Cannot Launch Game - Just Bought It :(

from Sins Forums

Hello there, I am a big fan of this game and was super excited to see it for 19.99 online, used to play on a friends' borrowed discs back in the day, loved it, etc, wanted to play it again.

 

Yea, sadly, the game will not launch. I purchased the Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity package from the Stardock website store. The game downloaded via the Stardock Central program and installed. I went home where, sadly, I had no internet connection (ISP issues). I double clicked on the icon on the Desktop (Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity) and absolutely nothing happened. I looked at the open processes in Windows and 3-4 are opening, staying for a few moments, than closing every time I launch the program. Restarted, checked installation etc. Nothin.

 

So I dig into the program files and find the individual game launchers. They all ask for Registration (dammit, I have no internet! lol I really wanted to just play...) but it ended up okay. I finally get internet back today (yay), but the Desktop shortcut still seems to just open phantom processes and then close them. I get the thing registered with the Key and start them up...

 

...to have it sit at a Black Screen and do nothing. Sat there for a few minutes, hit Escape, and a dialogue pops up saying it's crashed. I cried a little bit, tried each launcher, nothing, tried updating the clients, nothing. Cried a little more and got on these forums. I can think of a host of reasons this might be happening, so I'll list as much info here as possible. Thank you in advance, I REALLY want to play this game again!!

 

Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit

Intel Core i5 3rd Generation with onboard GPU

6 GB RAM

750 GB Hardrive

I imagine the onboard GPU might be the culprit in lieu of a dedicated graphics card (saw some addenda about graphics card silliness with this game). But the GPU is actually quite decent, running RaiderZ, Tribes: Ascend, and Minecraft with nary a hiccup. The first two are 2012 titles, so surely it can handle SoaSE...?

 

Please help, want to play this classic again :) Also, tried googling where the minidump was, couldn't get a definitive answer. Happy to post it if somebody can direct me to it.

technical
7,283 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Can you verify that your game install directory is the right size?  It should be ~2.08 GB on disk.  It kinda sounds like maybe it didn't install correctly...

Minidump file location is listed in the readme.txt file in your install directory also.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Indeed, well done. Install directory was 64 Megabytes. Weird, it took much longer than that to download :) I will reattempt and update this thread to see if I can help others with the same issue.

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Okay, new update. I'm 0 for 2 on PCs. New PC specs

 

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium

4 GB Ram

2.4 GHz Core2Duo

NVidia GeForce 260gtx

 

I'll start with PC one (original post). Yes, the install is borked. I tried re-installing it (the downloaded "Install" file is about 1.1 GB), it takes 3 seconds to "install" and it's the same problem. 64 MB install folder with an empty AppData folder. I will attempt deleting the Installation files and re downloading them next.

 

Second PC, install seems to have been successful. I run the game and hear a "Ding" sound. I give it a few minutes, nothing is happening but a black screen. AltTab to see there's been a Minidump, which I'm going to email to Stardock. Am I the only one having such bad luck?

 

I just wanna play Sins.... *cry*

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Try turning off your firewall and redownloading it?

-Lord Brony

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

No you're not the only one with this problem. I also downloaded the sins trinity setup file 1.34.050 of 1.1 GB. When I install it it also installs only 64 MB. Going to try to download the file again.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Depending on your OS, you might need to restart steam with administrator privileges...this fixes some issues with installing steam games, and is worth a shot if you are still having problems...

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Downloaded the file again and installed it with the same results. :(

What do you mean Seleuceia? I don't have Steam. I download the file "Sins of a Solar Empire -Trinity (Digital+Box)" from Stardock, my account, my downloads.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Ah, problem solved! Getting the game from Gamestop solved the installation issue and the game runs :)

First had to navigate the Gamestop maze though, which wasn't easy. Linking accounts, finding old accounts, mixing them up, but finally the thing downloaded and installed.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Is there any way to link your Stardock account (and subsequent purchase...) to Steam? And I'm relieved to find I'm not the only one having the issue :) Maybe the download on Stardock Central is corrupted?

 

[EDIT: Installing using Admin settings didn't work. Didn't even get a (admittedly empty) AppData folder like I usually do with failed installs, lol]

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

TechKrill, You can't link your 'old' sins trinity that's on your stardock account to steam. I linked it to gamestop (http://www.gamestop.com/) and downloaded sins by using their gamestop app. I honestly can't remember how I did it, but I just tried clicking around a bit and ended up with a gamestop app with a working account that somehow managed to find my copy of sins trinity.

If you need more help I can try to find out exactly what I did.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

http://www.twitch.tv/azaraelishanti/b/346768396

 

Here is a video of my installation attempt. They all are about the same, though once I did get an AppData folder to show up!!!! It was empty... :(

 

I used harpo99999's suggestion and got it from the stardock store. Ran using administrator just for extra specialness :)

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

yes the install seemed to be too quick, but the appdata paths are actually created on the first run of the expansion/patch version and not during the install, after the install did yo try running any of the three trinity parts?

harpo

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

For those having trouble downloading from Stardock, try the suggestion here.  It's for Fallen Enchantress, but the overall method should be similar:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/434672

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Whatever is happening here is complete installer failure.

Using WinRAR, I right-clicked on the "Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity 1.34.exe" file that was in Downloads\Stardock and selected "Extract to Sins of a SolarEmpire - Trinity 1.34" then browsed to that folder which showed the following two files ::

setup.exe
SinsTrinity-en.zip

I right-clicked on SinsTrinity-en.zip and selected "Extract to SinsTrinity-en" and then ran Setup.exe

The setup obviously created the C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity folder and put the basics in there, and then I copied in the rest of the content from the folders I'd extracted in Downloads and copied all the files in place and ran the game successfully.

It didn't seem to matter if I ran the install as administrator or not.. it was determined NOT to put the content where it needed to.

--Micah