Freeze on Startup

[Novak]

Well I got the debugger error fixed and now back to the original problem.  Everytime I start FL it freezes while the startup menu is being displayed.  The mod and FLMM are unistalled.  FL has been uninstalled and reinstalled more times than can be counted.  Sorry to bother you all with my problems but I don't know what else to do.

Cpu speed --- 2.4GHz  P4
Operating system --- XP Professional SP 2
Amount of ram --- 1GB
Sound card --- on board
Graphics card --- ATI 9800 Pro
Driver versions in use for above --- All current drivers are in use
Motherboard --- Intel D865PERL

Thank you in advance for the help.

[Zyos]

When you removed and re-installed did you remove the games files in my documents/my games/freelancer?

The autosave can sometimes cause freezes or crashes during startup

[Asmodeus]

Try Disabling your firewall that is usually the problem of freezing on start up.

[Frobozz]

Welcome back Novak. I would say what Zyos said, as that's my usual crash mantra and 9 times outa 10 when I crash that's the reason why. OK, to recap:

You have ONLY vanilla FL loaded currently, no mod, right?
You can't even get into single player game? DX 9.0c right?

OK, let's see if you can run FL windowed, add -w to the target line of your desktop FL shortcut, like this:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\EXE\Freelancer.exe" -w

If that won't work on plain vanilla AND you're sure the settings folder is deleted as Zyos said, then all I can have you do is disable your sound card and try it again. Ya, FL don't like some sound cards even with latest drivers. I had to disable my on-board sound card in bios and install a PCI sound card myself.

[Novak]

Thanks for the advice M8s..

Currently vanilla FL is installed. No mod and no quick fix.  DX9.0c is in use.  The firewall and on board sound have been disabled.

When the game was uninstalled I removed all FL files.  I double checked for the autosaves and they are gone.

When I start the game it will run through the intro movie with out any problems.  When that is over and the menu options appear from the left is when it's freezing.  Before I tried the above suggestions it would freeze when the 1st option on the menu list appeared.  After trying all of the fixes it was at a stable idle for around a minute then it freezes. To find out what made the improvement  I tried one at a time. Disabling the Sound and running the game windowed each produced the afore mentioned affect.

If it makes any difference, I check my Sound driver and the last update release was in 2005.  This is the first time I have had any problems with this game since I started playing the game in 2004.

This is really starting to feel like FL rehab over here... I don't think I can make it!  @-)

[Burn]

After uninstalling the game check the registry for any Freelancer related folders.
Start--Run--regedit--HkeyLocalMachine--Software.
If u find any delete them manually and reinstall FL.