LITHTECH error...pls help !!!

[LoverboyRulz]

i've got this game Sniper - Path of Vengeance and when i installed the game and the 2.33 patch (40mb) it played the 3 opening movies and then it craashed. it said..Lithtech has caused an error..lithtech will now close...so i assume my lithtech.exe file is not opening properly..ver weird cos i assumed tht Xicat would have taken care of tht bug in their 2.33 patch !!!

i have Windows Me with windows media player 9 (fully updated) ..

can anyone pls help ?

[Yian]

Sniper!? Not to be brutal my friend, but what kind of s***(:p ) You got yourself into!! That game is the most buggy, ugly, and boring game ever released.... no kidding!!!!

I think I was at their forum like a month ago but for some different problems: The movies won't play and one specific .dll file won't work. Didn't suprise me at all, A lot of people has the same problem.

I simply told my friend there is really no point trying to fix this game, because it is not your fault that the game won't run, it's the programmers. They didn't test the game, they didn't patch it well either. And even if the game runs fine, the gameplay sucks.

BTW, what kind of video card you use?

[LoverboyRulz]

ya you r right abt tht one specific .dll file...i presume it was cshell.dll right ??

anyways ..i am planning to get a 3-d accelerator card soon...either the ATI Radeon 7500 or Radeon 8500...

rt now i have onboard vga...from the i810 Intel Graphics Controller...i know it sux...no need to tell me :)

[Yian]

Yeah, upgrad your video card will definitely help.

[LoverboyRulz]

i know upgrading my vga card will definitely help and i am in the process of doing tht..but dont u think the problem lies in my lithtech engine and not the vga card ? after all its the lithtch.exe and the cshell.dll files tht r apparently the reason for not starting the game..

i went over to their forum(xicat interactive) at www.pub65ezboard.com and there they were syibng somethibng about looking for lithtech.exe patch or upgrade or some shit like tht in the lithtech forums...but i couldnt find the lithtech forums anywhere..apparently NOLF2 requires lithtech and they have solved the problem with the lithtech.exe file..

would it possible for u to locate the lithtech forum or patch/upgade for lithtech.exe Yian ?

[Yian]

You know what lithtech.exe is right? It's the engine that powers your game. But this lithtech engine we are talking about here is not the same lithtech that powers NO One Lives Forever or many other games, but a cheap version called Jupiter.

What a game engine does is to draw system resources from your PC and make them work. That is, if your system isn't capable enough to provide the resource your .exe requests, your program fails.

In this case... however, changing your VGA is merely a suggestion. Sniper is such a poorly coded game that any NORMAL PC SHOULD HAVE PROBLEMS with this game. Some fanboy of this game think our PCs have problems with it and even go as far as saying our computer has defects, which causes the game to crash. Hehehe, blaming the victims, huh, now get ready, I will tell you how WELL this game was developed:

Sniper: Path of Vengeance's forum and techincal supports are all handled through Xicat, so are the servers which hosts the patches for you guys to download. Xicat, however, is not a game developer, but just a game publisher. They have several great games under their name, such as Carmagedden, Gothic, and Zenerath...

But it was Mirage Interactive that developed the game. If you know the history of this developer well, you probably won't even touch Sniper: POA's retail box, despite that it is probably in the bargain bin or even the trash can.

Mirage Interactive's first game, though I forget what it was called, was a pool simulation. It was really not too bad but there were better games than that in 1999. Then Mirage made Mortyr, one of the most horrible FPS in PC game history. Not to be suprised, Sniper:POA used exactly the same team who developed Mortyr.

Sniper's project started in September 2001. By Augest 2002, however, the game wasn't even half way being finished. A lot of the gameplay elements you see in the final game, such as RPG-style character build up, enemy AI, and worst of all, level designs, were rushed job between Augest and October 2002, which was the date it was release.

What were they doing during this one year period of development? I don't know. But they obviously were occupied by some other matters because they weren't making the game that's for sure.

Sorry about all the rapping, but my point is: There is no point of fixing this game, and that is not anyone's fault. Xicat's guys provides great services to their customers, in my expreinece, but they really can't do shit about the game because they didn't make it. They try hard to contact Mirage and managed to squeeze out some patches, but Mirage has no exprience with Jupiter engine, either, then they have to go ask LithTech how to fix it, which made fixing this even slower.

Oh, btw, I heard some rumors saying that 2.01 patch is the official release from lithtech to address some flaws of their engine, while 2.33 is the fix from Mirage itself. You might want to reinstall the game, patch it to 2.01, and see if it works. Mirage's programming team seems enjoying this kind of s***, because their first patch (1.2) was written by themselves, and it fucked up so they let lithtech gave them a hand to write a better patch, which explains why they don't start fixing any engine-related crashes untill patch 1.25, and 2.01. As soon as they go back to their own hands with 2.33, it screwed up again...:rolleyes:

And, again, sooner or later you need to get a better video card if you really enjoy playing games on PC. So you might want to get a good one. If you're not hardcore, I recommend Radeon 9600. It's not too expensive and it has most the features you will need.

;)

[ghiop]

Originally posted by Yian
Then Mirage made Mortyr, one of the most horrible FPS in PC game history.


And it had sounding almost promising, too. Just random nostalgia. Sorry. :)