[solved] EoSD crashes, buggy (Windows 7)

[dosboot]

Hi, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is crashing on my computer, and experiencing buggy behavior after playing for a few levels:

1. The game always crashes after beating the final boss (immediately after clearing the spell card).
2. When using the translation patch, after a few stages I'll notice that text is appearing in the wrong places.  That is to say all the dialogue text, BGM title text, and spell card title text become permuted and start appearing on screen in the spots where the others should be.  I can't tell if it also happens in the untranslated .exe, but the other crashing/bugs I'm experiencing do.
3. The music often breaks after stage 4 or so.  Sometimes it will come back for boss music.  Sometimes it will loop the first few seconds.  Once I also had most of the sound effects stop working, except like the bomb sound effect and grazing sound effect.  The music problem happens in midi mode too.
4. The game may crash when starting a new level.

"crashing" in this context always means the game suddenly exits to the desktop.  No error message pops up that I can see, and my OS seems unaffected.

Problem 2 stands out to me because it doesn't seem like that should happen with sound/graphic driver problems.  However the game still crashes using the untranslated program too.

How I am attempting to play:
-----------------------------------------
-running the translated th06e.exe
-running the untranslated .exe using AppLocale
-renaming the translated program th06e.exe to the original name so it can run with the vsync patch, and running vpatch.exe through AppLocale

all of these are running in full screen.

Compatibility fixes I've tried:
----------------------------------------
-disabling Aero themes in control panel + running in compatibility mode for (Windows XP SP 2 or Windows 2000) + running th06e.exe as adminstrator.  I've also tried with all compatibility options checked (256 colors, 640x480 resolution, disable desktop composition, disable visual themes, disable high DPI scaling)

Operating System:       Windows 7, 64 bit
Direct X:       using dxdiag.exe it says I have DirectX 11 installed.  I've found old microsoft links in the shrinemaiden support forums pointing to the latest version of DirectX 9.  Installing those however tells me my DirectX is already up to date.

Install method (pretty sure it installed 100% correctly):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I installed from the CD using AppLocale run as adminstrator, then disabled the read only property on all the files it installed.  I applied the 1.02h patch, and then applied the th06_english_patch_0.8.exe both using AppLocale as admin.  My CD had version 1.02f printed on the cover, and trying to apply the 1.02f patch first seemed not to work.

In trying to fix the problem I also tried installing without AppLocale: I changed my system locale to Japanese, restarted my computer, reinstalled from scratch without AppLocale, and likewise also ran the untranslated game with my system locale in Japanese.  The problems still occurred, which was not too surprising because the two installations (AppLocale install and system locale install) were bit-by-bit identical.

Other notes:
------------------
I can confirm that Perfect Cherry Blossom, Imperishable Night and Shoot the Bullet all work fine on my computer (without using any compatibility options, without disabling Aero, etc.)

[dosboot]

More random experimenting has found a promising solution: running th06e.exe with compatibility mode set to Windows 95 or Windows 98 (and no other fixes) avoids any crashes and bugs, I think.

Actually, I've been reading that this is exactly what another patched Japanese game, Ys 1&2 complete, has needed to run on Windows 7 (and again, that game worked just fine on Windows XP).  That's some amazing operating system you got there, Microsoft.

I wonder why this hasn't been needed for other people though on our boards.  Perhaps the DirectX 9 backwards compatibility has gone to shit with DirectX 11, and this is forcing the game to use an even older DirectX?

[Agent of the BSoD]

Nah, the first 4 Windows main series games use DirectX 8. The DirectX diagnostic tool only tells you the latest version of DirectX you have, and should say DirectX 11 in Windows 7, like yours does.

That's an interesting solution to getting EoSD to run though. I don't have to do it that way. In fact, I don't have anything checked in the compatibility tab or any compatibility mode, but I do have my system in a non-aero mode (more speed).

Have you ever installed a DirectX update before? Because if you haven't, and the installers aren't working, there could be an issue elsewhere and it's always a good idea to keep DirectX updated.

[dosboot]

Nah, the first 4 Windows main series games use DirectX 8. The DirectX diagnostic tool only tells you the latest version of DirectX you have, and should say DirectX 11 in Windows 7, like yours does.

That's an interesting solution to getting EoSD to run though. I don't have to do it that way. In fact, I don't have anything checked in the compatibility tab or any compatibility mode, but I do have my system in a non-aero mode (more speed).

Have you ever installed a DirectX update before? Because if you haven't, and the installers aren't working, there could be an issue elsewhere and it's always a good idea to keep DirectX updated.

No, this is a new install of Windows 7 and not much has been updated.  If by installers you mean the DirectX installers then the only one I tried was the most recent DirectX 9 installer.  It "works" but the installer thinks there is nothing to update - which may be correct for all I know.

Is there any way to figure out what older versions of DirectX are installed?  I understand that each DirectX version includes all the previous versions, but I couldn't figure out a way to get some comforting proof that DirectX 8.73 (or whatever that I need) was present.  I thought about uninstalling DirectX 11, installing the latest version of DirectX 8 or 9, then installing DirectX 11 to "make sure" it was all there, but apparently you can't uninstall DirectX 11 which has been preinstalled with Windows 7.

I'll take your suggestion to update DirectX, but its going to be just as confusing if that fixes it as one would think the legacy versions would be the same in every update.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Yeah, it is weird. There isn't a way to find out versions of DirectX that I know of, but we can at least try to make the installer work. I doubt that a fresh copy of Win7 has it updated.

So open up the registry editor (regedit in the start menu text box) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft, and click on the folder called DirectX. Take a screenshot of what is shown there so we can see if there's something inconsistent (this happened on my machine with a new copy of Win7 some time back which prevented me from installing DirectX updates at all) Don't modify anything yet, messing around in here is a bad idea if you don't know what you are doing.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and you can't simply uninstall DirectX, as it's an integral part of Windows. Windows 7 is even more pickier about this than past versions.

[dosboot]

Code: [Select]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectX]
"InstalledVersion"=hex:00,00,00,09,00,00,00,00
"Version"="4.09.00.0904"
"SDKVersion"="9.29.1962.0"

[Agent of the BSoD]

Hmm, that's almost what I have here too. The entries are the same, but one is missing. Though from past experience with this, this one entry won't change anything. Maybe it somehow IS already up to date.

The one you're missing is a REG_DWORD called "InstallMDX" with a value of 1. (which will show "0x00000001 (1)". Try adding that into that folder and see if the installer does anything differently. (run it as administrator too because sometimes that changes stuff) If not, then I guess you are up to date, which I find odd.

[dosboot]

Well, installing all windows updates didn't fix the crashing without Win 98 compatibility mode.  And with or without using that registry technique, the directX web setup installer (dxwebsetup.exe) still says that a "newer or equivalent" version is already installed.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Bah, the web installer. Never liked that one, it gives out the most problems for people. I just stick with the offline installers, they're generally more reliable. (GJ Microsoft!) May or may not work for you that way but you can try it if you want. Other than that, I would assume that somehow your DirectX is updated, and then I don't know what the problem is at that point for why you have to run EoSD in compatibility mode. Least you can get it working normally anyway.