Quick And Easy Week - Day 1: Grim Fandango Launcher + Grim Fandango Setup
October 29th, 2007
Here we go then…
Quick and Easy week begins with an update and a new tool. First up, Grim Fandango Launcher has been updated. Its had a redesign to make it look better, has full Vista compatibility and now supports 64 bit versions of Windows. The full list of changes can be seen below.
New in version 1.5:
- Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
- Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256 and if running on Vista the launcher now uses vista fonts.
- Fixed a small memory leak.
- Now uses windows temp folder rather than Grim folder for extracted resources like the readme and patch.
- Now uses the excellent Grim Fandango icon created by Thanius.
- 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
- Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.
Download it here.
The new tool is Grim Fandango Setup. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for Grim Fandango. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Grim Fandango Launcher.
Download it here.
Excellent! Quick and Easy week is already officially the best week ever. The original launcher continues to attract loads of traffic on the GFN so it’s great to see an update that fixes the most common problem nowadays: 64-bit.
Good job Benzor!
So uh? What does this launcher actually do that’s different than the original official one? I see a few extra options, is that it? No game compatibility enhancement?
Just wondering as it doesn’t say and I’ve long since forgotten! Thanks for these excellent tools!
As the readme says, the differences are that it lets you run in windowed mode, play without the cd’s and enables developer/debug mode. The original launcher also doesn’t work under some newer windows versions.
There only available ‘compatibility enhancement’ for Grim is a dual-core disabling fix. This couldn’t be included in the launcher and the reasons for this are detailed in the lf forum thread.
Cool, thanks! I found the thread. I actually have completely different issues, running an 8800 gpu, which royally screws up GF. Just kind of hoping it might be some miracle fix… *sigh* …Thanks for updating these tools!
Thanks, looks good. However I find the in-game Menu text missing. It just shows the graphic name at the top and the rest in invisible.
When using the installer or the launcher? Also have you tried changing graphics modes?
i need help
Billy: see the contact page.
The sound seems to keep hanging. I installed the patch, installed via the installer, used the launcher, set up DIB windowed mode in setup. and tried some changes as well no luck
very bad, I really wanted to play this game
Hi,
I just ran setup and downloaded the launcher for Grim Fandango. It installed the game into my hard drive. I have an AMD Athlon X2 64 6000 with 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA Geforce 7900 GT KO. I am using Windows XP Pro 64-bit. I can run the launcher, but when it tries to start the program, if I’m lucky I see the initial splash screen then that window or fullscreen goes black and I get the following error:
Res.c(2075): (int)fh > 0 && (int)fh <= MAX_OPEN_FILES
I tried changing compatibility of the various programs to windows 98/me mode and also changed affinity so only one cpu was used, but still didn’t work. I get the same error even when I change the compatibility mode. Keep up the good work though, I think you are getting close because at least the game installed onto my hard drive, which I was not able to do before!
I had the same error also whether or not I started in fullscreen or windowed version.
Update:
I can actually run the game from the folder it was installed to. I double click on grimfandango.exe and it runs fine, so far. My version of GF already came with that 1.01 patch installed.
Thats very strange. So you’re saying grim gave the maxopenfiles error when started from the launcher but not when started on its own?
Yes. I will have to play longer to see how it goes, will keep you up to date. It looks promising though!
Thats a strange one. If you’re up for it, could you contact me via my contact form and I could try emailing you a different version of the launcher that might fix it.
That is very generous of you, thank you! I will do that.
I was just playing some more and I noticed that sometimes when I press F1 to goto the menu and then return to game, I will lose the sound. On other occasions that doesn’t happen, ie. when you are given a choice of dialogue to say to one of the other characters.
I was able to save the spot in the game as well as load a saved game with no problems. I could even view the cutscenes.
Thanks again for helping me to get this to work on my dual core!