This stinks of Windows Defender or another antivirus interfering (in that case add exceptions for the relevant files and folders), or alternatively you are running things from Program Files (hence try to install things outside it).

A few new developments:

I have managed to get the game to run with Knossos (still not via GOG, and i don't have it in installed in program files) yesterday in the evening. Apparently an older installation of Knossos (both Freespace 2 Retail and MediaVPs) had placed a bunch of weird stuff in a lot of different appdata folders, which i all deleted. So stuff worked yesterday.

Today i launched it again, and again nothing works. Hit launch button, nothing happens at all. No idea what is going on.

I don't have any antivirus software beyond windows defender installed, and as far as i can tell windows defender isn't doing anything, or if it is, it isn't telling me. Where should i look to figure out if it is doing weird stuff?

Edit: So, apparently deleting all the appdata files and reinstalling Knossos makes the game launch again, but i kinda don't want to do that every time. I have no idea what is going on here.

Windows Defender is always doing things without telling, sometimes the simple act of scanning in real time blocks things even if the scan doesn't turn up positive.

Did you ever find a solution to this? I'm running into it now. It played fine at first, but now won't load. I've tried uninstalling everything, but nothing.

I too could use a reply

Same.

Not launching.

Yep, same issue.

I've tried various Compatibility modes and running as Admin. No luck.

Whether I try to Play through Galaxy, or use the .exe in the folder, it just won't open or load anything (visually anyways) and doesn't appear in the Task Manager either.

I will post here if I get any changes after fooling around with things.


errorlog.txt:

FS2 caused an Access Violation in module amdxn32.dll at 0023:60bd9b90.
Exception handler called in Freespace 2 Main Thread.
Error occurred at 2/9/2022 17:49:00.
E:\GAMES\Freespace 2\FS2.exe, run by GODSPEED7.
12 processor(s), type 586.
256 MBytes physical memory.
Write to location 0f001000 caused an access violation.

Same here.


FS2 caused an Access Violation in module amdxn32.dll at 0023:79390d70.
Exception handler called in Freespace 2 Main Thread.
Error occurred at 6/30/2022 19:14:04.

TLDR: Fixed my issues by installing the Freespace Open installation package on top of my Freespace 2 installation.

When attempting to start Freespace 2 on Windows 10 with an AMD RX5600 graphics card, the game would fail to start. In the Freespace 2 game folder, errorlog.txt showed the following:

FS2 caused an Access Violation in module amdxn32.dll at 0023:788e9b90.
Exception handler called in Freespace 2 Main Thread.
Error occurred at 8/16/2022 19:48:08.

From searching around, this is apparently a common issue for those with newer AMD graphics cards and Radeon drivers (>2018). Newer Radeon drivers apparently broke support for many DX9 games.

I was able to get it running by installing Freespce Open, which doesn't seem to have the same startup issues. It requires a valid Freespace 2 installation to run, but it broadens the compatibility of the game to work on more modern PCs.

1. Install Freespace 2 using the GOG installer. Note where the content is installed. (The installation folder can be found by selecting game in GOG, clicking Settings icon > Manage Installation > show folder)
2. Download the FSO installer jar (or .exe) at www dot fsoinstaller dot com, and run it (requires Java). When asked where to extract content, use the same installation folder that GoG used for Freespace 2.
3. When done, browse to the installation folder of Freespace 2 and run the relevant 'fs2_open_SSE2.exe' file.

Knossos has fixed the GOG installer extraction issue since your post, so you can install and use Knossos as normal.