Games not launching in Steam? (Alu Macbook 2.0) (fixed)

[daniel.ord]

Hi there,

Just installed Vista Business (MSDNAA) and Steam, and none of my games will launch. CSS, HL2, L4D Demo, they all say "preparing to launch" and then just go back to the main window, nothing launches.

Googling's not done much for me, neither has Mroogle. I noticed someone mentioned that Vista is running a basic VGA driver, but that shouldn't matter, should it? Get a Vista score of something like 5.3 and have DirectX installed.
I'm about to try http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista_20.08.html but I'm a little nervous about running a driver I don't really know if is right.

Running in boot camp, by the way.

Any ideas?

Edit: Tried the other drivers, still says generic VGA adapter. And now the graphics score is down to 1.0! Why!? I just want my L4D... Sigh. It has to be a graphics driver thing, right?

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Hi there,

Just installed Vista Business (MSDNAA) and Steam, and none of my games will launch. CSS, HL2, L4D Demo, they all say "preparing to launch" and then just go back to the main window, nothing launches.

Googling's not done much for me, neither has Mroogle. I noticed someone mentioned that Vista is running a basic VGA driver, but that shouldn't matter, should it? Get a Vista score of something like 5.3 and have DirectX installed.
I'm about to try http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista_20.08.html but I'm a little nervous about running a driver I don't really know if is right.

Running in boot camp, by the way.

Any ideas?

First of all, what computer do you have?

Have you installed Boot Camp?

If you know Vista is using default drivers, then yes, it would matter. Vista's default drivers are basic. They're generally designed to just get you "up and running."

Also, that link to the drivers, those are NOT video card drivers. Those are chipset drivers. I have no idea what your computer is, so I have no idea what chipset it has. But if you have like like a Intel chipset, you can screw something up pretty bad if you try to install them (usually there are hardware checks in place to try and prevent you from screwing up).

I would advice you of what to get if I knew what you had.

To give you some comfort though. I had Vista Business 32-bit (from my MSDNAA account) installed and had no problems with Steam. I know have Windows Server 2008 installed, and I have no problems with that either. So, it's likely this little driver issue.

EDIT: STOP INSTALLING DRIVERS THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE. YOU WILL SCREW UP YOUR COMPUTER EVEN MORE AND MAYBE CAUSE YOU TO NEED TO REFORMAT!

 

[daniel.ord]

Thanks for you reply, but that driver is for all the things connected to the chipset i.e. also the 9400m, so should really have worked. It seems to have made no difference.

I'm assuming that the OSX cd that I used to install the drivers wasn't updated for the 9400m, and that it might be the reason the the generic VGA. Just can't seem to fint anything that implies real support for the 9400m (doesn't help that nvidia seem to have been a bit strange with the naming, since there's that other card that's kinda called the same thing.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Thanks for you reply, but that driver is for all the things connected to the chipset i.e. also the 9400m, so should really have worked. It seems to have made no difference.

No.

Well. You're right about the 9400M, and it does supply drivers for the GPU, but that driver is likely for the desktop, since Nvidia doesn't supply drivers for laptops. And I know the video card drivers in that package doesn't support your video card because they're from the 178 series, which is intended for desktop GPUs.

I have no idea what leopard CD you used, but regardless.

Go here:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I would use these drivers:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21216

Basically, download the driver from there. Double click on the downloaded file. You will be asked to extract the contents to a folder. Do so. Then, download the modified .inf file. Place the modified .inf file where you just extracted the contents to (there should be a ton of files in the folder). It will ask you if you want to replace a file. You, you do want to replace the file. Run the setup.exe in that folder and will install the drivers. If you don't understand something, there is a quickstart guide next to the modified inf link.

That should resolve your woes.

 

[daniel.ord]

Ok, I've figured it. Thanks again for the reply.

The boot camp drivers weren't installing correctly. I even tried the "repair" earlier, no go.

The fix was to find the actual gfx driver via the boot camp cd, but find it in the folder, not via the install program. Installing it manually from there worked, and it now sees a 9400M correctly.

Thanks again for your help.