My Vice City wont run at all

[WaTTs72]

I need help with my PC Vice City. I have the PS2 Vice City and I love the game. I was reading on the internet that the PC version is about three times better. So I went to Wal-Mart and bought the PC version.

When I loaded the game onto my computer, the game loaded just fine. When I try and run the game I get an hourglass then it changes to a cd then nothing happens.

This is what I have done thus far.
1) I have updated my graphics card drivers
2) I have updated my sound card drivers(just in case).
3) I have downloaded the 1.1 patch.
4) I have reinstalled directx 9.1b.
5) I have updated my Windows drivers.
6) I have tried starting the game in 640X480 res.
7) I have tried to start the game in 256 and 16bit and 32bit color settings.
8) I called tech support and they said its one of two things(either the firm ware of my CDRoms is too old or I got a bad Play disc).
9) I have updated the firm ware of both my cdroms.
10)I have gone to Wal-Mart and exchanged the game for another game.
11)I have updated my <win32 self extracter> w/ this program....VBRun60sp5. Because one time I loaded the game I got an error saying that OLEAUT32.dll failed to load.
12)I have uninstalled and installed the game about 20 times.
13)Oh yeah, I restored my computer to when I did a fresh format.

Now in another forum a guy talked about right clicking on the VC icon selecting properties and changing the "start in" line to something else but he wasnt sure what.

So far I have spent over 6 hours troubleshooting this problem and I have done everything I can think of to solve this issue. Pls if I can ask you all two things. What does your start in line for this game? Do you have anymore suggestions on how I can get this game to work.

My Computer consist of this.
AMD 1600xp
gforce fx5200 128MB AGP Visiontec
MSI motherboard KT-4
an older plexwriter cd-rw
LG cd-rw model#GCE 8520b this is new
sound blaster live value

I think thats all you need thx for you time.

[DR.X.]

well that's simple

[DR.X.]

well that's simple

[DR.X.]

u need windows XP professional/Home and the most memory and the best graphic card u can get

[Mickwish]

I think DR.X needs a spam lesson.

Some CDRW's have trouble with some discs. I'd check the disks in another computer (take it to a friends if you can if you have only one PC at home, and try to load and run it there).

If the disks work in another PC, it may be the settings for the CDRW. Sometimes either enabling or disabling DMA in the CDRW properties can make it read disks it otherwise wouldn't. Try that as well.

Cheers
Mick

[F/A-18 MechDood]

Have you tried the latest VIA 4in1 drivers?

[WaTTs72]

I selected the DMA earlier today from the recommendation of 3dmark and that didnt work either thank you for your posts. Upgrading to XP is sounding more and more attractive to me at this point. I dont know what the 4 in 1 driver is so I prolly havent done that yet. Thanks again.

[F/A-18 MechDood]

Go Here and download this.... VIAHyperion4in1v4.49.zip on that webpage.

[WildFire]

I have Windows XP all the latest drivers and stuff, and I have exactly the same problem on both of my machines (one is Athlon XP, other is P3 laptop). Anyone got any solution to this problem ?

[kron]

WTF! I'm having the same problem now too! The difference is my VC used to work until I uninstalled it. Then I smashed my geforcefx 5200 with a hammer because I felt violated everytime I used it and bought a 9800 pro. I know my cds work because I can reinstall the game but it just won't boot. WTF? It worked fine before! Arrrrgh.

I've pretty much taken the same steps as Watts did with the same results, no VC! Anyone have any other ideas? (before resorting to rockstar tech support)

my specs, in case it helps
AMD 1600xp
512 ram
ati radeon 9800 pro
SB audigy gamer
memorex cdrw 52x24x52