snd error

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Salazar
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Post by Salazar »

I dun like golf. . .
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Re: Fix for the "ErrFailedSND" Error

Post by Guest »

[quote="James444"]:D Credit must go to Tasiin for pointing me in the right direction!


I received the Giants game with my Creative sound card, and it has the "EAX" logo on the CD. I would get "ErrFaildedSND" and a black screen when I tried to play the game.

I googled "gs_ds.dll" and downloaded the file at: http://www.webzila.com/?wz=dll#results Enter gs_ds.dll in the search box. Download the file, extract the zipped .dll and copy it to the Giants program directory. That should do it! My game works now on a new computer with a built-in sound card! Thanks to Tasiin! James

Original post by Tasiin:
That's not the problem. The error message "ErrFailedSND" is caused by attempting to play the EAX version of Giants without a Creative sound card, which is what I'm pretty sure he's getting.

In order to play, you'll need to get the file gs_ds.dll from a player who has the regular version of Giants and replace yours with theirs - this seems to be the .dll that controls DirectSound for Giants, and contains whatever code they added to stop the game from running on non-Creative cards. Replacing the EAX version's with the regular one's allowed one of my other computers to run it without a Creative card, so that should do it.[/quote]

First of all, I appreciate submissions like this that address the issue brought up in the oringal post and offer detailed steps to fix the problem.

Now, I understand this thread hasn't been touched in awhile and it is possible the link provided above no longer works, but I am having the same problem with the game that the original poster was.

Unfortunately, I am not having any luck fixing the issue. I looked, and my sound card is a Soundblaster Live card (my PC is about 5 years old), which I am not sure is the right kind needed.

So, I tried going to the Webzilla link and did a search for "gs_ds.dll" but all I get is a new window inside the original search window, asking me for what I am looking for once again, and it just keeps going on from there. I never am provided a link to actually download anything.

So, I figure I would try searching online via Google or Yahoo for "gs_ds.dll" and just about every link shown to download the file leads me to porn sites, once I click the link to download the file.

Long story short, I can't find the stinkin' file I need and if I have the Graphical Revision Mod v1.0 loaded, the game will crash, giving me the same error message. The game does work if I don't have the patches on, but I would like to see the graphical improvements this patch provides.

Does anyone here have any advice for someone who has played this game before and bought it again after having not played it in years but isn't too computer savy to figure out this issue on his own?
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Post by Tasiin »

No idea why GRM would cause an issue like that. Here's a link to the non-Creative gs_ds.dll though.

Are you sure you didn't just download the 1.4 patch with EAX from GWD accidentally? SoundBlaster Lives do actually work with the EAX version though, as long as you've got the latest drivers from Creative. Older drivers will give you the problem you're experiencing now. The Audigy line of cards work with it out of the box, however.
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Thanks!

Post by Guest »

Your link worked and now the game does too. I only wish I wasn't about to leave for work now, so I could stay here and play awhile. From what I was able to see, before I needed to get myself ready to leave, the graphical improvements are apparent and the game audio works nicely too.

So, seen as there are still people active on this site, does that mean I can still find active multiplayer games going online next time I check?

Like I said, I had this game when it first came out and I regretted selling my old copy. For some reason I was thinking about how fun G:CK was and decided to get it again if I could. Luckily, I found a new copy on Amazon for just under $4.

Thank you again Tasiin for the link.
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Post by Tasiin »

You can try. I'm afraid you're about a year and a half late now if you're looking for multiplayer games, though. The population has been dropping off steadily recently, which isn't too unexpected as Giants will be six years old this December. There still seem to be games going from time to time, though.
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Post by [NEO]Vortex »

I haven't played since june but I still go in the lobby every few days. The majority of players seem to be around 12-18, so when school started it really went down hill. I think it will pick up again next summer, but that is pretty far off. :(
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Post by Exploderman »

It always goes good when its summer, then school just hits the ''population declination'' like a brick wall.

Another good time to play is when theres no school for a long period of time, for ex: Winter break is just around the corner, which means school will be empty and the internet lobbies will be filled(so will their electric bills ^^) and giants will get a lively boost of players for about 2 weeks. Then its down-hill again till Spring break, then Summer. This means there is plenty of time to practice ^^ 8)
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