenses, plus I have a home brew firewall in front of the PC (linux machine with iptables whitelist that blocks all ports & ip addresses unless I explicitly allow them (yes, it's a bit of a hassle, and no, it obviously wouldn't help if there was a bot spamming via my real mail server on port 25, but looking at the logs on the linux box of what it blocked does give me some degree of confidence that there isn't anything on my Windows box I don't know about trying to phone home).

And unfortunately, no, there aren't any third-party drivers I can find. I actually considered writing one, and probably would have done if it was USB or something normal, but it's a proprietary PCI card in the PC with a proprietary 25-pin cable running to the rack-mount interface, and reverse-engineering that was a bit more work than I had time to spend on it.

Lucita · Post by **Lucita** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:15 pm

Have you ever tried a Slipstream version of Windows ? Make a slipstream CD to SP3 and install it ? Maybe the driver incompatibility solves itself with a clean SP3 install....A lot of longer running SP1 versions had problems with SP2 without a clean install....

I would give it a try....

Belthan · Post by **Belthan** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:59 pm

I had considered seeing if it would run under an SP2 vmware image until I realized that to get the Aardvark to work I had disabled the onboard sound card in bios.

Bottom line, I finally decided to cut over 100% of my recording & mixing to my Mac and just use the Dell for post-production stuff that doesn't require high quality sound. Hence I was able to uninstall the Aardvark, enable the onboard sound card and upgrade to SP3, and Fallout is running great.

Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions!