Snowcrash000: I'm running W7 and this is basically how it goes: I uninstall everything, reinstall the offline version, can run the game from the Gothic .exe, leave the game, it crashes forcing me to hard reset my pc, after booting up aga<yin the same Gothic exe that i was able to run the game from before suddenly doesn't work anymore.
timppu: Since I am (still) also using Windows 7, I just tried installing and playing Gothic (I don't use Galaxy, I installed the game with the offline installer). I didn't install any third-party compatibility mods or change any compatibility settings for the game.
First try: the game simply does not start. I don't see it in the process list or anything, as if I had not even started the game.
Then I remembered this:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/old_games_not_launching_and_eating_100_of_the_cpu_on_windows_7/page1 I did the registry change as suggested in that first message, and voila, Gothic starts and runs fine in Windows 7. So, this problem is due to Microsoft closing some stupid gaming service servers, which affect lots of older Windows games on Windows 7 (Windows 10 seems to be unaffected). Fortunately there is that fix.
If you are not familiar with using regedit in Windows, I suggest you use this way of making the registry change:
Alternative method : copy-paste the text below to a txt file and rename the extension as .reg instead of .txt, then double-click on the file to apply it.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\GameUX\ServiceLocation]
"Games"="127.0.0.1"
And to undo the changes, do the same with this instead :
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\GameUX\ServiceLocation]
"Games"="
https://games.metaservices.microsoft.com/games/SGamesWebService.asmx"
timppu: This should fix lots of other games too, besides just Gothic. Then again, some of them may have other problems that needs fixing, that's the nature of PC gaming with its various configurations. In many display-related problems, dgVoodoo2 is your friend, especially if you are on Windows 10 (less needed on Windows 7).
Thank you for pointing this out, it seems like you may have found the actual root of the problem here, as the main difficulty has always been just starting the game and nothing happening. It would work after a fresh install, but as soon as the game crashed or I had to restart my PC, the startup .exe would just fail to function anymore.
I was actually able to play fine yesterday evening due to no hard crashes anymore and when I booted my PC up today the startup .exe didn't work again. I don't wanna get my hopes up just yet, but it sounds like this fix might actually work. However, I'm not exactly a PC gamer, as I think I made quite clear so far and I don't wanna make things worse by fucking up my registery.
As I don't have any fucking clue what I'm doing really, could you please confirm that this is the right approach here? Basically, I'm supposed to delete the marked and type "127.0.0.1" or "localhost" in there, correct? Is any of the two choices preferable or does it not matter?
By the way, I do realize that I totally overreacted yesterday but god damn it I had a really busy week and was looking forward to playing some games and REALLY needed to vent a bit...
EDIT: I just applied this fix and it worked, THANK YOU!
