Game freezes at first mission's loading screen

[mantis]

I recently installed GTA III and a couple of things have been irritating me. First and foremost, my main problem is the freezing issue that happens when I drive into the blue circle to do Luigi's first mission, Luigi's Girls. There's no way out of this unless I CTL-ALT-DEL out and end the process. There are some minor issues as well such as the disappearing text at the menu screen and not being able to drive backwards at some parts in Portland. Here's a list of the things I've tried:

1. Updated drivers, defragged, cleaned up my computer, etc.

2. Ran the game in XP and Win98 compatibility mode

3. Patched it to 1.1 and then did the same as #2.

4. Set the gta.exe to use only one core of my dual core processor

5. Re-installed the game, but this time in Program Files instead of Program Files (x86)

And before I forget, here are my specs:

Intel E8400 C2D @3.0GHz

2x 8800GT 512MB (SLI)

4GB PC2 6400 RAM

Vista Home Premium 64-bit

I'm thinking it might be the fact that I have a 64 bit version of Vista, but I've heard that other people have played this game with no problems on Vista, so I'm at a loss. Thanks.

[Samil]

Whoa! Take it easy! You could just say "I have an error with GTA III".

So nothing worked? Well who knows ... maybe the CD with the game was a little scratched or ... who knows?

[mantis]

Whoa! Take it easy! You could just say "I have an error with GTA III".

So nothing worked? Well who knows ... maybe the CD with the game was a little scratched or ... who knows?

Saying "I have an error with GTA III" would make me sound vague and generalized, and without any other information, I would have to gradually post it with every question other members on this board would ask. However, the CD is a tad scratched (which is something I forgot to add: I have a legit copy of the game), but there are no pop-up windows that indicate an error, only the game freezing at the first mission's loading screen like I said, so I doubt the scratched CD would be causing this.

[WRX22B1998]

hmmm

nice specs

try going to gtasavegames.com and click gta3 and get a savegame AFTER the mission it freezes on. worth a try i suppose.

[MrLlamaLlama]

Grab the exe in the installation folder and go properties > then run in the Win2k / ME / XP compatibility mode.

[WRX22B1998]

2. Ran the game in XP and Win98 compatibility mode

good thought but he did that

[mantis]

hmmm

nice specs

try going to gtasavegames.com and click gta3 and get a savegame AFTER the mission it freezes on. worth a try i suppose.

I can't believe I didn't think of that when I first installed the game. But sadly, it didn't work. I still got the same load screen just before you get into the game, and it froze again. Thanks anyways.

[MrLlamaLlama]

You could just be running files that got corrupt in setup.

Did you delete your III folder in prog.files when you reinstalled? A few files (especially those which might not be recognized if they're corrupt) can linger afterwards. Just a thought.

[mantis]

You could just be running files that got corrupt in setup.

Did you delete your III folder in prog.files when you reinstalled? A few files (especially those which might not be recognized if they're corrupt) can linger afterwards. Just a thought.

I didn't delete the folder before I reinstalled, but since I didn't have the game on the computer before the first install, would that matter? I still had the same problem when I first installed it.