Fresh install of empires + old empires GCFs(since its the ONLY way this shitty install of empires works) Two crash dumps. Can not join map with dustvally playing. also it will always reset my graphic settings to low but leaves the resolution alone. I was playing earlier fine. One thing I noticed is that Heavies on both teams look like they are made out of chrome. The BE apc too. edit: a few pages in on this thread I took some time to discover what the problem was. so... here is a list of the exact needed files to get empires running and the error code generated when that file is missing. This is also the order empires looks for these files. The files need to be in steamapps directory. 17741 Ver 0 = empires_content.gcf 17742 Ver 0 = empires_base.gcf 17743 Ver 0 = empires_scripts.gcf 206 Ver 8 = source materials.gcf 207 Ver 4 = source models.gcf 208 Ver 4 = source sounds.gcf 215 Ver 1 = source sdk base.gcf 216 Ver 82 = source 2007 binaries.gcf 305 Ver 5 = source 2007 shared materials.gcf 306 Ver 0 = source 2007 shared models.gcf 307 Ver 0 = source 2007 shared sounds.gcf 218 Ver 0 = source sdk base 2007.gcf
Should put a download link to the old GCFs on the start up screen. Or do another server like the "invalid steam userid" Maybe even just push an update to include the old GCFs.
Yes...it is Fresh install of empires + old empire GCFs. A lot of people are having issues where a fresh install is not working unless you use old GCFs. They should not be needed but for some reason they are.
Installing empires fresh fresh gives no play. It does not create empty gcfs.. it just fails. placing old gcf's works.
I will try a 100% fresh install of steam + empires sometime this week. anyways I don't see how a new install of empires suddenly made it look like shit.
I actually have this issue on my laptop while testing some things. I loaded up money and the console vomited issues about EOF's in texture files; it was missing the skybox texture and was rendering SKIP textures. All the texture files it couldn't find I then found in the "source materials 2007.gcf" file, and GCFScape throws more EOF errors if I try to access them from it.
Source 2007 is now vpk. stored at C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Source SDK Base 2007\vpks depot_206_dir.vpk has the materials OR https://www.dropbox.com/s/5i2yzuelbrrxcmb/materials.rar
100% fresh install of empires & steam & source 2007... FAIL! Steps taken: Moved apps dir out of steam(I don't fucking want to download 200gbs+ of shit again even at 2mb/s) Uninstalled steam(made sure steam dir was gone) Installed steam Installed source 2007 Verified source 2007 Ran source 2007 Installed empires Verified empires TRIED to run empires via Steam( see code snippet 1) TRIED to run empires manually via Launcher( see code snippet 2) Code: MountAppFileSystem() failed: SteamMountAppFileSystem(17740,4294967295,0x18d9fd4) failed with error 5: No CS online with App 17741 Ver 0 Code: Can't find background image materials/console/startup_loading.vtf So ya... empires install is a fail probably for 90% of people who want to try it.
Solution to fucked empires install So, I have been dicking around with empires... since I want to play it and now can not... I have discovered that Empires does NOT like source SDK 2007(new version). It likes the old GCFs. List of required files for my Empires to play that go in steamapps old empires GCFs: empires_base.gcf empires_content.gcf empires_scripts.gcf old source 2007 GCFs: source 2007 binaries.gcf source 2007 shared materials.gcf source 2007 shared models.gcf source 2007 shared sounds.gcf source sdk base 2007.gcf You do NOT get the above GCF's by downloading source sdk 2007 anymore. I had to copy them in from my backup dir. source 2006 GCFs: source materials.gcf source models.gcf source sdk base.gcf source sounds.gcf if any of the above files are missing I can't start empires.
Keep posting, this thread is getting read and Candles is trying stuff based off what you're writing. Really good work Viroman.
Well my empires is currently working.. its sort of screwed on a few maps since those maps expect materials and models to exist that I don't have. GCFscape also says my empires GCF's are sort of screwed. Verify fails on over 3/4 of the files in there. It used to be perfect so I duno if steam fucked them over. I sometimes get HL2 crashes and they do NOT produce a dump file. Happens on map changes. If I start the game up and join again, no problem. I am right now downloading the SVN empires since I have seen that the SVN empires has some models and materials that steam empires doesn't have. I will cross breed the two and see what I can come up with.
So I managed to combine the SVN and steam empires with no noticeable results. I also managed to find(on a backup HD) Copies of my empires and source sdk 2007 GCF's that pass validation. Swapped them in to steamapps dir and there doesn't seem to be any difference. It seems to me that empires is only requesting the GCF's because a list tells them that is what they need to open. The contents does not matter to it since it probably won't read them. Giving them shit or good GCF's doesn't matter.
damn it... So I thought... hmm what if I placed my backup copy of empires in my user dir just like it used to be and remove the common empires. NOPE! Fucking steam goes... we need to update your files... and removes ALL of the GCFs(source sdk 2007, source SDK 2006, and empires GCF's) and guess what... it don't work.
Although this is stuff that I've already seen from personal testing, I greatly appreciate it because you're verifying things that I can now rule out are just a problem on my end. Everything I'm learning has lead me down to some wrong conclusions that I discussed with others but got me a bit further to understanding everything. So I've reached a tentative conclusion based off two lines of reasoning. The first is that the issues with finding the materials/console/startup_loading.vmt are because Source 2007 is now using VPK's, and that the Empire's SDK filesystem code doesn't support VPKs. The second is that for the MountAppFilesystem error, if we switch Empires to use VPKs too, then it might fix itself. Both of these lead to the very tentative conclusion that the solution is to update Empires to Source 2013. I'd much rather discuss the reasoning and feasibility with the rest of the devs before finalizing anything.
I got it to work by doing a fresh install. Moving empires folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empires To C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\sourcemods Chang the gameinfo.txt "GameInfo" { game "Empires" title "EMPIRES" developer "Empires Mod Team" developer_url "http://www.empiresmod.com" icon "resource/steam_icon" manual "http://www.empiresmod.com/help" type multiplayer_only FileSystem { SteamAppId 17740 // GCF for TF2, required for ep2 sdk ToolsAppId 211 // Tools will load this (ie: source SDK caches) to get things like materials\debug, materials\editor, etc. SearchPaths { Game |gameinfo_path|. Game Empires game+mod ep2/ep2_sound_vo_english.vpk game+mod ep2/ep2_pak.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|episodic/ep1_sound_vo_english.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|episodic/ep1_pak.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_sound_vo_english.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_pak.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_textures.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_sound_misc.vpk game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_misc.vpk platform |all_source_engine_paths|platform/platform_misc.vpk mod+mod_write+default_write_path |gameinfo_path|. game+game_write |gameinfo_path|. gamebin episodic/bin game |all_source_engine_paths|episodic game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2 platform |all_source_engine_paths|platform } } } Then Fix the steam.inf PatchVersion=2.41 ProductName=Empires appID=17740
