Heroes III Sound Fix

[Willow]

Thanks!

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Thanks for this awesome patch - now not only can it play any MP3 I want without crashing, the quality is MUCH better - I always maintained that the old Heroes 3 MP3 built-in MP3 player was piss-poor!

[BAD23ro]

Good job

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

I tried installing this fix several times (followed the instructions exactly) but when I try to run the game it says it is unable to initialize the tool (translated from Dutch), mentioning 0xc01500002 between brackets.
Anyone know what gives?

[Pol]

Carefully pay attention to installation instruction. (renaming) You may also try to keep letter caps - that's solved my problem with first patch version.

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Yeah no I did it with and without caps, furthermore as I said I followed the instructions carefully.
That is, after I screwed it up first and had to do a System Restore to get the original file back
I can't imagine that being the problem though, because the original file works as it should...

[Pol]

Yeah no I did it with and without caps, furthermore as I said I followed the instructions carefully.
That is, after I screwed it up first and had to do a System Restore to get the original file back
I can't imagine that being the problem though, because the original file works as it should...

U, u - you must be doing something wrong. Here's no need to system restore for reverse the changes.

You are creating a direct show bridge, when leaving old components untouched (wavs).

Step by step instructions:

• Rename your original mss32.dll to mss32old.dll.
• Add the file from the patch, which is called mss32.dll, to the game directory.
• Enjoy!

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Let me explain better.

The first time, I stupidly followed the instructions for when you had already downloaded a previous version of the fix.
So, I simply replaced the original mss32.dll with the one from the fix.
I realized my mistake seconds later. The only way I knew to get my old mss32.dll back was a System Restore.
I first checked if the game could start up again, and it could.
Then I tried the installation again, this time following the procedure you just described.

[Narzoul]

Strange... I don't think the problem is with the incorrect renaming, because that gives me a different error message (you could try it as well though, to see if it gives you a different error as well).

Please provide me with the following information:
- Operating system
- Version of the game that you attempted to patch (expansions, etc.)
- Patches/mods that you've already installed

Meanwhile, you could try reinstalling Windows Media Player to make sure that the necessary codecs are properly installed. (Someone had a problem with that recently, though it gave no error messages, just no music playing.)


Also, do you get this error before anything even shows up on screen, or at some later point, like in the main menu?

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Thanks for the support guys, I rather hope we can work this one out.

Strange... I don't think the problem is with the incorrect renaming, because that gives me a different error message (you could try it as well though, to see if it gives you a different error as well).

Ok I tried renaming it to mss32ol.dll but I get the same error message - apparently it has a crucial problem with the new mss32.dll that causes it to abort before it even looks for a mss32old.dll?

Please provide me with the following information:
- Operating system
- Version of the game that you attempted to patch (expansions, etc.)
- Patches/mods that you've already installed

Windows XP (SP2)
Heroes III Complete
No WoG, and I'm using a cd crack. I *think* I installed an official patch for it
Also I haven't installed the game into the Program Files folder.

Meanwhile, you could try reinstalling Windows Media Player to make sure that the necessary codecs are properly installed. (Someone had a problem with that recently, though it gave no error messages, just no music playing.)

I just tried this, didn't work either... version is WMP 11.

Also, do you get this error before anything even shows up on screen, or at some later point, like in the main menu?

The former. The program will simply not run.

[Narzoul]

Since the error message is the same with an incorrectly renamed file, the problem must be somewhere with the loading of the old dll. Maybe you have a different version of that file, or the dll forwarding technique that I used doesn't work on your system for some reason...

Anyway, I've uploaded a package with the patch and my version of the old dll file (100% correctly renamed), see if this works for you:

http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/h3sndfix.zip

(Better make a backup of your old dll file first, to make sure you won't have to use system restore again.)

Just copy both files from the archive into your game directory.

Also, now that you have my version of the old dll, could you tell me if there's any difference compared to yours? (Do a file comparison if you can.) If there's a difference, please check your dll's version: right click on the file, select properties, click the version tab, then select "File Version" from the list box below and copy the value here.


If the above package doesn't work either, I've modified the patch a bit so that it doesn't use the old dll at all - however, sound doesn't work yet in this version (music should be working fine, though):

http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/h3sndfix2.zip

Does this one work for you?

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Since the error message is the same with an incorrectly renamed file, the problem must be somewhere with the loading of the old dll. Maybe you have a different version of that file, or the dll forwarding technique that I used doesn't work on your system for some reason...

Anyway, I've uploaded a package with the patch and my version of the old dll file (100% correctly renamed), see if this works for you:

http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/h3sndfix.zip

(Better make a backup of your old dll file first, to make sure you won't have to use system restore again.)

Just copy both files from the archive into your game directory.

Also, now that you have my version of the old dll, could you tell me if there's any difference compared to yours? (Do a file comparison if you can.) If there's a difference, please check your dll's version: right click on the file, select properties, click the version tab, then select "File Version" from the list box below and copy the value here.

It didn't work. The files appear to be the same (both version 3.0.0.0), the game also works as usual when I make the mss32old.dll from the zip the default mss32.dll file.

If the above package doesn't work either, I've modified the patch a bit so that it doesn't use the old dll at all - however, sound doesn't work yet in this version (music should be working fine, though):

http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/h3sndfix2.zip

Does this one work for you?

It doesn't and it gives me the same error message...
Maybe I should just try reinstalling the game entirely? That'll have to wait until I find the cd though...
Big thanks for all the efforts you made!

[Narzoul]

Sent you a PM.

Meanwhile, another experiment:
http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/h3sndfix3.zip

It has no added code at all, everything is just redirected to mss32old.dll, so it should definitely work...

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Sent you an e-mail.

Again no luck with the new dll from the above post - it keeps giving me the same error message...

[Narzoul]

Well, I've tried the patch with the files you sent me, and it all works fine on my system. It must be some other difference between our systems that causes the problem. Since I developed the patch in Microsoft Visual C++ 2005, maybe installing this would help:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)

Otherwise, I'm running out of ideas, but I'll keep trying...

Try installing the latest DirectX.
Try starting the game directly with Heroes3.exe from the game directory.

If all else fails, I can only think of reinstalling the game, and adding my patch without installing any other patches, cracks, etc. and see if it works that way.

[Pol]

Ok. An important question now. Do you have H3 Complete from 3DO?
(they should be the same but you never know...)

Well, I've tried the patch with the files you sent me, and it all works fine on my system. It must be some other difference between our systems that causes the problem. Since I developed the patch in Microsoft Visual C++ 2005, maybe installing this would help:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)

It could be also otherwise, he may be in need of uninstalling something (conflicting), or "just" purging registry (unregister and register components/filters again, this is however too difficult)

As to the directory structure it should be looking somehow like this:

[Narzoul]

Oh my... I don't know how I didn't think of this earlier, but actually just doing a google search on the error code you gave in your first post (0xc01500002) gave plenty of results.

It is now very likely that the problem is caused by a missing dll. If the redistributable package I posted previously didn't already solve the problem, then copying the DLL from this zip file to your game directory should:
http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/msvcr80.zip

This ought to be a working temporary solution, until I find a way to get rid of this dependency. Which most likely won't happen for a few more weeks, as I'm rather busy with exams nowadays.

If it's not the correct DLL and you still keep getting the error message, please let me know and I'll keep looking further.

[Pol]

Oh my... I don't know how I didn't think of this earlier, but actually just doing a google search on the error code you gave in your first post (0xc01500002) gave plenty of results.

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Oh my... I don't know how I didn't think of this earlier, but actually just doing a google search on the error code you gave in your first post (0xc01500002) gave plenty of results.

It is now very likely that the problem is caused by a missing dll. If the redistributable package I posted previously didn't already solve the problem, then copying the DLL from this zip file to your game directory should:
http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/msvcr80.zip

This ought to be a working temporary solution, until I find a way to get rid of this dependency. Which most likely won't happen for a few more weeks, as I'm rather busy with exams nowadays.

If it's not the correct DLL and you still keep getting the error message, please let me know and I'll keep looking further.

I'm glad you seem to be getting closer to the source but neither installing that package nor adding the .dll (though it wasn't present in the directory before) has resolved the issue. The error message stays the same.
If you need any other info, just ask. Still very grateful you're prepared to be going through all this trouble.

@Pol
I don't know what the alternative is, but as far as I can tell I have the 3DO game. It says so in the heroes3.exe properties, and it's the first thing that appears on screen when the game is loading up. Any other checks I should make?

[Pol]

Umm, yes. But that may create a bit too long list.

Dependency walker told me, that you will need msvcp80.dll and msvcr80.dll, as outlined in "install visual c++ redistributable package" hint.

Afterward files should be presented in windows/system32 directory.


Try that as second.
(And check if your direct show filters are working ok. Although that cannot be a problem. Only the first one.)