Demo worked/retail doesnt

[Parapraxis]

Okay so I shelled out huge bucks for this game.. and i cant even get it to run at all....

I loved the demo and had no problems running it on my computer... then i get the retail version thats special edition shelling out big bucks for over night shipping too and i am psyched about it.... then it arrives i install it and then..... i spend all day trying to get the game to run.. uninstalling and reinstalling and installing on different hard drives and partitions and directories.. etc.. etc..

but nothing works. I was dumb to think since the demo worked and I had no problems ever with doom3 or quake 4 which i know at least quake 4 was a dvd version and i never had any problems.. I have no idea what to do... I have updated all my drivers to current things.. when i played the demo and odviously like I said the demo worked./// so i thought maybe my drivers got messed so i reverted to old ones and reinstalled all the new drivers again... after restarting my computer etc... still nothing, same thing happens and the game wont run and the exe just crashes... i reinstalled the demo to see if it still worked, and yep! it still ran!!!!

My error is one others have also stated.. but thing is with them it was because there graphics cards werent supported or etc... and this isnt the case for me since well....the demo runs. and my specs are fine 6800 nvidia not overclocked, 2.5 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, a pentium 4, i dont know what brand my hard drives are.. but one is fat32 and the other is ntfs neither worked trying to run prey one has 140 gigs left and the other has 40.. i have a dvdburner and a dvdrom.. honestly i have run out of ideas since i have gone through every problem on the forums here and nothing gets the game to run. And I dont think its my dvd drive since not once has there been a game dvd that hasnt worked and thats basically all i buy now.

i have tried to launch the game from the dvd & off my harddrive and either way the exe just automatically crashes and the game wont run. I have tried taking everything off the dvd and installing it that way even the setup files on the dvd.. I have tried to execute the game from run.. i have tried installing the game from run (commandprompt) I have tried installing from install new software in control panel... i have tried both my cd-drives which are both dvd drives but one is a burner but even that drive works with every dvd game i have.

here is my cursed exe's simplified error since i dont read HEX: :insomnia:
[modname: unknown] [modver:0.0.0.0] [Offset: 00000000]

I got the game console to show up by using the demo exe trying to run the retail game.. well not the ingame console.. i mean the one that is blue and has been around now since quake 3. odviously the game isnt going to run from the wrong exe... but at least it didnt just crap out and give me an error report. just gave me an error in the background engine console, which odviously is because its not the right exe.. but i got closer to playing using the wrong exe than i have with the retail prey exe file that just poops out automatically.

I have the recent drivers: openal, nvidia 9 point whatever. the demo works.. i have never had any problems running dvd game disks, so i really dont think its that.. can some one help me pleaseeee!! even if its like someone sends me just their prey exe to see if my install disk is screwed up, and the prey exe i have is totally messed or something... which would not make sense either? I am not a genius but, its not like i am computer handicapped in anyway, unless i am totally missing something simple in which case maybe i am.. But really I am just some one who spent nearly 80 bucks and feels like he got the shaft especially since the demo runs and I have been looking forward to this game since the 90's for crying out loud, and my computer loves the doom3 engine and the updated doom3 engine for quake 4.. but for some reason the retail version of Prey just will not run.

Thanks a lot!! sorry if i sound aggrivated.. but well i have been trying off and on to get prey to run since 1pm today and its now 1 am. :doh:

[Chris Rhinehart]

Hi Parapraxis -- Odd that the demo worked but the retail did not. I'm very sorry that you had an all-day session trying to solve this problem.

Unfortunately, I don't have an immediate answer for you, but our programmers will look at this as soon as possible and try to help you out.

[RPLavatar]

I too have noticed that the demo ran flawlessly and the retail version seems very buggy. I have been more fortunate than you in that I can at least get the game up and running, but it crashes way to often. I am running

Windows XP 64 professional
DFI Lanparty UT SLI DR expert
AMD X2 4400
2 gig Patriot PC3200 memory with 1T timings
2 XFX Geforce 6800GS's in SLI with the latest drivers

I saw in another post that someone suggested the AMD duel core optimizer. I loaded it but started getting crashes with memory dumps. After I did a system restore I just get crashes but no more memory dumps.

[Banko]

I've never had crashes with my system, and most likely problems like this are due to bad memory (at least that is from my experience) if you have two memory sticks try pulling one out, and so forth and see if it will work.

[RPLavatar]

my memory is fine , stable at 1T timmings memtest86 all day with 0 errors. Oh and no my PSU is fine too since that is what would undoubtable come under scrutiny next if we are going to suspect the memory as being faulty.

Oh ... and my system is not overclocked.