AC locks up after installing SP2 (winxp)

[Chueh]

Right so after hearing from all ppl that AC will work normaly w/ sp2 i decided to give it a go, the free update CD came in yesterday, i installed it, downloaded the minor gdi+ tool, uninstalled my old firewall (cause 2 firewalls is worse then 1)

then i added client.exe and denagent.exe to the windows firewall.

now on log in i get too portalspace / just out of portal space and it locks up w/o giving a error (i cant alt tab, use windows key)

i am running :
mcffee anti virus, ati control pannel, creative sound pannel, MSN 6.2

if need b i can provide a complete turn out of dxdiag and what ever else is needed.....

[Kajabor]

Most likely it is a compatibility issue with sp2. If you can uninstall it, do so and never install it again.

Sp2 has numerous compatibility issues. It happens with anything that is new especially when it is from Microsoft.

[MaddyFF]

Most likely it is a compatibility issue with sp2. If you can uninstall it, do so and never install it again.

Sp2 has numerous compatibility issues. It happens with anything that is new especially when it is from Microsoft.

That is the worse advice you could offer anyone running Windows XP.

First thing to do is try turning off the Firewall in XP and see if that is actually causing the problem (first thing I would do is get rid of McAfee, that is another story). If it works, then we can look at your firewall settings. If it still fails then it is time to look at what else could be causing the problem (i.e. you playing behind a router?).

I've been playing AC on 3 WinXP computers, two if them using the built in firewall, and zero problems. It is possible your cell.dat is corrupt and needs replacing, maybe even your portal.dat. Turbine has a download link for both of those so can give that a try if needed.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I have multiple computers at home. I installed SP2 on one of the desktops and it works great. The labtop though it does not work correctly at all. AC launches and I can get in game fine. It just that AC has problems with particle efffects and the textures. Even with everything set to max speed and to 1/8 of detail, I still get green banded elbow and knee pads on the tuskers, pieces of the landscape terrain either become green and white or solid black and human critters with particle effect weapons have beautiful white sparkles instead of a snowflakes on their cold sword.

Unfortunately the only display driver for the ATI graphics card that is in my labtop is the Microsoft reference driver that came with Windows XP. ATI has never issued an updated driver. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the device driver. That was fun trying to get it to switch back from 4 bit color back to my normal 1024 x 768 32 bit color.

I finally gave up and took SP2 off of my labtop.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Rage_Lao]

make sure you have all 4 exe files in the ac folder permited. not just client.exe