my freelancer dies

[Maak]

when ever I try to join an online freelancer server it just minimizes to the taskbar then it performs an illegal operation, does anyone know why this may be?

[Killemall]

u tryed reinstalling?:)

[Maak]

no I havnt as of yet, in hope there may be a way to get it working without reinstalling :D

[*Tsunami*]

Could be loads of reasons?

Does single player work?
Have you installed direct X 9a?

Have you got plenty of room on your main boot drive (usually drive C). Freelancer dump loads of data all over the drive (not just my documents), make sure you have access to the drive and there is plenty of space on it.

Failing all that....... reinstall the game...

[Catachan]

OK, having looked into this for you, a few ideas have popped up:

1. Soundblaster cards seem to have problems sometimes with certain setups (try disabling sound and joining a multiplayer game).

2. Direct X9 is needed for Multiplayer, as Freelancer uses the DX9 version of DirectPlay.

3. Apparently some of this issue is based around router usage. Do you have a router? Try bypassing it.

4. Try the usual updating of all drivers on your machine.

5. Update to Direct X 9.0a

6. Windows itself may be causing the problem. This is a quote from a member of a fansite I contacted:

After about 8 hours of tearing in and out hardware and beating windows to death we found that one of windows newer patchs is screwing up some of us. What we did was reinstall windows without patching any thing. This fixed it, for those who dont want to do this you can use the windows restore and try and back up till it works. Im sure some day there will be a patch for this but it you really want to play online this is a quick fix.

A bit extreme, I know, but a last shot, perhaps?

Microsoft have been made aware of this however, as many people have had the same problem, and a patch will be forthcoming.

[Catachan]

You may also wish to try downloading and use All-Seeing Eye, which has Freelancer support now. It bypasses the in-game menu screens and pops you into the server off the bat.

Worth a try.

Note: after you start Freelancer via ASE, you need to go to Multiplayer and then Lan instead of internet. The server will show up there. Totally bypassing the Microsoft global server.

Second Note: The server list in ASE will be different than the global because ASE creates it's own list by searching the net for running servers. Also you will not have a list of servers you have played on before.

[RocketKnight]

Create a shortcut similar to the following:

C:\Games\FreeLancer\EXE\Freelancer.exe -s212.42.10.131:2302

This will make the MPUK server visible in the Internet games menu without the need of a global master server.
Not specific to the problem but I prefer this to installing additional apps like ASE.

[Catachan]

He's not having problems seeing games, just joining them.