SS2 Videos / Cutscenes questions

[665c8eb0d072eMidniteryu]

I downloaded SS2 a few weeks ago via HOTU. At first the game wouldn't startup till I modified the cam.cfg file once I did that the game worked but the videos wouldn't play. I've tried the Indeo codecs and I downloaded The Divx codec and all but it still hasn't fixed the problem The videos play fine audio and all in any player I use to open them with they just don't play in-game. 

[665c8eb0d091cAJCF]

Hi Kolya,

I too am having problems playing cutscenes but the thing is: I *can* play them with Windows Media Player. (HOTU version)

I'm on Vista and have installed the SS2 Tool, then the Mod Manager and after that I installed some mods like SHTUP and Rebirth and some minor ones, like weapons replacing. I also ran the OGGsetup and have installed the latest DivX codec from their website.

I can play the game alright, but it simply doesn't play the cutscenes, when I start the game it will immediately go to the Main Menu and whenever I try to play the Intro the screen simply flickers and nothing happens as though the game tried to play the cutscene but simply could not.

I tried to register the lgvid.ax but I always get a 0x80070005 error, meaning Access Denied, and thus cannot register the .dll. I'm pretty hopeless right now as I've tried nearly anything for more than a couple of hours so I've come here to get some help from you.

Any suggestions?

Any help would be appreciated, so thanks in advance

[665c8eb0d0c0cKolya]

Tried registering it from an Administrator account? Or just start the game via Modmanager from an Admin account. Modmanager does the registering itself.

[665c8eb0d0d60AJCF]

I'm on an Administrator account, that's why I think it's weird.

I tried running Modmanager as an admin and started SS2, it went straight to the menu, but when I pressed Intro it minimized and got an error report stating that the .exe stopped working.

Starting SS2 from its own .exe it simply won't play videos.

[665c8eb0d0e57AJCF]

EDIT: Trying to run the SS2 .exe as an Administrator and trying to play the Intro also crashes the game 

[665c8eb0d0f58Kolya]

Sorry, no idea then. But since you can see the videos in a player, just watch cs1 at the beginning of the game, cs after the training and cs3 after completeing the game.

[665c8eb0d105cAJCF]

Thank you for the help then and best regards, good luck on your endeavour

[665c8eb0d121dTheJTrain]

Thanks for being such a helpful resource Kolya!  Sounds like I'm having the same problems as others here.

My specs:
Core 2 Duo
7950GT
WinXP SP2
"Classic" re-release official CD (installs v2.3 w/no "patch" folder on the HDD)

I would walk you all the way through my process, but I'm afraid my flawed memory of it would only confuse things (multiple re-installs last night, never did get the videos to run after all the steps suggested here, and I was able to get in-game exactly once and walk around but I must have done something bad 'cause on my next attempt I couldn't even do that).

Suffice to say that I'll try again tonight from scratch with a renamed LGVID.AX and the "skip_intro" line in cam.cfg to completely skip any of the movies playing, just to see if it'll actually let me run the game.  If I can get there then I'll try running it with the Rebirth & SHTUP mods.

If I do that Kolya, can you or someone else here tell me exactly when during the game to play each of the videos that are in the cutscenes folder?  I would like to watch each and every one at the right moment (I'm big on "story" in the games I play), and have no problem with having to alt-tab or quit out in order to do so if that means I can 1) play the game all the way through and 2) watch the cutscenes.

Thanks!
JT

[665c8eb0d145cKolya]

• cs1.avi plays when you start the game
• starport.avi plays after you have chosen your career
• shuttle1.avi plays after you have chosen your 1st training year
• shuttle2.avi plays after you have chosen your 2nd training year
• shuttle3.avi plays after you have chosen your 3rd training year
• cs2.avi plays right after it
• cs3.avi plays after finishing the game

I'm not sure about landing.avi, it should play sometime during your training years as well. Anyone else know this?

[665c8eb0d170fTheJTrain]

Well I gave it another shot and actually got the cutscenes to play in-game!  I did a full install (which installed the already-patched v2.3), then when the videos didn't work initially (neither in-game nor in WMP or QT, even after re-registering LGVID.AX) I downloaded and installed the "last free Indeo codec" from the link in this thread's OP.  After a reboot the videos played in WMP so I tried launching the game and presto, I saw the logo video and the intro, and it dropped me in-game, no problem.  Woohoo!

Now to get a couple mods installed (SHTUP, Rebirth, Straylight, DeepFriedBeer, maybe SHMUP) and it's ON!!!

JT

By-the-by, this will be my FIRST EVER experience with SS2, my chronology looking something like this:
1994: buy System Shock (which, by the way, was THE reason I chose to buy the laptop that could use a joystick), play some, get about halfway through, let college & life get in the way of finishing
1999: still haven't picked the original back up, but buy System Shock 2 anyway 'cause it's sure to be all kinds of awesome - then never install it 'cause I haven't finished the original yet
2007: get on nostalgic kick and start playing/completing a bunch of old games I've had and never played/finished (The Longest Journey & Thief are on top of the list, followed by MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries)
2008: finally complete System Shock (it only took me 14 years); next on the "old games" list: System Shock 2
When I finish SS2 I can then finally play Bioshock - I'm a big fan of "progression" in games/series, even in the case of "spiritual" sequels.  That's why no one will find surprise in hearing that next on the "old games" list will be Fallout 1 & 2.

[665c8eb0d1858debaser]

Can anyone update the original LGS videos for SS2 to megaupload or something? There doesn't seem to be any seeds for the torrent, and I think the original vids are the only way I'm ever going to get cutscenes working in SS2.

[665c8eb0d194fKolya]

The torrent's not dead. Just wait.
Also please refrain from further seed requests.

[665c8eb0d1b9cLKRaider]

Hi all

I too was having problems playing the HOTU version video cutscenes, with LGVID.AX crashing, but I found a fix.

1) Download latest XVID codec: http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html
(at the time of writting this I'm using version 1.1.3)

2) Install the codec and mark it to decode all FourCC formats

3) Go to Start menu, "Xvid" -> "Configure Decoder"

4) On the decoder settings, check "Compatibility Renderer" and press "OK"

the game should now run and play the videos just fine!

If not, check your system fo other video codecs, you may have to remove or disable them so xvid is the default one.

[665c8eb0d1d22I'm awesome]

Alrighty, so... I can't get the scenes to work in-game for the life of me.

I'm using HOTU. The torrent's pretty much dead, there's only leeches. I've done the whole "install Indeo, click _regIndeo, run regsvr32 etc", still nothing. I've downloaded Divx and got CCCP to not activate for mp4 (even though CCCP uses Divx. >_>). And I did what that last post said about Xvid. I even restarted my comp, nothing. I guess I'll just play the game and watch the scenes manually for now, but can someone help me out? I DID do DDfix, SS2MM ModManager, and SS2 tool.

Oh, and I'm running XP. Help guys?

[665c8eb0d1e54Liam not signed in]

If you are running on Win vista if you wount to see the cutseance then you have to change the combaterbelerty To XP, 2000 or NT then run it as an adminster. Chandlermaki told me to do this.

[665c8eb0d1f83Bsycho]

i just want to state that LKRaider's work around did it for me.

im also using winxp, installed xvid and set to compatibility. additionally i had to deinstall my divx-bundle.

dont forget to delete the line 'skip_intro' in your cam.cfg (or just write a ; before it)

[665c8eb0d214aMarco]

hello everyone,

i had problems with the original videos on winxp (sp3), but i found a solution and probably this workaround can help someone else if this problem occurs:

the videos didn't work ingame and i also couldn't play back the original videos outside the game with various players (windows media, bsplayer, vlc, crystal, etc.) - only the sound was playing. i installed the indeo driver but no improvement. (LGVID.AX has also been registered)

i checked the videos with gspot (btw a great tool for analyzing video files):
the codec was installed properly BUT the gspot vid test no. 2 for the video stream showed that the so called "avi-splitter" could not connect to the indeo decompression filter...

i use cccp - combined comunity codec pack which comes with the "haali media splitter" for avi, mp4, ogm and ts support - i never bothered with these setting but deactivating the avi support for the splitter in the cccp settings solved my problem - all ingame videos are now working ingame as well with external players.

so for everyone who uses a avi splitter i hope this helps too.

btw. this is a great site, i really appreciate the work and effort you guys do for this game and its fans !!!

[665c8eb0d231fComrade]

Hey everyone. I can't seem to play the cutscenes in-game and I can only play the audio section of them outside the game. None of the above fixes have worked. I've tried renaming/deleting the lgvid, the registration thing for the lgvid always fails, I've tried the original indeo codec, I've downloaded the latest version of DivX, I've downloaded both the Mod Manager and SS2 Tool, I tried the two fixes above me downloading both the Xvid codec and CCCP (being a communist I love that name ) and none of it seems to work. Additionally, I tried both torrents and both are completely dead at least for the past 2 hours. I'm running Vista Home Premium if that helps. I have rebirth, SHTUP, deepfriedbeer's sound mod and the hires character model installed.

At this rate I'll have to alt-tab and watch the cutscenes off youtube. :-( If any of you can help a comrade out I'll be extremely grateful.

[665c8eb0d2777Kolya]

I'm not a communist, but I'll try to help you anyway.
There's a relevant and current thread on TTLG about getting the cutscenes to work on Vista. Here are the most important excerpts:

Simple process that got movies working for me in Vista.

First off, make sure the codecs are loaded. Run iv5play.exe (should be on the install CD.

Now, to make sure Vista registers the codecs. Vista has a nasty habit of NOT allowing some changes to occur unless you're "running the program as an administrator". This was, for me, the problem with the codecs registering. SO - go to the DOS prompt (should be in the start menu under Accessories) and RIGHT CLICK it, then select Run As Administrator.

If you don't do this, it won't work. You'll get that "registration did NOT succeed" error.

Okay then - first off, type this in the command prompt:
regsvr32 "c:\(WhereYouInstalledSShock2)\LGVID.AX" Hit Enter. If the codecs are installed, this will register 'em.

(don't remember if the prompt automatically closes. IF it does, re-open as an Admin again and continue)

Now, type this in:
regsvr32 ir50_32.dll Hit enter.

If you cannot run the command prompt as an Administrator:

A lot of headaches with this Admin bullshit on Vista can be solved by disabling User Account Control. It's something that I recommend getting rid of as soon as you install Vista, along with Program Compatibility Assistant to save yourself some more headaches. Dumping DEP completely is also an option, but some people might prefer to keep it on.

At any rate, UAC might be relevant to your problem, here's how to ditch it: bring up the System Configuration window (Start -> Run -> msconfig), go to the Tools tab, and scroll down to the Disable UAC option, click Launch and then reboot. If, for God knows what reason, you later decide you want it back, the Enable UAC is just below it. Now, once that's done, I don't think you still need to select Run As Administrator, provided you are logged on an Admin account, but I don't know for sure so I gave it a try with the Run As Admin option and the CMD prompt started just fine. Give it a shot.

[665c8eb0d2883Comrade]

Okay, I don't want to get my hopes up as I'm used to Vista pssing on me, but that seems to have solved my problem!  Thankyou so much Kolya you're a gem! 

[665c8eb0d296dShilor]

Brilliant.  This has solved my problem

[665c8eb0d2f53Kolya]

Rewritten and updated the SS2 Videos / Cutscenes Guide, see first post.