Hi there everybody. I just upgraded my old trusty SBLive! to an Audigy 2 ZS by means of a eBay New Unopened purchase that included Far Cry 1.1 on the 5 cdrom set. I've always wanted to play this game, so I'm attempting to get it running on my Windows XP x64 SP2 system with AthlonX2-3800 and GF7600GT.

This thing is infuriating! First, the installer absolutely refuses to work: "... you need to run setup64.exe". Ok I Google around and there is no solution other than somebody suggests installing on a 32bit machine, patch up, copy the folder over on the network, then apply the 64 bit patches.

Ok. I do this. The game works fine on my wife's 32 bit machine at patchlevel 1.4, btw. I copy the folder over, run the patches, and try to play, and now I get this "can't open languages/fonts/default.xml". Grrr.. Ok I make a empty file. Next it wants "languages/fonts/console.xml". Fine. I make another empty file.

FINALLY, I get to the intro/demo screen, except it has blue bars running across it. When I hit enter the game crashes and Microsoft wants me to send a bug report. Fine, I send a bug report.

This game reminds me of the worst old games from the DOS days. When I Google my bugs I get pages and pages of Russian hits but nothing in English. The few English forums I see have no useful advice other than "try reinstalling it."

Why is it that these games usually run run fine if you can manage to get them installed, but the installers are the most horrible things ever conceived.

Ok, how do I get this game installed? I want a solution that works. I'm not downgrading my OS in any way, so forget that. Spare me the wild guesses.

Have you tried running the setup program on the disks in 32bit compatibility mode?

I'm afraid I can't remember how I did it but I did have 32bit farcry running on my xp64 beta before I deleted it and went back to xp32 so it is possible

Running them in 32bit compatibility mode? I'm not sure what version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition version 2003 Service Pack 2 that you are running, but I don't seem to have that option.

How's about you *completely* uninstall your copy of FarCry, then reinstall it from your cdroms, and tell me how to do it? ... mmmkay? I don't have any version of 32 bit windows running on this computer, and I don't think installing Windows 2000 just to load FarCry up is a reasonable suggestion even though I currently do have an extra Win2K license. Doesn't that seem a bit unreasonable to you? "Purchase a 32 bit version of Windows and install it in order to install FarCry for 64 bit systems?"

I've about had it with this nonsense. I don't care how good this game is because since I can't load it I'm about ready to huck all 5 cd's into the dumpster just like most other **** games like this. FarCry ?? Don'tTry!

I think that Ubisoft must be run by a bunch of corporate idiots that fired the development team a couple weeks before it all went gold. They can't make any more patches because they canned all their programmers and now all there is are a couple of greedy execs that don't know jack about programming. They can't fix it because they are too stupid and they fired everybody that knew how to do it.

Yeah Ubisoft, how's that karma thing going? I give up. Your silly game isn't worth this hassle. Don't expect me to ever buy anything with an Ubisoft logo on it ever again.

Disregards

After your "reply" god knows why I'm bothering to help but:-

to access the compatibility

1) make a shortcut to the file you want to run

2) right click and select properties

3) click on the compatibility tab

4) tick the box and select the system from the drop down list (use win 2000 if 32 bit xp doesn't appear)

Well Grumps I guess some people just have no manners, but thats no excuse for him being short with you...

There are many ways to get the game running when encountering this error.
But since the technical help here is provided by community volunteers and his attitude isnt appreciated, this thread is locked.

Suggest he try the official techincal support lines and see how they appreciate his rants.

UK site is here
US one is here
Complete list of Ubisoft Offical International Tech Support Contacts is here