Dirt 2.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.

[Black Panther]

On my brother's pc - he gets the message in the title as soon as he launches the game just after the AMD logo.

I had gifted him the game, and then he copied it in his steamapps/common folder ie he didn't download the game from steam. But that shouldn't be a problem, I did it countless times...

I logged in to GFWL and Steam on his account from my pc, and I can play the game. So I guess his GFWL is not the problem....

He verified the game cache through Steam...
He tried forcing dx9

Still no go

 

[Mussels]

odds are its missing something else the game requires to run, since it never 'installed'


instead, try doing a steam backup on your machine and transferring that to him - delete the files he has now and install from the backup, and it should install any required files (directX and the like)

 

[Steve-007UK]

I would try to patch the game to if you can as i also had strange crashes when setting the game to 1600/1200 res. After i patched the game everything worked fine.

If there are any settings config files you can edit then try setting the res to something like 1280/1024 and see if that helps.

 

[Dice]

try turning off the in game overlay - worked for me.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

There was an auto update for GFWL which changes it's icon and overall layout. Problem is once you install the update you need to 1st log into GFWL before starting Dirt 2 now. Were before you simply launched Dirt 2 and GFWL would start up automatically. Seems that Dirt 2 needs to update to reflect the change to GFWL or else it doesn't communicate properly leaving that type of error.

I'm not sure if those with steam still have to log in to GFWL though.

 

[Black Panther]

try doing a steam backup on your machine and transferring that to him

I'll be trying that...

I would try to patch the game (snip) try setting the res to something like 1280/1024 and see if that helps.

Don't think it is the problem because steam patches the games automatically..

About the resolution, he's got a small 17" 4:3 monitor and I think he is running it at 1280x1024.

try turning off the in game overlay - worked for me.

Just did it, didn't work for him..

I'm not sure if those with steam still have to log in to GFWL though.

Nope..


___________________

Btw his pc details:

5000BE
3GB RAM
8800GT
XP Sp3

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Try running the game directly from ...\dirt2\dirt2.exe

 

[Black Panther]

Try running the game directly from ...\dirt2\dirt2.exe

Done that (forgot to mention in OP)

Didnt' work

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Wait a second, you forwarded to him your version from Win7/Vista while he's only using XP? He will probably need to download his own version. Unfortunately there is no setup.exe or install.exe where a repair can be done. Have you tried letting setting update the game?

 

[Black Panther]

Wait a second, you forwarded to him your version from Win7/Vista while he's only using XP? He will probably need to download his own version.

Crap, yes...

It worked when I transferred from Vista to Win7...
But I guess XP is a bit different

Will it be a problem if I do like Mussels said above and create a backup from Steam instead of just copy/pasting the files like I did? 10.5GB would be a pain for him to download with his connection..

His Steam is set to update games automatically.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Steam shouldn't need to redownload the entire game again. Only the portions of the game that is corrupt. Steam does recognize the game though right? Did you add it to steam (Activate a Product on Steam)?

 

[Black Panther]

Steam shouldn't need to redownload the entire game again. Only the portions of the game that is corrupt. Steam does recognize the game though right? Did you add it to steam (Activate a Product on Steam)?

Yes the game is visible in the steam games library.

I think it is already activated because when he tries to activate it it says "Invalid Product Code". I thought there was a problem there, but I tried 'activating' my own game on my pc using my code and I also get "Invalid Product Code" yet the game runs perfectly fine on my pc.

I even told him to log off Steam, got into his steam account from my pc and used his GFWL and I was able to play - in fact his steam now says that 'he' played the game for 15 minutes...

 

[Mussels]

installing from the backup will work, because it will redownload the XP versions of the installers for whatever it needs that isnt in your backup.

 

[Black Panther]

installing from the backup will work, because it will redownload the XP versions of the installers for whatever it needs that isnt in your backup.

It worked perfectly . Or should I say nearly perfectly...

Launching the game whether from Steam or from the exe file in steamapps/common (or before or after logging on to Live, or while playing offline...) he still gets the 'Encountered a problem and needs to close' popup, but the game doesn't crash or quit now.

It goes full-screen as it should do (and hides the offending popup at the same time ) and he can play normally.

In fact he did some 3 or 4 races in the Dirt Tour, and played a couple of online races, game worked fine and saved well etc... No lag, great fps.