Edit: Finally fixed it. Turns out this game doesn't like LAV Filters as a codec, as it would crash at the intro FMV if it was set as the preferred codec. With Codec Tweak Tool I was able to set the preferred codec for .mpg videos to the one built into Windows instead of the LAV Filters one, and it works fine now.

Ok so I made an account here because this game is driving me mad. I wanted to play it for quite some time, but it just doesn't work. The launcher starts up, I can modify the settings, the test function in the settings menu works perfectly, but when I actually start the game, it just shows the creators logos and the copyright screen, then boom, CTD without any visible error.

The thing is, I've tried everything, with absoultely no luck whatsover. I've tried using both nocd cracks and the dvd release (which is supposed to be drm free), to no difference. I tired using "period accurate " hardware (my dad's old Abit IC7 with a P4 and an FX5200, 1gb ram, Win XP SP3): no luck. Dgvoodoo with fixed exe by dege: nothing (BTW: the game has trouble detecting the large vram (>4 gb) of modern gpus, as the setup shows an error about insufficient video memory: i tried a Large Adress Aware patch, it doesn't change anything, but since the test option in the settings (an in-engine demo basically) works perfectly I don't think it's the main problem). I tired limiting the game to single core: it didn't help either. Changing windows DEP settings also didn't affect it and neither did changing compatibility modes.

My OS locale is hungarian, so tired using a locale emulator to fake an american locale and timezone setting, since some games have trouble with different locales. Didn't fix it.

My only clue is that the windows event logs show an access violation error regarding the game (0xc0000005), but that's not really helpful, since it could be anything on the system that's causing it.

What pisses me off is that this game works out of the box for most people (besides the frame rate cap but dege has a fix for that), although some people mention the same issue in youtube comments, but there is nothing on the internet about this problem or how to fix it.

PS: sorry if this was a rambling mess, but I wanted to show that literally nothing I could think of worked for me.