Links has decided it wont start

[gd5150]

Last night it worked fine. Today it will not start. The Links launcher starts and then it says it has detected I may be having a problem with 3d acceleration or my video card or driver. Won't start in compatibilty mode or Windows safemode either.

I run Links on an Imac via bootcamp which runs Windows XP. My video card is working fine on the Imac side. It's working fine in Windows as well. Ran dxdiag and everything passed. I haven't installed anything, and have not changed anything since last night.

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6570/5700

I suppose there are 2 options, unistall/reinstall Links and patches. Uninstall/reinstall graphics driver. I'm not sure AMD is supporting Windows XP anymore. Any ideas?

[Redskin]

I don't know if this is possible with a Mac -- but can you do a system restore? Maybe just a few days would do it?
Jim

[gd5150]

Yes I can. My last restore point is about a month ago. Since then I've moved 20% of data off my hard drive and defragmented it. It's run fine for a few week since defragmenting it.

[gd5150]

OK the system restore didn't work. Bummer.

[gibby]

do you have a graphics control panel on both sides (Mac/XP) maybe something got unchecked or disabled

[Redskin]

Is it possible that you got an automatic update for your video card? AMD just released its latest and greatest yesterday and you might have gotten the update without knowing it. Can you do a roll-back of your video card driver?
Jim

[gd5150]

Gibby: The Imac restarts in Windows XP from a Windows partitian. You literally either start the computer as a Mac, or as a PC in Windows XP. There are graphics controls on each side, you cannot change one from the other, and I never mess with the Windows controls outside of the occasional resolution change.

Redskin: The drivers cannot be updated automatically, basically when you install Bootcamp which is what the Imac uses to create and run Windows, it locks down Windows so the system cannot be changed.

I did uninstall and reinstall the graphics drivers and Catalyst Control Center, it didn't help.

So now I'm going to uninstall Links and try that.

[gibby]

just throwing to see what sticks

[gd5150]

Oh yeah I knkw haha. I may as well just disconnect the monitor and wear a blindfold. I'm just going through the usual pile of sticks.

[gd5150]

Ok so whats the good word on the which and what order to install the program and patches? Saw the patches Links and there are like 8 patches but I dont think all are needed.

[Bassmaster]

I think all you will need are 1) the 1.07 patch, 2) the viewing conditions crash patch, and 3) the LSPN web page patch. These were the ones that I D/L'd a couple weeks ago with my new system.

[gd5150]

Unistalled/reinstalled Links + patches, it works!

Copied over all my old data (Courses, PolyAni, Skies, Players, Saved Shots, Games etc...) and it wouldn't load again.

So I had to uninstall/reinstall everything, and copy my old data over 1 directory at a time. The problem was caused when I moved the old Course Data directory over. The last files modified in that directory were "course", and "bcongres.sta" which is the last course I played last night. The file sizes of both files, and all files in the directory are what they're supposed to be. There are 396 .sta files in there, I have 451 courses installed. I guess I haven't played them all.

I'm just going to trash my old course data because I really don't need it.

Posting this info as its an easy fix to try for Links crashing at the startup. Links message was there seemed to be a problem with my 3d acceleration. That was not the problem, not my graphics card driver, or hardware, it must have been a corrupted course data file. Not something that would be expected, but a very easy fix to try.

[gd5150]

Ok when I log into "The Links Tour" using my LSPN log in info, none of my info is showing up in the game. I had to change it to display Champ to see any tournaments, and it doesn't have me as having played any rounds however gd5150 is listed on the leaderboards.

[Redskin]

Maybe you need to check the settings on the Event List Options?
I'm glad you figured out what was the problem and you were able to reinstall Links and get it working again.
Jim

[gd5150]

Thanks Jim. Once I payed a round the online play went back to how it should be. All is well.