[Henke]

Is there any way to get this bloody game to work??? I've downloaded the latest official and unofficial patches but I still get a "runtime error" as soon as I try to start it. I still have XP for crying out loud. Any ideas?

[LimpingFish]

Not that it's much help, but it ran fine for me in XP. Are you service packed up?

I presume it's the retail original, and not the Steam download version.

1.2 is the only official patch, and has to be installed before any unofficial ones. Other than that, all I can think of is a corrupted .exe file, or missing .dll files. Sorry.

[Henke]

Yes it's the retail version and I installed patch 1.2 before 4.6.

My neighbour has it too and it works fine for him. I got the game from another friend who wanted to get rid of his old games. Does it have some kind of stupid copy protection which makes it impossible to install the game on more then one computer (or something similair)?

[Ninja Dodo]

I bought it years before I actually got a chance to play it. It would start up but for some reason refused to show any visuals even with the official patch. I never got rid of it though and eventually tried it again. It took a new computer and monitor to get it to show. Didn't use the community patches the first time I played it, but yeah it's not the easiest game to get running.

My go to solution with gaming problems is updating graphics drivers, but since it's an old game that's not likely to be it... Still, may be worth a try.

[LimpingFish]

No, it doesn't have a copy protection as far as I know. I don't think it's technically possible for a ordinary CD-ROM to detect how many computers it's been installed on anyhow.

An immediate runtime error when you try to run the .exe file is, like I said, usually down to a corrupt .exe file or .dll conflict.

Bloodlines is a notoriously broken game, when it comes to technical glitches, but there's a number of things you can try:

1. Apparently, if your video card isn't made by nVidia or ATI, or a variant of such, the game can refuse to start at all. So check out you GFX card first.

2. A Python reg entry, which may or may not exist in your systems registry, can cause an access violation error. There's a registry fix here, but I take no responsibility for any errors that may result from using it.

3. You can use a modified (ie. a NoCD/FixedEXE crack) version of Vampire.exe and Vampire.dll. Can't link here, but Google, etc, etc. Uninstall the game, reinstall, and apply the 1.2 update. Then overwrite those files with the cracked versions.

4. Certain programs running in the background can cause Vampire.exe to crash. These include firewalls, such as ZoneAlarm, and anti-virus software. So disable anything like that.

Like I said, the game is glitchy beyond belief, and it could be any of the above, or none, or a combination of factors.

[starla9]

I feel your pain. I've had the game for a couple years but have never been able to make it start up. I'd just gotten a brand-new laptop with a nice nvidia card, but that certainly didn't make a difference. Activision couldn't help me, eventually told me I should check my dvd-rom for incompatibility. It's a shame the game is so messed up, I really would like to play it.

[ShowlinFunk]

I got this game a while back and tried to install it on my laptop. It installs fine, I patch it up, but when I go to play it...it immediately boots me back to my desktop. No errors, no text, no nothing.

Except for an error dump that I found on my hard drive. I noticed that it said something about (vector? pixel? I forget which) shading, and I remembered that my laptop didn't support it (tried to install Oblivion, which has those shaders, and it wouldn't work), which is why it would constantly crash out. I installed it on my desktop, and lo and behold, instant playtime.

Shame you can't play it, though- that ghost hotel area is the scariest thing I've played through in a long time. Had to save it off and play during the day.

[mgeorge]

I personally never had a problem with the game, although you need a least a gig of ram to get it to run decently, however you can check out this link to Planetvampire. It has many things you can try on the tech side. You really should make the effort to get it running as in my opinion it's one of best PC games ever made. It's funny, scary, and has the best cast of NPC's I've ever seen in any game with a great story as well.

http://forumplanet.gamespy.com/blood...port/b50391/p1

[Henke]

I got an nVidia card Geforce 6800 GS so that shouldn't be a problem. I haven't got much ram though but the game should at least start.

I had no idea this game was so buggy. I considered myself one of the unlucky few to have problems with it but apparently I should be lucky to at least get an error message when it crashes.

I will check out the forum, thanks for the link.

[LimpingFish]

The fact that it uses a fairly early version of the Source engine is probably why people get a lot of performance-related issues.

Just out of curiosity, I installed Bloodlines again (with official/unoffical patches),and applied the resolution fix, which adds much higher resolutions to the video options, so I could run it at 1680x1050.

I'm running Vista on a quad-core 6600, 4GB of ram, and a 512mb 8800GT.

The game runs fine, but still has framerate issues, and glitching textures/models/etc.

Bloodlines just wasn't finished when it hit stores.

[tormented.soul]

I also have a error it starts up with the logo then it says loading then the screen flashes and the screen goes wooo crazy then it comes up with "engine error - unable to set mode"

I've tried everything on my computer, can someone please help! I really wanna play!

Grr...

[Ninja Dodo]

The problem doesn't sound familiar but I'd try both the official and unofficial patches and an update to your graphics drivers...

[extentofmysin]

How can you tell what version of the game you have? The readme file with my game when installed does say version 1.0, although it wasnt bought that long ago, so is probably one of the last re-releases. It runs fine in xp with sp2 and even in vista without any updates at all

[kadji-kun]

Originally Posted by LimpingFish

The fact that it uses a fairly early version of the Source engine is probably why people get a lot of performance-related issues.

Just out of curiosity, I installed Bloodlines again (with official/unoffical patches),and applied the resolution fix, which adds much higher resolutions to the video options, so I could run it at 1680x1050.

I'm running Vista on a quad-core 6600, 4GB of ram, and a 512mb 8800GT.

The game runs fine, but still has framerate issues, and glitching textures/models/etc.

Bloodlines just wasn't finished when it hit stores.

The graphic glitches occur because you have 4gigs of ram. I led a research on this problem and found an answer. Basically you need to force the game to use 2gigs.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...d.php?t=615524

[VonGlower]

I recently spent an entire night at my friend's house trying to get this game (or should I say enormous bug) to work. It turned out Daemon Tools was causing problems: any version after 4.10.0218 caused a system crash. Also, the no-cd would crash the game after character generation.

I hope you'll get the game running. It may take a while, but it's totally worth it.

[gurogami]

I you have a non-english version of Windows installed on your computer, the solution to your problem may be as simple as creating a folder called "Program Files" on one of your drives (like D:/Program Files) and installing the game therein.

[TessaV]

For what it's worth, I'd make sure that you have the most recent unofficial patch installed. For me, the unofficial patches were essential to get the game running. Also, I'd recommend a visit to planetvampire.com, as they have LOTS of resources and forums dedicated to this game and how to fix it.

I hope you get to play it; when I did finally get it to run on my PC, I loved it.

[Ninja Dodo]

Yep, definitely worth the hassle. And I'll second playing with the community patch. Lots of essential fixes and as many optional ones.

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php

It's a shame they never opened up the Vampire version of Hammer. Some Bloodlines mods would've been sweet.