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Problems with launch.


vekter303
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I had originally installed Thief Deadly Shadows from a ROM but it failed to launch. I then ripped it from my disc to SSD and it worked okay when I tested the install. I went to play tonight from the copy ripped to SDD and again, no launch. I am just getting black screen having tried to launch from XBMC4Gamers dash and when using the default.xbe in File Manager. What is stranger still is when I try to play straight from the disc I get the same result.

The disc is in perfect condition and everything else is working just fine.

Any ideas?

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Most PAL games work fine, support NTSC and ED/HD resolutions when using Component cables.

But there are a few that are region locked but I wasn't aware Thief: Deadly Shadows was one of them.

I've just checked my original PAL disc on a v1.4 Xbox with Philips DVD drive and can confirm that on a NTSC set Xbox (RGB SCART cable) it doesn't display with anything other than a completely blank screen. If you switch the console to PAL using the Enigmah region changer it launches and plays perfectly.

I'm trying installing on the same Xbox from that disc using DVD2Xbox which should ACL (Action Control List) patch it for playing from the HDD. I don't expect that to work any differently ie. it won't display when using a NTSC set Xbox.

The only PAL game I've installed which wouldn't display properly under NTSC but when installed and ACL patched under PAL, then the Xbox switched back to NTSC and did display correctly, was the Riddick EFBB game.

But Riddick EFBB did not display with a blank screen before that, the start screen was just scrambled so I suspect Thief DS PAL is region locked at the very least and won't play under NTSC even when installed and ACL patched.

.......................................Just finished installing it and as I expected it works perfectly under PAL but when you switch to NTSC it freezes on the loading screen.

That's actually quite unusual; what normally happens if the PAL game is region locked is that it will play but with no picture, sound only under NTSC. Sometimes it may have a scrambled screen too or dirty disc error message. So this blank screen and refusal even to load the game when installed on the HDD is certainly not typical behaviour of a game that is simply region locked.

 

   

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26 minutes ago, HDShadow said:

Most PAL games work fine, support NTSC and ED/HD resolutions when using Component cables.

But there are a few that are region locked but I wasn't aware Thief: Deadly Shadows was one of them.

I've just checked my original PAL disc on a v1.4 Xbox with Philips DVD drive and can confirm that on a NTSC set Xbox (RGB SCART cable) it doesn't display with anything other than a completely blank screen. If you switch the console to PAL using the Enigmah region changer it launches and plays perfectly.

I'm trying installing on the same Xbox from that disc using DVD2Xbox which should ACL (Action Control List) patch it for playing from the HDD. I don't expect that to work any differently ie. it won't display when using a NTSC set Xbox.

The only PAL game I've installed which wouldn't display properly under NTSC but when installed and ACL patched under PAL, then the Xbox switched back to NTSC and did display correctly, was the Riddick EFBB game.

But Riddick EFBB did not display with a blank screen before that, the start screen was just scrambled so I suspect Thief DS PAL is region locked at the very least and won't play under NTSC even when installed and ACL patched.

.......................................Just finished installing it and as I expected it works perfectly under PAL but when you switch to NTSC it freezes on the loading screen.

That's actually quite unusual; what normally happens if the PAL game is region locked is that it will play but with no picture, sound only under NTSC. Sometimes it may have a scrambled screen too or dirty disc error message. So this blank screen and refusal even to load the game when installed on the HDD is certainly not typical behaviour of a game that is simply region locked.

 

   

Some games contain ingame intros, movies, etc. which have specific names, mostly for PAL videos they will add videonamePAL.fileextensions, for ntsc videoname.fileextensions. To fix this, inject NTSC videos to game folder, to have fully PAL NTSC compatible "custom game", this is for those who want to cover component and AV/RGB options. But some games run fine with PAL videos running in NTSC format, even when file names have 25 or PAL name added.

When PAL game is run in NTSC format, it simply cant find these files. Few examples:

007 nightfire: game runs fine, but there are no movies, menu background which is a video file playing.

Enter the matrix, you will get dirty disc error

AREA51, game run fine, but not show background video for menus, movies.

Mafia, will not show videos

Some PAL games still have 30fps videos, it's just a mess. BLADE 2, Painkiller, only those two i checked.

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Thanks for the responses guys, helps to understand what was happening.

I had the dirty/damaged disc error on Full Spectrum Warrior - had confused the hell out of me :)

I'm pretty sure I had blank screen at launch with Curse - The Eye Of Isis too, but I have checked all the other games that previous posts have listed and so far so good; now I have a workaround for Celtic Club Football too. Cheers!

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Curse The Eye Of Isis is known to be one of those games which have problems on a v1.6 when trying to play in 480p.

The unusual thing is that no known 480p launcher works. Rocky5 warns about this, listing it as one of the games that can't be patched to play in 480p on a v1.6.

On the Thief Deadly Shadows matter, it could be that FMV PAL/NTSC naming issue prtscn describes. Whilst the game itself doesn't start with an FMV it does display a MS Studio logo FMV at boot. I'll have to check that and see if the PAL version is a PAL specific one only.

 

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Slight hitch with running Celtic Club Football in PAL/PAL60 having enabled "switch video modes" in XBMC4Gamers. I get an "unsupported resolution" message from my TV the same as when I had tried to enable 1080i in the dash previously. I suppose this makes sense for a PAL signal but I'm surprised I didn't come across this before, that it has only happened with this game.

My unit is a v1.2 with MakeMHz HDMI+ as that relates to resolutions that are/are not supported; in this case I guess it's about what the game code is putting out.

Oh, well FIFA 2002 instead then for my OG Xbox football :)

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