BuckoA51: Cutscenes problem

[6828274872043BuckoA51]

Can anyone help me I cannot get cutscenes to play at all, I did regsvr32 "G:\Games\System Shock 2\LGVID.AX" and that was successful, I've got FFDShow installed and I can play the cutscenes outside of the game using Zoom Player and it says it's playing with FFDShow just fine, Windows Media Player just plays them with audio and no video, but in game cutscenes just automatically skip. I'm on Windows 7 64 bit.

[6828274872477voodoo47]

if you did everything what is suggested here, then you are probably out of luck.

[6828274872630BuckoA51]

Yeah I tried everything. Damn it, this is the first old game I've not got fully working and it was the one I wanted to get working most.

[68282748728dfvoodoo47]

Windows Media Player just plays them with audio and no video

this confirms that something is not right. have you tried cccp?

[68282748729e0BuckoA51]

No I've got the codec packs installed that Zoom Player recommends. WMP12 doesn't use FFDShow though, so that could explain that particular problem.

[6828274872b0fvoodoo47]

zoom player does not know much about system shock, I would imagine. basically, what you should try to do is: install ffd, and get rid of everything that conflicts with it (this usually translates into wiping all players, codec packs, divx and similar from your system, and installing either cccp or klite). this may, or may not help - currently, the cutscenes are the bane of the dark engine, and some people are simply unable to get them working.

there is no such thing as perfection in this world.

[6828274872c0fBuckoA51]

Yeah Zoom Player comes with it's own recommended codecs that includes FFDShow. I don't want to mess with that (I prefer it to cccp or klite) but I will try what you say on a test installation of Windows 7 when I get chance and report back.

[6828274872d1fBuckoA51]

Yep you're right, it's some sort of codec conflict. If I do regsvr32 "%windir%\sysWOW64\ir50_32.dll" on my completely clean Windows 7 test installation (no FFDShow or anything installed) I can see videos in the game and play them in Media Player 12. I'll keep looking into this and post back if I figure out an easy way to fix it on my main installation.

[6828274872e46BuckoA51]

Well I can confirm that Zoom Player is not the cause of the conflict. I installed Zoom on my fresh test installation of Win 7 and let it download and install all its recommended codecs. Videos played just fine afterwards. At this point I can only conclude its some other program which broke part of the media playback to do with indeo on my main install of Windows 7.

Oh also, to reiterate, the game /must/ be run as administrator in order to view cutscenes, no idea why but it must.

[6828274872f30voodoo47]

yes, you have to run the game as admin under vista/win7, it's a know issue/fact.

[6828274873068BuckoA51]

In the troubleshooting guide for video playback, it says, regarding FFDShow " Make sure to select the correct version for your OS type (32bit/64bit)."

However, on the FFDShow download page it says "Please note: The 64-bit version requires a 64-bit-capable media player. If in doubt, the 32-bit release is recommended instead."

From this I can conclude that since System Shock 2 isn't a 64 bit program, that using the 64 bit version of FFDShow is never going to work. I recommend changing the guide to advise all users to download the 32 bit version instead.