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View Full Version : Problem: After reinstalling some codecs, a game crashes when loading the intro


clancy688
27th December 2012, 13:52
Hello,

since yesterday I have a hard to describe problem at my hands... anyway:

Yesterday I decided to update all my AV-decoders/-splitters on my system. For doing so I first deinstalled everything (PotPlayer, MPC-HC, FFDShow, LAVFilters, madFlac, Haali, madVR) and then installed the LAVFilters megamix from here (http://imouto.my/configuring-potplayer-for-gpu-accelerated-video-playback-with-dxva-or-cuda-and-also-high-performance-software-decoding/).

So far everything works well, but then I tried playing a favourite game of mine, Civilization 5 (Steam). I start the game, the monitor becomes black for a short moment and then the game simply crashes "Civilization 5 has stopped working".
Normally, at this point the intro would start.

After trying nearly everything including totally reloading the whole game, I went to the folder containing the intro video. There's ONE .wmv (wmv3) with english audio and several .wma with other languages. Apparently, based on the chosen language, during intro playback the original audio track of the video is replaced by a localized audio stream.
When I REMOVE my language's .wma from the folder and start the game, everything WORKS - the intro is skipped and I arrive at the main menue.

So apparently something goes wrong when trying to play the .wmv and replacing it's audio with a .wma.
I can play both files just fine, with all my players and windows media player. Therefore I guess it may be some kind of splitter problem...?

Do you have any idea what I may have broken during my uninstalling of the old codecs...?

setarip_old
27th December 2012, 19:13
Hi!

You may be better off raising your question with the "Steam people" or a game forum...

clancy688
27th December 2012, 19:55
Well, yes.

Firaxis (the game's developers) know about the bug. They recommend the mentioned workaround (removing the video and audio files).

What they are not able to is reproducing the problem (so far). And since they are game developers, I'm fairly sure they have no clue whatsoever about codecs/splitters/etc.

So I thought I'm gonna ask people with experience in those compartments...


Because it's clearly a codec/splitter problem:

BEFORE I updated my codecs, the game worked fine, afterwards it crashed. And since they are not using some odd game codecs but WMV3 and WMApro it's somehow connected to how those files are split/decoded.

And therefore I thought MAYBE you could give me hints where problems with wmv/wma may originate.

When I deinstalled/reinstalled my codecs, I broke SOMETHING the game needed to split/decode wmv/wma. I'm sure there are not many things I could've broken and which are related to windows media files. Maybe you have an idea WHAT may've gone wrong.