Hey all,

Newbie to the whole System Shock universe. Bought the GOG version, installed it, and played for a bit. I saved, exited out, and now cannot get it to run again.

Specs of possible relevance; I am running Windows 7 64-bit, on a Core 2 Duo @2GHz, with 4GB RAM. Video is provided by an ATi Radeon X2300 128MB (really an X1300 in a mobile package), running the latest Mobility Modded drivers (I believe they are 10.2).

I've uninstalled, reinstalled, tried with and without SS2Tool 5.0, tried running Shock2.exe, and GOGs' start.exe with and without admin rights, with and without Compatability modes for Win98, XP SP3. Attempted to get both Rundll32.exe and Shock2.exe to use just Core 0 via Task Manager. I've even waited about a minute before killing said processes.

Ah, and this is without mods. I did try to add the SHTUP mod, after saving and exiting out that first time. No dice.

Any questions or ideas, please feel free!

Did you by any chance change the resolution of the game when you ran it the first time?

A 128mb video card is really not very capable by any modern standard.

Where are you installing it? Make sure that you don't install it in 'program files', since that can screw up many of these older games. I'd suggest you try an uninstall/reinstall into a different directory, something right off the root. (Like C:/ss2) and see how that goes. After you launch the game, if it works, do NOT change any settings. Just launch the game, get to the main menu, then exit out. Then try to enter the game again and see if you can. If you can, then it might be an option you are changing that is causing it. If you can't, then it might be video related. Try that and see what happens.

try to be more specific with "can't get it to run" does it crash? not launch at all? anyway, your shock2.log and crash.dmp (if available) would be helpful - zip them, upload somewhere (sendspace etc), and share the link.

Damn you GOG! I never got notified of any replies to this thread, for whatever reason...

Anyway, following the advice in a TechNet discussion, I learned the trick that got this going for me.

Run Shock2.exe (shortcut works for me), let it run for a few seconds (nothing shows up), then use Task Manager to kill the Shock2.exe, while leaving the rundll32.exe running, and run Shock2.exe again, it will start up, and you can use Task Manager to kill the now-useless rundll32.exe.

I don't know why this is such an involved process, but it works for me at the moment.

Perhaps this is what the .exe is supposed to be there to help work around?

http://www.gog.com/forum/system_shock_2/game_not_launching_correctly/post3

It sounds like it does something similar with restarting the Shock2.exe, but no idea why it wouldn't have worked for you if that was true.


Edit: Perhaps try running chrome browser before the start.exe :P

In a hand-me-down laptop, I am lucky to have a dedicated video card. But thanks for the condescension on using it for such an old game!

It wasn't my intention to condescend at all, so apologies if that's how it came across.

I am pretty sure the game in it's current state requires more horsepower to run than when it originally was released though, that's all.

no - NewDark is better optimized, and actually faster than old Dark. depending on the resolution, amount of polys on the screen etc, it can be significantly faster, as much as two times.

the minimum system requirements are higher though, because of the OS requirement (windows2000 or newer) and the gpu requirement (dx9 card to run in the optimized dx9 mode), but on any machine that meets those requirements, NewDark should produce equivalent, or better framerates than old Dark.

Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I had this problem with other games. I don't believe it's related to System Shock, rather to windows itself. I have Win7 64bit on my Lenovo. The problem solved itself though. Don't know how and what caused it.

Just want to say that this problem still exists, and the solution that voodoo47 offered seems to have worked.

However, does anyone know how to fix this problem without renaming the exe?