Somatic Vision

Wed 15 Jun 2011, 11:06 am

Hi All,

I have been evaluating Alive, but there are two problems I hope you can help with.

First of all, I assume the 20 trials relates, more or less to 20 sessions ??? That should work out to at least a week or ten days or longer. However, every time I move to another section of the program, such as changing to a new game, the software counts that as a new trial, generates the popup message "You have XX trials left. Are you sure....?" Consequently, even though I only installed the software yesterday, I have used up all of my trials already.

Of more concern, is that I can't see the videos/games and Dual drive froze my system or crashed every time I tried to use it. The coach/tutorial and the bending spoon worked fine, and I can see the particle editor, just not the games or environments.

I just downloaded and installed net framework 4.0 to see if that would help, but having used up all my trials, I can't tell.

I have fast PC with lots of RAM running Win 7 Professional with a good graphics card. There shouldn't be any problems running this software. I would like to buy this if I can get it to work. It is a nice enhancement to the emWave software.

Thanks for any suggestions and help.

Aloha,

Rex
Khon Kaen, Thailand
[email protected]

Hi Rex,

Indeed the trial system is quite harsh, using up 1 trial each time you go to another game or display. Unfortunately, at least in this version, I have no way to reset the trial count. I guess you tried 20 times opening up the mini-games and environments while trying to troubleshoot this.

It sounds like you can't see the environments, mini-games, and that Dual Drive is not working for you. I wonder, did you upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista on this computer? I often see issues where people upgrade from Vista to 7, and 7 uses some Microsoft video driver, that does not fully support your graphics card.

In any case, I think you need to update your video card drivers. Make sure you install the latest video drivers for your graphics card.

Also, what type of graphics card do you have? If nVidia, ATI, AMD, you should have no problem. Embedded Intel chips don't do so well, and don't technically support playing video games.

This same issue might appear if you don't have any audio drivers, but you would probably have noticed this already (no good sound period on your system, so if you ever hear any music, or anything beyond simple beeps, the audio drivers are fine).

If you are very interested in the software, but can't troubleshoot it doing to having used up all your trials, you are welcome to purchase it, continue to try to get it to work (it does work on pretty much every standard machine, 4 years old or newer, with a reasonable graphics card that supports Open GL 2, and updated video drivers). If it doesn't work just let me know, and I'll explain how to de-register and we'll give you your money back. Since I have no way to extend the trials, this is pretty much the only thing I can think of at this time. Of course you can try installing on another computer, which should also work.

Let me know if I can be of any further help.

Best,

Ryan Deluz
Somatic Vision Inc.

Wed 15 Jun 2011, 3:34 pm

Hi Ryan,

Thanks a million for the prompt and thorough reply.

I am downloading Alive now on my other computer. That one is older and slower and running ExPee, so it will be interesting but of limited value if I can get the videos to run on that installation. But let's see . . .

Yes, I used up my trials trying to troubleshoot the video. Unfortunately, I used my last trial before I could determine if upgrading to .net Framework 4.0 would solve the problem.

Meanwhile, back on my first computer, purchased new one year ago, no problems with the audio on Alive or anywhere else. My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM v1.1) and the troubleshooter tells me that my driver is up to date.

Windows 7 Ultimate
System

Rating: Windows Experience Index
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz 3.20 GHz
Installed memory (RAM): 4.00 GB (3.49 GB usable)
System type: 32-bit Operating System
Pen and Touch: No Pen or Touch Input is available for this Display

Depending upon what happens with the second download of Alive, I will consider your advice to purchase the software, as long as I can get a refund if I can't get it working.

Thanks for your help.

Aloha,

Rex
Khon Kaen, Thailand
[email protected]

Hi,

Your drivers do seem to be the issue.

As you wrote:
My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM v1.1)

That graphics driver is a driver written by Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't write good graphics drivers for video cards. You need to download the latest drivers from nVidia:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Installing this will most likely fix your problem.

Best,

Ryan