Slitherine

1) The buttons on the menu are all blank, just like in the demo.

2) My second CD is bad. It puked out with a read error, and wiping it with a soft cloth didn't help, neither did the usual rinse-in-warm-water trick.

I finally gave up and hit cancel, and the game made noises like it finished the install. And it runs, so far.

BUT, I do not trust the CD, and I'm not entirely convinced that I got a clean, complete install.

For those reasons, I am requesting a replacement CD #2.

In pursuit of the blank buttons issue, here's some system info-

Windows 98 OS2.1 (This is the final version of 98SE)
512M system RAM
Nvidia 5500 256M (using latest drivers from NVidia website)
DirectX v9.0c (DXDiag reports no problems found)
Audigy2 Sound

I'll assume that you are fully up to date with all the W98 updates and so on. The missing text on the menu is very odd, as even if the font is missing, it should simply display it in an ugly system font.

Have you tried to explore the CD2 in windows? Does it read at all? There are Installshield bugs which can mean it can complain about the wrong disk in the drive, but you say you are seeing read error messages?

It might be worth trying an install on a different machine to see if that works.

Cheers

Pip

Yes, I have all the winupdate stuff

Yes, I can browse the #2 CD, although it doesn't autorun, and double-clicking on the SliAuto.exe file has no effect.

Yes, it was a definite read error, I got the windows blue screen saying "Please insert CD number blah blah or press escape to cancel"

Also, the game crashes every time I exit it, requiring a reboot before I can run it again. And it does the same if I try to Alt-Tab out, even when my desktop resolution and color depth as set to the same as the game.

Oh, and I do not have access to a second machine to try an install on. Besides, that would be a license violation, wouldn't it?

I had this exact same problem. My solution was to run a debugger, then disable all non-neccasary applications running in background, and then install, taking a long tinme between each action. I also made sure to uninstall the old files and to delete the directory.

Have you tried reinstalling? Win98 had terrible CD controls & often blue screened for no reason.

Which language are you playing in? The 2nd CD is for foreign language files & so if you're playing in English you should have no problems even without the 2nd CD, though the install process requires it to go through its hoops.

In am afraid to try a re-install. At present the game at least works, after a fashion.

If I try a re-install, and it pukes, I no longer have a working copy of the game, and that would make me very sad.

I'm playing in English, of course! I'm from California, remember?






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You could make a copy of the game dir & then uninstall/reinstall. Then if it fails you still have a copy that works.

The only other option is to return the full box, manual & both CD's and get a replacement. We are not able to replace individual parts as we have to buy the boxes in ourselves at ??11 a unit from Black Bean, so cant aford to canabilse one to send you a replacement CD.

If you want you could try copying the entire contents of the CD to your HD just to test if it is all reading properly. If it does, then you'll know the disk is ok. I have a feeling that it's not a bad CD but some odd compatibility issue with the CD drive.

That would be my guess too. You might even be able to copy all the files from the CDs into a dir and then install from there - I haven't tried it but it might work?

Cheers

Pip

It's a Toshiba CD drive, guys. Not some computer show cheapie

But I'll try that stuff and see.

Wierdly it is often the higher end drives that cause problems. We are not sure why. It's the same with DVD players, the more generic the better they seem to be at playing flakey disks...

Cheers

Pip

OK, holidays and holiday overtime finally behind me, and had a week to rest up, I finally attacked this last night.

Here's what I did -

1. Copied the CD #2 to my harddrive. (No errors encountered)

2. Copied the CD #1 to my harddrive.

3. Made a backup of my entire savegames directory

4. Uninstalled Legion Arena.

5. Manually deleted the Legion Arena directory.

6. Re-installed Legion Arena from the harddrive (see 1 and 2 above) rather than the CD's. No errors were encountered during the install process.

Results -

A. Menu buttons still blank.

B. Game still crashes on exit, every time.

C. Game still locks up the whole system when I try to Alt-Tab out.

This is a small guess, and tbh i dont know much about this aspect at all.....but could the .SAS files in the data directory be a bit...iffy.....as from what i can gather they control the loader....

graecum est, non posit legere

If it crashes when you try to ALT-TAB then my guess is a driver problem, but you say you are using the most up to date drivers... Hmmm. It could be a Windows98 issue. We do test on 98, but the drivers may not be quite so robust on older versions of Windows.

The text thing is really very very odd though. As we say, the only other time we have ever seen it it was a definitive driver problem.

Sorry I can't help more!

Cheers

Pip

Not to worry, Pip. I cannot reasonably expect anybody to fully support Win98 at this late date. Those of us who persist in using it, even with newer hardware, just have to accept this.

And let's be clear, none of these are game-breaking issues. I am still playing the game and having a hell of a good time with it. These are just minor, annoyance level issues.

So, all in all, not any major problem, and I freely admit you guys were right about the CD #2. It wasn't bad after all.