Windows 7 support for VP3

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Apollon
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Apollon »

Thanks for the prompt reply. I've already tried 95% of the things both of you suggested. I've tried all compatability modes ranging from Windows 98 till Vista SP2 - made no difference.
I've tried reinstalling the game at least 4 times into different folders, and fully wiping the registry and hidden/system folders of all VP3, Celeris, etc' traces before doing the reinstall.

@Bagpuss: I dont need to go to registry to disable sound effects - as I mentioned, problem happens close to 50% of the time, but not always - sometimes I can go 2 days playing the game without any problem. So I can disable the sound from within the game just fine. I've had "Music and Room" sound effects set to 0 since forever, and now I've set "Pool sound effects" to 0 as well. However, that does not have any effect on clicking the choices on the Main Menu and other sub-menus - VP3 still produces sound every time selection is made, despite all sounds being disabled - try it.
I doubt I'll be reinstalling All of my audio drivers like you suggest - it's a lot more complicated then you think. First of all, I have high degree of confidence my sound hardware and drivers are not the issue, based on the many months of troubleshooting this, as well as years of personal experience as software engineer and technical support analyst. Secondly, I have a complicated hardware setup of Logitech Z-5500 DTS True Sound system being connected to my sound blaster and it took me many many hours to set up things right, such as configuring all the multimedia players and video encoders and codecs I use to encode video to properly channel the audio through 5.1 speaker system in DTS sound. Configuring SPDIF output settings, and othe optical outputs, and going through dozens of the internal audio settings in sonic foundry sound forge, virtual dub, nandub, their codecs and all video players isnt easy and most of those settings will be wiped if I completely uninstall all audio hardware. I dont use any third party audio managers.

I think the problem has to do with VP3 not sharing the resources properly when taking and passing back control to Windows 7. Every time VP3 starts it disables desktop composition and takes control away from DWM - Desktop Window Manager.
When VP3 runs Event Viewer produces Application log events such as this: "The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was disabled by a running application" and preceeding log entry: "A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (Virtual Pool 3)"

I've also noticed after Flash 10.1 crashes in one of my browsers (shockwave plugin) which happens intermittantly, VP3 hangs every single time. Same symptoms - program launches and then clicking anything on Main Menu causes the freeze.

@vpeer If debug version is a wild goose chase then I'm out of ideas on how to proceed here, and I'll say this again - I dont think the problem is specific to my computer and I'm surprised to see a couple of people reported VP3 runs fine on their Win 7 system. Although I do think the report from the person who runs win 7 32bit is irrelevant - there is a huge difference between than and my win7 x64.

I've tried shutting everything but VP3 down when the problem occurs - had no effect. The only thing that helps is reboot. Even log off/log on doesnt work.
There was no AudioClientRpc service running on several other occasions when the game froze - i double checked the list of running services every time. I think that particulat VP3 hang occuring at the same time as problem with that audio service is coincidence. In fact I think I know what happaned - I have multiple monitor system and I think I may have been playing a music video or a song in one of my players on the other monitor. When that happens VP3 either cant play sound or doesnt allow sound in the other application.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Bagpuss »

Hi,

I too am a software engineer/developer of 25 years vintage and one thing I have learned over many years is always diagnose every component/scenario when resolving a software issue and don't allow the fact it's a major pain in the ass to do so to get in the way. Granted, if I were in your position I would be very loathed to start over. Alternatively, are you in a position to perhaps create another Windows 7 partition on your HDD? If you did that (with any external audio kit disconnected) and tested W7 out-of-the-box with VP3 - and it works - you could then introduce your other components one at a time until the issue resurfaces. Just a thought and possibly less painful.

The very fact you've got a complicated audio setup is even more reason to do it. Do it one component at a time and it won't be so bad. And have plenty of coffee to hand :coffee2:

Given I've never had VP3 hang in this manner on my Windows 7 64-bit system (and I play a lot) is also making your argument suggesting it's a VP3 vs Windows 7 issue a little tenuous. I have a simple setup in comparison - just the on-board Realtek HD chipset and ATI Radeon HD GPU for VP3 to work with.

From memory, the Dell BIOS should have an option in the BIOS to disable the onboard sound controller - that's at least worth a shot and quite painless.

Could you post the Event Viewer logs for an instance when the AudioClientRPC isn't mentioned? Perhaps vpeer could also offer more detail on how VP3 handles audio.

It may be worth mentioning that the only issue I've had with VP3 (which was true of Vista too) was that it is hopeless when starting on a monitor of a lower resolution than the one it was last played on (e.g. starting it up on the laptop after playing it on my 1080p HD TV). It should be intelligent enough to either downscale the resolution if not available or start in safe mode.

I feel your frustration and can only apologise if the vague (some would say scatter gun) nature of the advice thus far is adding to that - but I sincerely hope you get to the bottom of this.

Bagpuss
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Apollon
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Apollon »

I appreciate the advise. I'm in no position to screw around with my system by installing another copy of Winblows on the same hard drive, which would modify boot record, duplicate system and documents folders, create extra user profiles etc'. Right now this is my primary and only computer and it has waaaaaay too much valuable info on it to take such a risk.
I'm also moving in 3 days, so a bit busy to be spending time on this. Once i've moved I'll do more digging and post some Event Viewer logs per your request.
Oh and by the way - I'll be disconnecting all the external audio hardware and using only on-board chip for sound, once I've moved.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Bagpuss »

Dual booting via a second partition on your HDD will not duplicate anything on your current W7 installation. You'll just get two versions to choose from (as long as boot.ini is updated) on booting the machine. But I FULLY understand your caution if you've not done this before - creating partitions isn't a wise idea if you have no backups - I'd get that done before moving house and keep separate from laptop (but I'm paranoid!).

Anyway, good luck with the move...

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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by vpeer »

I think the uninstall/re-install is worth trying. Sounds dumb but this is Windows and that is known to correct problems sometimes.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Apollon »

Bagpuss wrote:Dual booting via a second partition on your HDD will not duplicate anything on your current W7 installation. You'll just get two versions to choose from (as long as boot.ini is updated) on booting the machine. But I FULLY understand your caution if you've not done this before - creating partitions isn't a wise idea if you have no backups - I'd get that done before moving house and keep separate from laptop (but I'm paranoid!).

Anyway, good luck with the move...

Bagpuss

Second partition? I got like 7 heavily utilized partitions on my hard drive and I can operate several partition managers such as Norton Partition Magic, Acronis, Paragon with my eyes closed...I've done literally thousands of multiboot installations and I've ran up to 5-6 different OS on my system before. I have very good idea about what you're suggesting. boot.ini is only a residual effect to boot sectors modification, seen from Windows - it is by far not the only thing that gets modified. Hard Drive's MBR will be modded, as well as as HDD superblock at the beginning of NTFS tables...

Doing second installation is pointless for me, since I wont be able to ditch this copy of Windows anyway - waaaay too much stuff installed and configured to redo everything over 1 game. It's a 2 week long project.

@vpeer As I mentioned in 3 days all the external audio hardware will be removed and once it's done I might uninstall and reinstall that integrated on-board sound card, as you guys keep suggesting. I want to put this to rest too, so you could see my VP3 issues got nothing to do with sound hardware or drivers.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by vpeer »

I don't blame you for not wanting dual boot, pain in the ass just for VP3.

I'm hoping the other sound chip does the trick. I'm sure this has something to do with the installation or the drivers. I'm saying this because most people can run on W7 and the people that had problems were almost all driver problems.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Bagpuss »

Fair enough - the second installation idea is just to allow you to have another way of identifying where the issue is without pulling apart your current install. If you don't want to do it, that's totally your call. But it would have been interesting to see whether VP3 would have run on a clean install of W7 64-bit on your rig. It did on mine (one of the first things I installed).

It may well be true that VP3 uses out-dated libraries and calls etc but, as vpeer says, many people are running it on 64-bit W7 systems fine - so there's something specific about your setup it doesn't like and the usual culprit is drivers. If not and it is, as you suggest, a resource management issue between W7 and VP3, there must still be a reason why this is only fatal on a few setups and not a fundamental bug.

To clarify the onboard audio thing - I'd firstly disable it in the BIOS altogether (if available) rather then uninstall/reinstall. Windows won't bother with it then and you'll at least have crossed off one possible cause.

You could argue VP3 DL should be certified W7 compatible but that's unlikely to happen with VP4 in development, given it works on many W7 systems happily and is not mass market at this time of its life.

Oh well, it's an interesting thread and hopefully a happy ending is not too far away.

Bagpuss

P.S. I've only got your thread to rely on when it comes to troubleshooting so please don't take it personally if I (or anyone else) suggests something you've either tried, considered or discounted - and it sounds like you've tried most things!
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freeze low fps windwos 7 nvidia drivers

Post by Agassi »

My game is freezing little bit. After installing Windows 7 SP1 x64 the game behaved itself normally - as on Windows XP.

After installing latest Nvidia drivers for 260GTX my game started to freeze little bit. Lools like FPS is not 60, but about 40-50.

Have you got this problem? Thank you for the help.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by 9balldotcom »

First thing you do is go back to the previous driver to see if that fixes it.
If it does then Id leave it alone and not bother with the update for now till another driver is released and then see if that causes the same issue.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by Agassi »

9balldotcom wrote:First thing you do is go back to the previous driver to see if that fixes it.
If it does then Id leave it alone and not bother with the update for now till another driver is released and then see if that causes the same issue.
Problem fixed simply by reinstalling VP3. Funny, yes...
But one more problem lasted - a hitting cueball sound problem. I'll report it in this topic.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

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Agassi wrote:Problem fixed simply by reinstalling VP3.
The problem is back after rebooting windows lol.

Added later: Uninstalling Nvidia drivers did nothing. Freezing/low fps problem exists. Strange..

Added more later: It's very strange but this bug is only in offline mode. Playing online everthyng works perfect as on WinXP.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by chalkdestick »

ive just returned to vp. i was an avid player a few years back with vp2 and also 3, but abandoned playing after i got a machine that didnt play the game smoothly. i now have vp DL. works beautfully on my laptop and main pc which are both 64bit win 7 machines. however there is a problem. every option works except the 'aim path' on/off toggle. regardless of which setting i choose i still get the aim path showing on the game.

Is there an 'ini file i can edit?

any help appreciated. its just too easy with the aim path on. ](*,)
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by vpeer »

If you are playing a career on easy the Garage will have an aim line and ghost ball and the other rooms have just the ghost ball. If you play any other difficulty level, there is no aim line.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by chalkdestick »

thanks for prompt reply.

I dont play in career mode. always in quick play mode. usually snooker in lochlomond against a computer player. the problem is that the 'aim path' lines always show. i delete the red tick on the chalk for that option but when i return to the game they are still there.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

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Try playing quick play and turn the training aids to none and see if it works.
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Re: Windows 7 support for VP3

Post by chalkdestick »

:3some: thats it. Sorted. Thank you very very much. \:D/ \:D/ \:D/
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