I'm having difficulty getting Vendetta to load. Every time I start the game it crashes before arriving at the login screen with a "vendetta.rlb has stopped working" crash note from Windows. I'm running Windows 7 x64 and an ATI Radeon 4870x2 w/ Catalyst 10.4 drivers. I've tried reinstalling both Vendetta and the Cat 10.4s. Any ideas what could be causing this? There was a time when I could run Vendetta just fine, not too long ago and I'm not sure what changed. Perhaps upgrading from Catalyst 10.3a to 10.4? The game seems to patch and verify fine. Thanks.

Errors.log as follows
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Windows 6.01.7600 (platform 2)
Wed May 19 13:41:52 2010
archive returned 0
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Found driver: "Windows Sound (WAV) driver". Type 1, Version 8.1. Load @0x10000000
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Instantiate address: 10002450
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Found driver: "DirectX8.1 GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 82.1. Load @0x02020000
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Instantiate address: 02023790
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Found driver: "DirectX9 GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 82.0. Load @0x02b50000
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Instantiate address: 02B53AD0
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Found driver: "OpenGL Reference GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 82.0. Load @0x002a0000
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Instantiate address: 002B4540
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Found driver: "Vista Sound driver". Type 1, Version 8.0. Load @0x008a0000
[05/19/10 13:41:52] Instantiate address: 008A1C2D

Can you try reverting to your prior ATI driver, just to eliminate the driver as a possibility?

If it is the new driver version, we can raise an alarm with ATI and work with them on debugging it.

Understood and thank you for your reply. I'll try it both against the 10.4a Preview driver and should that not work, try the 10.3b Preview as well. Conspicuously, it is almost the end of May and there's no 10.5 driver out yet.

Edit:

After trying both 10.4a and 10.3b, there is no change. I still get the vendetta.rlb crash immediately upon load. I thought that perhaps the last I was able to play was using a 10.3 driver of some sort, but it could have been 10.2 as well. Is there anything these I can try or report to see if there is an improvement? I'd very much like to be able to play again.

If you think it may be related to the driver version, it would be very helpful to test that (installing 10.2, or whatever version you last recall working). Driver related crashes are very challenging to work around, or even debug, so if you can find a clear transition case where it works vs doesn't-work on specific versions, that gives us something we can demonstrate to ATI.

When the game crashes, does the bug reporter pop up and ask you to submit? If so, please submit a crash report via the app, and put in your "ellipsys" name in the "Name" area, so we know to tie it to you (and this discussion).

If the bug reporter does not come up, please let us know.

What exact kind of video card or chipset are you using? Is it integrated or on a separate card? Laptop or desktop? Have you played any other graphically-intensive games lately? Has the ambient temperature of the room where you're using it changed recently?

I'll try 10.2, or even 9.12 if necessary.

When I crash, there's no popup for bug reporting. The only thing that pops up is the Windows 7 "Looking for a solution to..." crash report, so it seems the Vendetta reporter doesn't get to initialize.

My video card is a discrete, PCI-E 4870x2 2gb card. This is a "crossfire-on-a-card" model, and it did work flawlessly last time I was able to play. This is a desktop retail model, installed on a custom built desktop. I've played many other graphically intensive games, such a APB Beta, World of Warcraft, Global Agenda, Just Cause 2, Mount and Blade etc.... without error so I'm fairly sure it isn't bad or overheating hardware. The room temp has risen slightly, but I've manually increased my fanspeed just in case, and I don't seem to have problems with other titles.

Please let us know the outcome of your earlier driver testing. We don't have a 4870x2 here, we have 5870s and they have proven to play the game fine, but they only have single chips. Given that your card is a little unusual (crossfire-on-a-board setup) a weird special-case driver bug is not that farfetched.

Let us know what you find, and if 10.2 or 9.12 prove to work, then we'll get ahold of ATI immediately.

We'll also investigate the situation with our bug reporter on Windows 7.

i'm experiencing the asme thing the updator goes through as soon as i start the game i get a black screen the vo process seems to stop loading at about 12.768 megs
of ram every single time too

Windows 6.01.7600 (platform 2)
Wed May 26 19:00:11 2010
archive returned 0
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Found driver: "Windows Sound (WAV) driver". Type 1, Version 8.1. Load @0x10000000
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Instantiate address: 10002450
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Found driver: "DirectX8.1 GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 86.1. Load @0x02050000
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Instantiate address: 02053790
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Found driver: "DirectX9 GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 86.0. Load @0x021b0000
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Instantiate address: 021B3B10
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Found driver: "OpenGL Reference GKGL driver". Type 5, Version 86.0. Load @0x02270000
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Instantiate address: 022845A0
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Found driver: "Vista Sound driver". Type 1, Version 8.0. Load @0x020d0000
[05/26/10 19:00:45] Instantiate address: 020D1C2D

Wait NVM i guess my 2TB drive is dieing... shit

Ok then. Ignoring Spidey's post.

Let us know how that driver testing goes, Ellipsys.

I've yet to try 10.2 (the earliest version that I've run on this current variant of Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, I found. Prior to that, I was running on the Release Candidate, for my Windows needs).

However, I found some VERY interesting information that I'd like to test fully, but still think its worth reporting. I installed the brand new 10.5 drivers and tested them with and without the crossfire profiles that were installed separately. Both times, the very same crash. Same 1.8.127.1 game version. Until just now..

Updating my Nokia N900 (Maemo Linux!) phone required me to boot into Windows by disabling driver signing (Hitting F8 before boot, selecting the option) - it was said that the install may foul up otherwise. The 64 bit variants of Windows alone, since Vista have required digitally signed drivers and enforced them at the OS level.

Booting into my OS again, I got a peculiar popup telling me that the "Tages" driver has been disabled because it is known to foul up "this version of the operating system". Tages is a copy protection scheme, DRM used in protecting games. I didn't think much of it until...

Vendetta worked. Several times, load - no crash. Using the very same 10.5 driver that crashed before. I'm going to go back and try booting "normally" and enabling driver signing again but this could mean...

1. The Tages DRM system was some how fouling up Vendetta and my system, able to "See" it now that signing was disabled, disabled Tages.
2. Somehow, disabling driver signing itself allowed something in Vendetta to run.

Very, very interesting. I'll report back.

That's bizarre. Please let us know more as you figure it out. I've never heard of "Tages", what products use/include that?

i needed to reboot as well and it fixed it somehow i think the bug that i've had is related to this one, that or its just one awesome coincidence.