Games: How to use GOS switches for troubleshooting (309135)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft MechWarrior 4: Black Knight
  • Microsoft MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries
  • Microsoft MechWarrior 4: Vengeance
This article was previously published under Q309135

SUMMARY

You can use GOS switches to customize the startup process for the game and to resolve certain issues that you may experience when you try to start or play the game. For example, the game may stop responding (hang), quit unexpectedly (crash), or generate an error message.

MORE INFORMATION

To manually add GOS switches to the command line in the game shortcut, follow these steps:
  1. Insert the game CD in the CD drive. Press and hold the SHIFT key as you insert the CD to prevent the program from starting automatically.
  2. Right-click Start, and then click Open or click Open All Users.
  3. Double-click the Programs folder.
  4. Double-click the Microsoft Games folder.
  5. Double-click the game folder.
  6. Right-click the game shortcut icon, and then click Properties.
  7. On the Shortcut tab, in the Target box, press END, press the SPACEBAR, and then type the GOS switch that you want to use. If you want to use an additional GOS switch, press SPACEBAR, and then type the next parameter.

    For example, to add the GOS switch to MechWarrior Vengeance, type:
    • MechWarrior 4: Vengeance:

      "drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\MechWarrior Vengeance\MW4.exe" /gosnovideo

    • MechWarrior 4: Black Knight

      "drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\MechWarrior Vengeance\MW4x.exe" /gosnovideo

    Note GOS Switches are not case sensitive.
  8. Click Apply or click OK.
If the /gosNoSound switch resolved the issue, click the following article number to view article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

812394 Games: How to troubleshoot sound related issues

The following table lists the GOS switches you can use to start MechWarrior 4.

ParameterDescription
/gosUseHWOverrides all checks and forces the use of 3-D acceleration.
/gosNoDialogsAll PAUSE dialog boxes will run automatically but will never be displayed.
/gosNoJoystickDisables joystick enumeration and use.
/gosNoForceFeedbackDisables force feedback joysticks from using forces. You can still use them as joysticks.
/gosNoMemoryDisables the GameOS memory manager.
/gosNoBladeDisables the Blade software rasterizer and uses the D3D RGB rasterizer instead.
/gosCheckMemoryChecks for memory overwrites/reads on all allocated memory blocks.
/gosAllSymbolsAll modules loaded with MechWarrior 4 will have their .PDBs loaded and will display symbols in any stack walks.
/gosInfo "fred.txt"Writes machine information to the Fred.txt file and exits without doing anything else.
/gosInfoOn its own writes to the debuglog.txt file.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:6/17/2005
Keywords:kbui kbConfig kbhowto kbinfo KB309135
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