GameBanshee Forums

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I was hoping you guys could help me out with something. I play all my RPGs on y vista laptop and generally I can figure out how to get old ones to work with some trouble shooting and forum help but Im stumped on this one.

I installed gothic 1 everything went fine I patched it and everything so it should work. However when I click on the shortcut or the .exe file nothing happens.

Now this is not the first time I've run into this problem. When I tried playing BG1 this also happened however I learned that for some reason by starting my computer in safe mode BG1 would start when I clicked on the .exe and thats how I ran it and it worked fine that way.

I tried the same thing with gothic and presto I got the loading screen that said gothic and said loading at the bottom. However when the game tried to start up I was given an error something about not being able to start the sound. Clearly there is some way to make a vista laptop start these old games or else this safemode method wouldnt work for BG1 or Gothic. So my question is is there some setting or something that I can get gothic to run like its in safemode but still have the sound and other things enabled to allow it to start up?

Thanks guys

a better way to phrase my question might be

What exactly doe safe mode do that would allow these games to begin loading and is there any way I can replicate on my computer normally just for the gothic .exe

Safe Mode is basically a limited Windows load. Instead of loading the full environment of the operating system, it only loads those libraries which are absolutely needed for basic functions. Usually Safe Mode is used for installing programs in a clean environment, uninstalling a virus or malware, or testing.

So if Gothic works in Safe Mode, and not normally, all that tells you is that something in the main Windows load conflicts. Without some serious programming tools you'll never figure out what it is, unless it is one of the obvious things.

1. Check your drivers. Download the newest versions of sound and video drivers, uninstall the current versions, and install the new ones.

2. Check to see if Microsoft mention Gothic under the compatibility tool. If so, get the tool and follow the instructions.

3. This could be a rights issue. If you are using an admin account, try creating a new login account for Vista without admin privileges, then play Gothic on that.

4. Physically unplug your modem (for safety), then turn off everything running in the background. Antivirus, Firewall, mouse & keyboard drivers, IM. See if the game will play. Is so, turn things back on one at a time to see which is causing the problem.

5. Type "Gothic on Vista" into Google, then try to find an error that looks like yours. Gothic may not be a huge game, but it's sufficiently well known that someone else has had problems, and asked about them.

Good luck.