Deus Ex 2: Invisible War crashes to the desktop after the first loading screen. Can this be fixed?

Solution 1:

I solved this problem, at least on my multi-core machine:

Start the game, wait until the main menu hangs, bring up the Task Manager (i.e., press Ctrl+Shift+Esc). In the list of processes, search for the image: "DX2Main.exe". Right-click on it, and select "Set affinity", and select only ONE CPU core. It doesn't matter which one is selected. For me, there was no need to restart the game as the hanging state was gone.

Solution 2:

Both Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 have issues with multi-core processors that cause that exact symptom. My similar rig (core 2 duo, windows 7 32bit) had the issue resolved with the fix outlined here:

1. Download imagecfg from http://robpol86.com/pages/imagecfg.php to your game system directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Deus Ex - Invisible War\System)

2. Start, Run, Type cmd.exe and hit enter, and type the following:

   cd c:\Program Files\Deus Ex - Invisible War\System
   copy "DX2.exe" "DX2.backup.exe"
   copy "DX2Main.exe" "DX2Main.backup.exe
   copy "Ion Launcher.exe" "Ion Launcher.backup.exe"
   imagecfg -a 0x1 DX2.exe
   imagecfg -a 0x1 DX2Main.exe
   imagecfg -a 0x1 "Ion Launcher.exe"
   

3. Play game.

If that fix did not solve the issue for you - can you provided the console output (if any) of those commands?

Solution 3:

It could be a problem with Windows 7. If you have a spare Windows XP licence lying around you may be able to run it in a virtual machine, such as Windows 7's 'XP mode', or if you are running home premium edition you could grab Sun's xVM Virtualbox solution. I have run the game on a similar specced XP box. You might want to dual boot XP on a seperate partition for extra performance and compatibility.