I just ran it in compatibility mode for Win2000. Works fine.

Just bought this during the most recent GOG Insomnia Sale.

Pretty disappointed that it does not work at all.

Every time it tried to play a video I get the "DDERR GENERIC ERROR"

I have tried everything in this thread, including converting the videos myself to a different AVI format.

Nothing has worked, same error every time.

If I -nointro it works, but if the game tried to play any videos, like in Career Mode, it crashes with the same error.

Annoyed.

EDIT: OK, so there was one thing in this thread I had not tried. After doing every fix, every download, everything in this thread, to make the game work, the only one I hadnt tried was the CCCP, Combined Community Codec Pack. I had bad luck with this pack in the past, causing some stuff to not work. But after doing a clean install of SWAT 3, and not changing anything, I installed the CCCP, clicked on the game, and it loaded up flawlessly.

Still annoyed. But happy the game works.

EDIT 2: In game, unplayable frame rates. What a train wreck. First bad experience with a GOG purchase :(

Thank you for the help, all I had to do to get the game running was install Xvid and follow your instructions.

Sorry about bumping this thread. I fixed the link in my original post to reflect a new URL for the fix:

http://www.swat3lastresort.info/index.php/swat-3-video-directx-fix

EDIT: Link updated

After installing SWAT 3 again and encountering the dreader DDERR-error I found the reason many of you might still get this error after changing the Videos to XVID or installing the Ligos Codec.

Your computer might be using LAV to decode the videos, which causes the DDERR-error when used with SWAT (possibly because of the 16bit rendering). If you change the decoder for mp4-files to FFdshow, everything will work fine. Many codec packs allow you to change the decoder for different incoming codecs. With the K-lite codec pack, for example, comes the “codec Tweak Tool” that enables you to configure the codecs (though you could do this while installing the codec pack). This little tool is available as a single download here http://www.codecguide.com/download_other.htm

If you need further help configuring the codecs, let me know and I'll try to help.

My system specs:
- Win.7 x64 with latest Win. updates
- AMD Radeon 7970M

I remember this used to work sometime back in at least 2012, then "something happened".
I tried every suggested solution in this thread.

In my case there seems to have been some incompatibilities with codecs being installed on my machine.
What worked for me in the end was:
- Installing DirectX June 2010 (just in case -- might be unneccessary)
- Un-installing my K-Lite Codec, which was installed sometime in 2012
- Un-installing the XVid Codec, after trying that solution
- Not caring about the movies.

That's right; the game works here with the original movies as well as the XVid codec movies.
It works here even without compatibility mode! ?

The only issue I have which weren't there before, is glitchy 3D rendering (stretched polygons all over).

I just bought this game and I am on windows 10 tried everything in this thread, the directx fix, the rencoded videos and even the compatibility mode and the xvid compatiblity renderer. nothing worked.

I just downloaded the codec from cccp-project.net installed it and my swat 3 works perfect

thank you.fmotha

I am going to uninstall it with the GOG Galaxy and redownload and reinstall it to see if swat 3 works perfect cause of that last method I used.

UPdate: with the cccp codecs installed I have successfully Downloaded and installed swat 3 and works flawless on windows 10

Thanks for posting your results guys.

sexymacman, what exactly was happening before you installed the codec? Were you getting the DirectX error and crash or sometimes just a crash without an error when the videos first started playing?

i was the DDERR GENERIC error message, i researched and tried everything, ran across those codecs and installed them it worked.

Thank you this worked perfectly!

SP3 still crashes

The link to the page quoted above has changed to the following:

http://www.swat3lastresort.info/index.php/swat-3-video-directx-fix

BananaJane, are you looking for help with this issue? What version of Windows are you using and do you have an old retail disk or the GOG.com version of Swat 3?

Windows 7 and gog version
I tried that link out and neither of those worked

Have you tried starting up Swat 3 with the -nointro flag? It may not even be the movies that are causing the issue.

Create a shortcut to the Swat.exe if one doesn't exist. Right click over to select PROPERTIES. In the TARGET box it will show the path to the executable. After the closing quotes add a space and then type -nointro

Click the shortcut and see if the game will run.

Thanks that worked! :)
But it still crashes whenever a video has to play =s