Jan

Getting Frets On Fire Working On Windows XP

Written by Neil Galloway

I recently installed Frets On Fire on my computer and have been having a great time. I still need a guitar though, but I'll figure that out soon enough. Getting Frets On Fire to work took a little bit of effort though.

I had issues getting it to work on both Vista and XP, but managed to figure them both out. This is my article for Windows XP, but you can also read how I got Frets On Fire Working With Vista.

I have seen 2 different errors and experience terrible performance, but I will explain further below.

Windows XP Frets On Fire Crash

I installed Frets On Fire version 1.2.512 and loaded it up. The first time I tried to load the game it just plain crashed. I received the Windows XP error message:

FretsOnFire.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Here is a screenshot of hte error.

This error was random and could happen on startup or when trying to play a song.

Windows XP Frets On Fire Error

I tried loading it up right again to see the error and this time it was different. I was able to get all the way into the song selection and when the song would just start to play, I would get the following error in a wndow titled cx_Freeze: Python error in main script:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "c:\user\proj\cx_Freeze-3.0.3\initscripts\console.py", line 27, in ?
File "src/FretsOnFire.py", line 79, in ?
File "src\GameEngine.py", line 376, in run
File "src\Dialogs.py", line 1153, in showMessage
File "src\Dialogs.py", line 1043, in _runDialog
File "src\GameEngine.py", line 366, in run
SystemExit: 1

Here is a screenshot below.

Solution Is 16 Bit Color

After searching the internet I managed to get rid of both of these errors by right clicking on the desktop and changing the color depth to 16 bit from 32 bit. The game would now load and actually play the song.

Frets On Fire Performance Is Terrible

Once I had it working, Frets On Fire was slow and jittery. Basically unplayable. My PC is a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz and over 5 years ago so I attributed the performance to that and was content playing on my laptop. While writing this article I got it working smoothly though.

Install Frets On Fire 1.2.451 For Best Performance

I had to install version 1.2.451 to get FoF working on my Vista machine at all. Once I put it on my XP machine, it worked just as well as my laptop which has better specs.

I also tried changing my color depth back to 32 bit and what do you know? Frets On Fire 1.2.451 still worked fine.

If you have already installed 1.2.512, then uninstall it and delete the folder yourself to make sure it is completely gone. Then download Frets On Fire 1.2.451 and install it. There are some excellent mods that will fix any of the issues in 1.2.451 for you so won't need to upgrade anyways. Try out RF-Mod.

Summary To Windows XP and Frets On Fire

Install FoF 1.2.451 and never look back. If you already installed 1.2.512 then uninstall it and delete the folder before installing 1.2.451.

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Category: Computers

1 Comments

alexsander Says:
2008-09-25 20:43:00
to make your frets on fire faster, only u need to do is disable some special effect of your video card like bilinear/trilinear or vertical sync.
for my nvidia 5200 works well now and very faster.