Sword of the Stars Forum

I've just tested Sword of the Stars with CrossOverGames 8.1.4 (Mac) and found it not to work.

It installs fine, but when I try to run it, a dialogue comes up saying:
"No CD/DVD-ROM drive found."
The thing is that I have the original disk inserted, but it is not recognizing it.

I am using: Mac OSX Snow Leopard (10.6.3)

New testing of Sword of the Stars with CXGames 9.0.0 (Mac--Snow Leopard) and found it not to work for the same reasons. Recognizing the CD/DVD seems to be the big problem.

Hi,

For mine, this is not a regression by the looks of things ... but I
can well see how one could erroneously arrive at this conclusion.

I've just had a quick look about the 'net, and it seems this title
was released via multiple vendors using different media formats..ie;
CD, DVD, directdownload...the entire compilation is also available
from Steam. In the content of this C4 page, nobody has actually said
exactly which release media version they were using (when they gave
it a medal or whatever), and results tendered over at the wineHQ page
for this title you can almost be sure are linux based examples...see;

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3919

On the CD/DVD based media, there is likely to be disc_based DRM. Due to
limitations in the MacOSX scsi drivers, most all of these disc_based DRM
systems do not work -- the linux scsi drivers do not have such limitations
(but even then, not all disc_based DRM works in linux either).

It is entirely possible here, that folks have been using a non-disc based
release of this game -- then again, perhaps these folks did have a disc based
release but also lived in a country where the laws of DMCA do not apply...see;

http://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/dmca

So you see, I very much doubt this is a regression wrt disc based releases
of this title -- it's more like 'expected behavior'...especially in the Mac
side of life...

Cheers!

I had a working win2000 bottle back in CXG 8.1.4. However I should note that I owned the steam version of the game.

It had a weird quirk where upon launching the game it would try and install directx every single time you launched it. The movies failed to play properly in 8.1.4 but they had been working fine in 8.0. (In fact I would rate the compatibility as gold in 8.0).

I no longer have that bottle for current testing. However hearing that this game no longer works I tried a few things.

I first installed it onto my current steam bottle and gave it a go. This bottle has had a lot of things go through it, so I consider it "dirty". Trying to launch SOTS through steam just has it exit. With no errors or anything.

I then tried to recreate my win2000 bottle from before. Upon launching SOTS it tries to install dxredist, .Net 2.0 and vcredist.

It appears to install the first two fine and then it errors out on the 3rd one. Rebooting the bottle I try to launch it again. This time I get a c runtime error and the game won't launch.

Putting on my thinking hat, I scrap the win2000 bottle and start fresh with a winxp bottle. Before I install steam I manually install .Net 2.0 and vcredist 2005 from crossovers install menu. Then I install steam and SOTS.

Launching SOTS gave a few surprises. After trying to install dxredist yet again, it attempts to install .Net 2.0. Since its already installed it gives you the repair or remove options. I click cancel and then it tries to install vcredist as well, which crashes and fails.

Rebooting the winxp bottle I try launching again, this time giving me the c runtime error.

Now I have two bottles with SOTS installed with steam, one giving me a c runtime error whenever I launch it and another bottle which gives me no indication of what is wrong and just exiting immediately. Neither working.

I know this game used to work flawlessly in a win2000 bottle but I just can't recreate it so I have to agree that a regression has happened.

I just realised that I do have that old win2000 bottle, in a time machine backup.

I can easily restore that... but how do I get CXG to import it once I place it into the bottles folder?

I don't know about copying it into the folder. Here's what I would suggest:

1. Boot up old version of CXG. Choose the bottle and tell it to create an "Archive Copy". If you already have an archive copy, then skip to next step.
2. In the new version of CXG, in the bottles manager, there is an option to "Add from archive". Do that and browse to the appropriate archived copy. It will install it fine.

Although I have never just copied things over, this may work if that is your best option:

1. Copy the bottle's folder to the appropriate location. The bottle should be located (on a Mac) at: (username)/Library/Application Support/CrossOver Games/Bottles
2. Then try running CXG and choosing from the menu: Configure > Refresh Programs Menu
   or if that doesn't work Configure > Clear and Rebuild Programs Menu

Best wishes. Hope this helps.

(Reply to Don): I'm with you on this. The problem that I was having was probably not a regression. Yeah, it's got to be a DRM problem; I'm on a Mac. I have had similar problems with other games and have never been successful at getting SOTS working in CXG on my Mac yet.

Restored old bottle from time machine.

Fired up steam, updated everything (for some reason the game had to be updated as well). Getting the same c runtime error again.

So still not working.

Hi,

Can you be a little more precise?...ie; what c runtime error specifically?
Also, you mention installing vcrun2005 .... how did you arrive at this idea?
I only ask because I have seen 'vcredist.exe' being any number of 3 or 4
different visual c++ runtimes (I wish they wouldn't rename them so)...

Can you get a debuglog of the error at all? It's a bit trickier to grab
one from a steamapp but it is possible...ie; (linux version);

~/cxgames/bin/wine --bottle (bottle_name) --cx-log ~/sots-crash.log --debugmsg +tid,+seh,+ntdll --cx-app steam

Start Steam like that (where bottle_name is the name of the bottle you have steam installed), and then start
Sots from the steam gui - wait for it to crash, quit steam, gzip the sots-crash.log and upload it to a free
public repo (rapidshare or the like) and post the download URL back here -- then others like myself can grab
the log and try to see what's going wrong...

Cheers!

Deon Cui wrote:

Restored old bottle from time machine.

Fired up steam, updated everything (for some reason the game had to
be updated as well). Getting the same c runtime error again.

So still not working.

You only have to install an update for the MS Visual C++ 2005 runtime.
It's this one if I remember correctly.

Having done that, SOTS runs perfectly (Steam version, at least).

Edit: except that you still can't access audio settings from the main menu :)

Tuomo Mattila wrote:

You only have to install an update for the MS Visual C++ 2005
runtime.
It's
[link=http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=766a6af7-ec73-40ff-b072-9112bab119c2]this
one[/link] if I remember correctly.

Having done that, SOTS runs perfectly (Steam version, at least).

Edit: except that you still can't access audio settings from the
main menu :)

Hi,

Are you saying here that the builtin 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable' target
included in the 'Runtime Support Components' of crossover doesn't work? Just curious...

Cheers!

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Hi,

Are you saying here that the builtin 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005
Redistributable' target
included in the 'Runtime Support Components' of crossover doesn't
work? Just curious...

Cheers!

It's missing a version of Microsoft.VC80.CRT that is introduced in the update I mentioned.
Or something.

fixme:exec:SHELL_execute flags ignored: 0x00000100
fixme:actctx:parse_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.VC80.CRT" (8.0.50727.4053)
err:module:import_dll Library MSVCP80.dll (which is needed by L"C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\sword of the stars\\Sword of the Stars.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\sword of the stars\\Sword of the Stars.exe" failed, status c0000135

We were not aware of that newer Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable. I have made the changes necessary so that CrossOver will download that instead of the older one, but they haven't gone live on our site, yet. Probably next week, sometime.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Thanks for catching that Ken.