Help with Physx reinstall

Dogbite

I removed Physx from my system while I was trying to trouble shoot some stability problems, and now I can't seem to get Ns2 to recognize the reinstalled version. I keep getting the message "couldn't initialize the physics system" when I try to start Ns2.

Can anyone give me the steps to properly reinstall Physx on my system? I've got an Ati card if that matters.

I don't have a copy of the installer in the redist folder anymore, so I had to download a new one (PhysX_9.10.0513_SystemSoftware.exe) from the Nvidia site and ran the installer that way. No luck.

Searching the forums hasn't helped, I can't seem to pin down a search that gets results on this specific issue.

Thanks

Wheeee

delete everything in the ns folder and redownload it from steam.

Dogbite

I tried re-downloading the game and had no luck. Although, now with build 162 it starts to load with a black screen and then goes to the error reporting screen. Before, it just did a pop up error and closed immediately.

Here's the log.txt info:

Date: 01/25/11
Time: 22:10:51
--------------------------------------------------------------
Build 162
Starting Natural Selection 2

Error: Unable to find the PhysX libraries. The PhysX drivers are not installed correctly
Error: Sound 'materials/door/onos_step' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/electronic/onos_step' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/electronic/footstep_left' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/electronic/footstep_right' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'alien/fade/land' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'alien/onos/land' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/door/bash' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/electronic/bash' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'alien/healing_mound_heal' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'alien/skulk/bite_hit_electronic' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'materials/metal/bone_scrape' couldn't be loaded (Event not found)
Error: Sound 'marine/structure/arc/deploy' couldn't be loaded (An invalid parameter was passed to this function. )

I was under the impression that the PhysxCooking, PhysxCore, PhysxDevice, and PhysxLoader dlls were just in the ns2 folder now, but that isn't working either.

What folder is Physx properly installed in and what is the folder structure?

I've tried pasting copies of all the Physx dll files everywhere they even remotely made sense to possibly be, no luck.

This is frustrating, because I used to be able to load the game.

weezl

you will probably have to wait for the devs to take a look at this
installing the latest one should be no problem,
then again, i've had games not work when i have dx11 installed, until i installed the specific dx9 ver that was attached in the "redist" folder.

and the "physx" folder in "redist" is empty for ns2

Dogbite

From Get satisfaction replying to another user with the "couldn't initialize physics" error:

Max McGuire, Official Rep, replied 2 months ago:

"I'm going to guess that this probably has to do with an installation of PhysX on your computer conflicting with the PhysX DLLs that are included with the game. I'm not sure what that would be happening, but we'll look into it."

I uninstalled the stand alone Physx install through the Add/Remove programs Windows dialog, but it didn't resolve the issue for me.

The engine test still loads for me, but the full Steam version won't.

Where does Ns2 look for the Physx files to load them?

Dogbite

So, I've uninstalled all other Physx files using Driver Sweeper and the add/remove programs dialog and Ns2 still gives me the same error. That pretty much rules out the conflicting Physx installs theory.

I noticed the remaining Physx files for the latest version of Ns2 are all in the main directory with NS2.exe now. Is this correct?

Also, the last version of Physx that worked was 2.8.3.37 (Build 140). Is there any way to hack this version into the current version of Ns2? (Build 164)

Such as changing the path that PhysxLoader.dll looks for the other files?