Hi Folks,

I owned Gothic 1 on steam but was continuously getting an access violation everytime I ran it. I tried running it in compatibility mode and even tried the 'administrator' idea. Nothing has worked.

I now buy it from GoG thinking that would fix it but I get exactly the same thing. I have tried the 'world of gothic' system fix/patch and that doesn't help at all. Does anyone else have any more options to try? I am getting really frustrated with this access violation error. (read error). I think from now on I might scan these help pages before I hit that 'purchase' button.. might give me an incite into whether I might be buying a problem game.

Out of despiration am trying to install the system/playerkit again but when the programs ask to browse to the installation folder for Gothic1, the 'OK' button to install remains ghosted and is not clickable. I thought maybe the playerkit MUST be installed first but this issue is happening to the playerkit as well. Why is it doing this? such a pain!

To run in Steam need to remove it overlay dll. Or run the game from the catalog Windows Explorer directly.

Read and follow the install instructions:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/threads/1340357-Release-Gothic-%C2%BD-%C2%97-SystemPack-%28ENG-DEU%29

I did state in my first post that the system fix didn't work. I tried to install it again but when it asks where you want to install it (where the game is) the 'OK' button isnt lighting up for me to install. It's as if there is something its looking for and not finding. I am getting real peed off trying to install something that just doesnt want to work. I have even reverted to a freshly installed copy of Windows x64 to see if that helps but made no difference.

I am a little confused why you are giving instructions for installing to steam. I have tried the overlay fix and it did s*d all. I already said I bought the GoG edition because the damn steam version was cr@p. I didn't want to fork out £6 for the GoG version but was forced to because the steam version was useless. I am never buying older games from steam and recommend others do the same unless they know 100% they work. GoG's customer service is far better that steams but it is extremely frustrating paying twice for a game and neither work!

I'm sure Piranha Bytes could knock out a simple .exe fix in less than an hour or so and cure all our woes.. but sure they don't give a shoot anyway! a nice reminder when they come out with another bug filled game and want me to buy it !!!

I dont have the first Gothic 1, so I cant help you directly, just with some general hints:

Try to run the game as administrator.

For installing any fixes try to locate the right folder (maybe it is the bin subfolder of the game and not the root folder of the game). Also you have to rename the exe file, maybe. It could also be possible that you are missing some registry entries to be able to install them.

Try to install the newest Direct X 9. This is necessary because Windows 7 doesnt support Direct X 9 out of the box!

Update / Install your graphics driver. The drivers that are shipped with Windows arent complete and maybe really outdated! All in all you really shouldnt rely on them.

Try to deactivate Data Execution Prevention for the game (google it how to do so).

I don't mean to be nasty, but why do people not read my original post? I already stated in the first paragraph that I tried the Administrator option. It did nothing! I am waiting for GoG to get back to me now. I am pretty tired of this stupid violation error. I shouldn't have to mess about like this after spending £6 on a game that doesn't have a definitive fix. I only did it because I was so sick of the useless steam version. Steam shouldn't be selling games that don't work.. and made worse by not providing any support.

You have to choose the system folder (if I recall correctly), not the main installation folder, since it is looking for gothic.exe.

Thanks Arkose for your reply. Haven't had that much response for this and surprised considering the level of grief this game gives people. Unfortunately I was unable to install the playerkit or the systempack. I selected the system folder but made no difference whatsoever. Still remains unclickable so cannot install.

I have been reading lots of advice by people saying to install Gothic or any game that gives access violations out of the program files x64 folder. The fact is I don't think they realise that GoG games are installed in a GoG folder in the root of drive C: (well, gothic does anyway). So why do we still get access violation errors?

I even tried installing it on drive D: and still the same. This error is hideous and driving me crazy. All I get is a black screen with 'Gothic 1.08k' in the top left corner and what appears to be a small black screen in the centre. Ok, the whole screen is black but you can see your mouse pointer at the top, bottom and sides of the screen as you move it, but if you move the cursor into the centre you can see a black square which hides the pointer if you go to the centre. Sorry, only way i can describe it.

If I press enter I go back to the desktop but receive an access violation error and sometimes a priviledge error as well.

Looks like I might be asking for a refund now. The other two Gothic games work ok but this game cost more than the other two and is a nightmare. I think it strange how GoG claim they guarantee there games will work. That's quite a tall claim to make when we all know how unpredictable or problematic windows can be.

Have already written to GoG support and hoping they can come up with something new to try because I have ran out of idea's and scanned probably all the web based help I can find.

Thanks again....

The player-kit installer can be extracted manually with 7-Zip or similar. It should be possible to move the extracted files to their equivalent locations to get the same result as installing it normally. It's not that a game will absolutely work but rather that they are confident that it will work on most configurations and so will refund in cases where it still doesn't for some reason. GOG work directly on the compatibility of the games they sell whereas Steam and the rest leave that responsibility to the developer/publisher and sell the game exactly as supplied.

To be honest I really don't know what these packs do and doubt they fix the violations. I just downloaded them because there wasn't really any other idea/solution to try. It confuses me why you can have several people with the same version of windows (in my case windows 7 64bit) and half may be able to play a gog game without issue whereas the rest cannot get the game to work at all. Could be a hardware thing perhaps but most problems nearly always seem to be software related.

Being an Nvidia user I was made aware of a "PhysX-9.12.1031-Legacy" driver that can in many cases get older games to work. It had made a lot of older games with launching issues work fine, but Gothic sadly seems to be the the exception to the rule... it's my only gog title that really doesnt want to know. I'm quite a patient person but even this is beginning to stretch things a little. I have a steam version of Gothic as well and have the exact same problem. Think I will do some research now before I hit that 'buy' button. Thanks for your help anyway. Been good sharing the pain lol ;)

PhysX is specific to games that need it; most games don't use PhysX (especially older ones like Gothic).

GOG's installers bundle the legacy PhysX installer when it is needed (e.g. Two Worlds).

Thanks for this, didnt realise!

UPDATE - Gog refused to give me a refund. Said it was my fault for picking a game not supported by my OS (try telling that to all the others who have bought it). All they could offer me was a free game up to 5.99 value. When I tried to pick the game I was greeted by 47 pages of games that werent even in an alphabetical order and when i got to the last 10 pages they fast forwarded by themselves to the last page so never got to find If my choice game was even in the list. Now I gotta wait another day to see if they can figure out why there game list isnt working for me to use. If it's not one thing it's another :/ won't be buying games from these guys so easily now. So much for there money back.

Be careful folks. If it doesn't say your OS then don't take a risk. Not worth it if things go wrong!

Try this:

Install Gothic ½ — SystemPack. I can't add links, so Google it.

Then go to \Gothic\system directory, open Gothic.ini and change "zStartupWindowed=0" value to "zStartupWindowed=1". Enter your screen resolution to "zVidResFullscreenX" and "zVidResFullscreenY" and change "zVidResFullscreenBPP=16" to "zVidResFullscreenBPP=32".

If your resolution is 1920x1080, it should look like this:
"zVidResFullscreenX=1920
zVidResFullscreenY=1080
zVidResFullscreenBPP=32
; ... used resolution

zStartupWindowed=1"

Does it work now?

Hi) I bought Gothic 1 on Steam and got that Access Violation error. I followed these instructions at WorldOfPlayers site and everything starts working) Give it a try)
Look at Installation Info and Downloads sections.
I play at Windows 10 x64