Freelancer won't start

Freelancer is DirectX 8. Intel had stopped optimizing for DX8 ages before they even thought of the Core architecture.

If you don’t want help and would rather stick to what’s clearly not working, be my guest. I’m only pointing out that Intel’s GPUs, regardless of the generation, are notorious for not playing too well with FL. One would think I’d have just a slight idea what the hell I’m talking about.

Szasz wrote:
Saying that something sucks and won’t work is not particularly helping.

Plus Freelancer is DX9. It is given in the requirements and is bundled with DX9 redist, check any retail CD. In addition it is working.

No hard feelings, I don’t want to make you look bad, just prevent others from reading incorrect information.

Here is some official proof: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/814552

You gave me a good laugh there. Freelancer, DirectX 9? Hah! Sure, they ask for the DX9 redist, because that’s what was around at the time of distribution, but Freelancer is DirectX 8.

But really, I think you don’t need my help after all since you seem to know better. I hope you resolve your issue and please do document it here if you do so that others don’t have to go through this maddening process.

Szasz wrote:
Saying that something sucks and won’t work is not particularly helping.

Plus Freelancer is DX9. It is given in the requirements and is bundled with DX9 redist, check any retail CD. In addition it is working.

No hard feelings, I don’t want to make you look bad, just prevent others from reading incorrect information.

Here is some official proof: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/814552

Just so you know, mate, you’re talking to the man who’s taken apart FL’s render pipeline and put it back together again. FL’s DX8.

I hadn’t seen that edit. That’s intriguing, first time I hear of that.

By curiosity, was that 8.1 retail, or 8.0 updated to 8.1?

Hi Folks.
This time I have the “same” problem by “myself”… to be more accurate… its the prob of a friend who wants to play on my server.

OS: WIN 8.1 Professional 64 Bit
Grafix: Geforce 530
RAM: 8 GB
CPU: AMD3
2x SSD-Drives (120 and 250 GB)

Activated FULL ADMIN-ACCOUNT (built in but hidden by default)
created a Folder on the second drive and checked for FULL-ACCESS with the logged in User (FULL-ADMIN)
Installed Vanilla-FL and official Patch 1.1… Done… no issues
Checked for installed DirectPlay … Done… no issues
Guess what… FL works fine !!!

Installed FLMM… Done… no issues
Installed Mod and activated it… Done… no issues

No Problems so far but the weird thing is yet to come:
Suddenly Freelancer doesn´t start at all due to lack of access-rights to drive/folder/file or whatever !!! H UHHHHHHHHHHH ???
Even just to change the version-number of a vanilla freelancer.exe (because my mod-files refer to version 4.46) and just copy it into the modded or un-modded gamefolder/EXE leads to the same problem !!!
After deactivation of the mod and all other changes the vanilla-game doesn´t start either due to lack of rights !!!

Checked and tried here and there and totally ran out of options. :((

Some help or further ideas would be VERY WELCOME !!!

You should make a new thread as your issue has nothing to do with this thread.

Sorry… but isn´t this the same Prob???

If it isn´t… would you please move the Post to the appro Thread ?

Sorry for this and best greetings

-SOLVED-

The issue wasn´t caused by ANY Win8-related feature…

Further investigation confirmed:
The latest update of AVAST-Antivirus flags all types of moddified *.exe-files and denies/prevents every further access-attempts. So far so good… ´cause thats what AV-Software is supposed to do. But the most annoying thing is: AVAST does it without ANY WARNING/PROMPT or OPTION to prevent this unwanted flagging/deleting of the “suspicious” file Freelancer.exe !!!

Greetings J.R.

There is a Security Update for Windows 7 that apparently breaks the game. When you click on the icon, the cursor ‘spins’, but you never receive the Freelancer splash screen / intro.

I went through all my recent updates that were applied just before the game broke. I narrowed it down to the Security Update KB3086255 - which is related to the system’s graphics:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086255

Hope this helps somebody else, but it drove me nuts figuring it out.

THX for this hint… I will keep this is mind when it comes to client-probs with win7.

Greets

J.R.

Win7Pro with EVERY update, I’ve never experienced a problem loading FL. Next time it won’t load open up taskmgr and see if Freelancer.exe is already running in the processes list. If it is, right click and close the process. See if it fires up then.

@Dilbert. Can you think of anything that security update might be associated with? It might be system dependent. (maybe it only happens with systems that have a certain video card or something)

To All,
I read the description, through the link, and it looks like another back-door for Microsoft to freely install Windows 8.1 over whatever you are using. I remember before they released 8.1, they were putting updates out which put the updater into the users tray. I “hid” those updates, because I would not use 8.1 on a bet. I had to work on a friend’s computer, which was really fouled up from the install. How the mighty have fallen!

Pascal05

Please don’t hide security updates… They’re security updates for a reason.

@Friendly Fire,

Many times you have jumped in, on behalf of Microsoft. Microsoft is not the all-seeing benevolent company they pretend to be. It is the main reason hackers began going after them. Many updates are badly made. They fail to do what was intended. Which always puts us, the consumer, on the road to hell. Many updates which come out are not meant for everyone. This is why they have the description page to tell you what it does. I read these and I make decisions as to what my computer is going to receive. I used to be a Microsoft Partner, and system builder. I do understand the update practice. I just refuse to be blind-sided by the Microsoft error system. So yes, sometimes you need to hide updates.

Pascal05

According to the page, it can be worked around by turning the service back on anyways, at your own risk. So this is a none issue.

I may incorporate known issue checking into Portable Freelancer, this one shouldn’t be too difficult to detect.

You may think you’re smart enough to know what to turn on or off (sadly, Dunning-Kruger is a nasty thing), but a lot of people don’t. By recommending people to disable updates willy-nilly, all you end up with is making more computers insecure.

Not quite sure where you are going there, as Dunning & Kruger identify individuals that misconceive their own skill level, both in the lack of, and misrecognition of. It also labels people who mis-identify the skills of others

To which do you refer, and to whom was that pointed at ^^

Let’s bring this thread back alive…

Win7Pro PC, FL won’t run.
Brief sight of spinny circle and then nothing, not even an error message.

FLServer will run just fine, so will the ‘Examine my Account ID tool’.

Total reinstall of FL, even to a non-default directory, full permissions given to all users, FL and the 1.1 patch installed as administrator, every suggestion on this page: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/freelancer_windows7.htm followed, no joy.

Nothing showing up in the event viewer.

Disabled AV program (AVG) and that didn’t fix the problem either.

Any suggestions? I’ve never had a PC that I couldn’t get to run FL before.