Hi As many of you I love the game, and I would like to play the game to the end, but there is one bug that prevents this.
I'm talking about the scope zoom issue in the level "A Dangerous Voyage". I know that I can download someone's saves, but that doesn't solve anything.
So I'm searching for a solution on my own, and I thought that someone here would by willing to help me out.
First of all: The game runs 100% correct on a 3.20Ghz 1.5Gb Ram GF 7300 GS 512MB and on Win XP. (That's my old PC that I don't use any more.)
The issue is on: 2 x 2.00GHz 4Gb RAM GF 9650Gt 1GHz with Vista. (my laptop that I use now).

The issue can be caused by the graphics card or the windows. If I know which i can start to finding a Fix

My question to you is:
Does anyone have this issue on XP ?( if it is caused by Vista then there is a weary big probability the it can by fix by a compatibility tool - I did that for many other games that didn't cooperate with Vista.)
Or maybe someone with a new videocard doesn't heave this issue?

Thanks for the help.

i *think* not sure though, that it has something to do with your video card

a solution i found for this would be to ....
.1 get on your old pc and get on teh scope, and make sure you can see the blue lights, and then hit print screen on you keyboard
2. go to paint ,and paste in there, then print out a page
3, use that page to find out the location of the blue lights on your laptop

if you dont mind, would you be able to post that pic up here for people who might have this problem in the future?

thx

esepablo - I don't know if that solves anything. Because...

Anyway I made some progress.
First of all, this isn't a hardware issue !! On both my PC's the game runs 100% correct on XP. And they have the same issues running on Vista.

There two types of bugs with the game:
1. Graphic issues - Rain drop issues, sky issues, and so on... - Caused by DirectX 10, and how it renders the graphic.
A tempera solution for many of those issues is to use a DirectX emulator. I used a program called D3D Windower (search in google for it) witch runs the game in a window and emulates DirectX 9 rendering. U can also use 3D-anolyze.

Diract X10 strange rendering
http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/3483/bad2t.jpg
Fixed with D3D Windower.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/8510/badm.jpg

2. Script issues - Objects not moving, Brian Burnham not following you, the coast in the scope not appearing - Caused by Vista blocking the game scripts.
Yes, those all are scripts that the game cannot activate becomes of Vista. It happens in many games like for example "Requiem: Avenging Angel".
The coast is a script that should appears in front of you when you use the scope zoom. But it doesn't appear because Vista blocked that script.
If you use the Fly mode than you can see that there isn't anything in front of the ship, so it must appear when you use the scope zoom.
So I don't know if shooting blinding will help, because the coast may not even be there. I didn't try, if it helps tell me.

It have been solved in many other games. I'm still searching for a fix for DCOTE. Ill write soon.

Priests pictures:
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6641/priest1.jpg
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/594/priest2y.jpg
http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/2153/priest3.jpg
Aim a bit higher. The boat keeps mowing a lot.

Is there anyone who wants to find a fix for those issues ?? Maybe someone would like to help ??

Maybe buy a crappy computer with somethings like 50-100$ and play these kind of games on it ?
I don't know.
VMWare with bad graphics controller, and other things ? It might work, worth the try i guess, eh ?

-Tssge

As I said those aren't hardware issues !! 99% of the issues people encounter is caused by Vista, not the hardware presents.
So why by a new PC ?? You can just install XP (even as a secondary) on a modern PC ( like mine 2x2.00GHz 4Gb RAM GF 9650Gt 1GHz), and it will work correctly.
And the VMWare emulated graphics card is to week to run DCoTE, so it wont help.

I'm 100% certain that the issues can be easily solved by using a compatibility tool. As I said, I solved many similar issues with other games like:
Requiem where Vista blocked a script that should teleport you to the next location.

Doesn't anyone won't to play the game on vista ?? Fix the game ?? No one cares about this fantastic game ?

Well as it isn't hardware problem, why not just use compability settings for Windows XP ?

-Tssge

Because the compatibility settings available in the file properties doesn't solve the problem.
Those properties only change basic settings.
It can by solve using a more advanced tool called "Application Compatibility Toolkit".
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=24DA89E9-B581-47B0-B45E-492DD6DA2971&displaylang=en
But before I can do anything a need to find out more about those issues. When they occur, why et... And that's why I'm searching for people wanting to help.

I am running Windows XP and I get the glitchy raindrops. I haven't made it to the boat yet so I don't know if I'll have the missing lights issue too.

The biggest differences between my current and previous PC (which had no problems) is that it's 64 bit windows instead of 32 bit, a dual core CPU instead of a single core CPU, and an ATI HD4850 graphics card instead of a ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card.

I'll give that emulator a try.

Try this one http://www.brothersoft.com/d3dwindower-238977.html If it helps than we can make a permanent solution
And here are my saves at the boat if you want to try.
http://rapidshare.com/files/380347437/Bethesda.rar.html
http://www.speedyshare.com/files/22131323/Bethesda.rar

I want to help. I am having the coast problem!

medyk6,
what happened when you changed vista to xp compatibility mode?
has anyone else tried changing to xp comp. mode?

esepablo - the XP compatibility mode form the EXE properties doesn't help. It doesn't change nothing.

Dext - How can you help? Do you have XP or Vista, what graphics card do you have ??

I didn't do any progress because no one wants to help, and because of that I stop trying...

I have tryed the directx emulator but the rain is glitched in the same way.
I'm going to try the compatibility tool, cause the cannon bug block the game.
If someone have resolved the problem please post the solution

P.s. i don't understand nothing in the compatibility tool...
I'm using win 7 32 bit a radeon 4850 with the latest drivers, the cpu is a athlon 64 x2 4800+ overclocked

If that's your conclusion, have you tried installing the game outside of Program Files? Vista doesn't treat Program Files like a normal directory (it's the same for Windows 7), it's a cloned directory which causes file referencing problems, within games.

I've tried the directX Windower on my Windows7 (yeah i have the "blue light issue") and the rain is fixed but no Blue Lights!!

Greetings,

I found a partial workaround for the canon scope issue on Windows. The workaround is not easy, requires a bit of technical knowledge, and barely functions, but I just used it on a hardened detective play-through to kill the blue lights and continue the game.

My primary machine is running vista ultimate on a fairly high-end home-made desktop. I played the game up to the blue lights bug on my primary computer.

I then installed http://www.virtualbox.org/, an emulator originally by Sun Microsystems, now owned by Oracle.

Inside VirtualBox, I installed a copy of Windows XP that I have. You don't have to register or activate this copy of XP unless you intend to use the emulator for more than 30 days.

Once XP was installed into VirtualBox, I rebooted the emulated system into safe mode, and installed the Guest Additions into the system. This is to enable 3D graphics support in the emulated computer. There are some settings changes that are required as well. See http://maketecheasier.com/enable-3d-acceleration-in-virtualbox/2009/05/21 for more details. Once the Guest Additions are installed, be sure to disable Mouse Integration, or the mouse sensitivity in the game gets all whacky (more than usual, anyway).

Then I installed the Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth into the emulated XP. I set it to run at 640x480 - 60 hertz.

I copied my save game from my primary desktop into the appropriate folder in the emulated system. I loaded up CoC:DCotE and loaded my save game.

The game was barely playable in the emulator. In particular, my movement speed was greatly reduced. I think I've seen an unofficial patch that would help with this, which could be installed in the emulated copy of the game. I managed at the slower speed, barely.

Through about 8 waves, I managed to shoot the blue lights. You know you have succeeded when after a tidal wave when you get a vision of a deep one below decks. I was able to barely make it to the save point before the deep ones started chasing Officer Winter through the ship.

I quit the game, copied my save file back to my primary desktop, loaded the game, and was able to continue past this game-stopping bug.

This workaround might not work for every bug, but it did help me when I couldn't find a save file for the difficulty I was on.

Would you be willing to post a link to that save file here? That would be pretty sweet!

I solve with this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3BD6AXkiDI&feature=related

I thought I'd lost the save, but I found it again.

If I did the hosting correctly, you should be able to http://www.mediafire.com/?f8pk8s0bvyi8l14.

Thanks Ecaep! Works like a charm Appreciation

I want to help, what i need to do? i have Geforce 9800 GT, and Windows 7 32bit. No blue lights, and strange moonlight rendering ( fixing with d3d D3D Windower). How to fix this with full-screen?