The Swat 3 movies can cause the game to crash during the start up process. Sometimes this gives a vague error about "DDERR_GENERIC".
This is caused by the fact that the Swat 3 movies were made using a codec that is no longer supported by Microsoft.
With Windows 7 there are three ways to fix this issue:
1) Put all of Swat 3's game executables into Windows XP compatibility mode. This really is just a work around and doesn't solve the problem.
2) Replace the original movies with new versions that have been re-encoded with a different codec. This is my recommended fix.
3) Install a replacement codec.
Previously I have released the fixed movies that were encoded with the popular XVID codec. Unfortunately that still requires you to install a 3rd party codec at some point. This is not an ideal situation.
After a bit of research I have figured out a better codec that all versions of Windows can play without any assistance. The WMV2 codec was released first with Windows XP with Windows Media Player 8. Windows 7 plays it.
I have redone all the movies using this format and would love if people could test it out. They quality should be the same.
Copy-Cat I don't think I have FTP access any more (or I don't have the account info any more). Any chance you can fix me up so I can upload the new movies to your server?
The last time I was troubleshooting issues with the movies, a very wierd problem occurred on Windows 7.
If the Swat 3 folder was in Program Files or Program Files x86 the game runs fine with the original movies.
As soon as I moved the Swat 3 folder to the C:Drive the ddrgeneric error occured. This a problem is also on my emachine running win7. Of course anyway you get it running, the easy ix is to install the new movies.
I will test the new movies on my win7 machine as soon as they are uploaded. There is a new setting for filezilla to work with current FTP. Under Host information be sure you set the encryption to "Require explicit FTP over TLS" and then log in normally.
That is the point really. You had to install something to get it to work. I want to fix this and replacing the movies is the easiest way. People don't want anything complicated or that will make them worry about malware.
Copy-Cat,
Does that mean you did a copy and paste to the C: drive? If so the property settings on the .exe probably changed. ie. the executable wasn't set in Windows XP compatibility mode.
I sent the info to you in a pm on LR forums, I also updated the working directory to the new directory the site is using for downloads, so you can create/update downloads.
Thanks man :) I will upload the new movies in .zip format tonight.
Update: Jesus I forgot how horrible your website host is for uploading. I am getting 5KB/sec. Ouch this will take 2 hours for a small 44 meg file. I have to remember never upload during the day when traffic is at its worst.
Okay it is uploaded. Hopefully it isn't corrupt because my internet went down for a short period of time and I resumed the upload after. It is called "Swat3_fixed_movies.zip"
What I am looking for feedback:
1) quality seems the same 2) they play on many different versions of Windows.
I did frame captures of the original and the re-encoded movies and I can't see any quality difference to the eye or when I zoom in using Photoshop. The original movies were only 15 frames per second and the new movies are 30 frames per second.
