If you're interested in technical details, read on. If you're having problems running VR Sportfishing and just want to know what to do about it, just jump to the bottom 2 lines of this post.
So far everything I'm seeing points to one probably cause, but I'll confirm this as soon as I get a list of dxd9 dll files from someone else who's having the problem. Here's the issue, which may be what's giving you trouble:
The game uses the very latest TrueVision DLL, which relies on a very current DirectX version. If you checked your DirectX version and found out you have 9.0c, and specifically version 4.09.0000.0904, and went to Microsoft and checked to see what the current version is, you'd see it's the same version you already have. If you're like me you'd naturally conclude that you've got the current version of DirectX. The trouble is Microsoft has been releasing a new build of DirectX 9.0c, always shown as version 4.09.0000.0904, every 2 months for more than four years. I'd love to know the reasoning behind having the same 11 digit subversion for the same 3 letter version of DirectX for 4 years and over 50 updates. If that seems confusing to you I don't blame you a bit. I'm baffled by it.
The numbered DLLs in the system32 folder are the collection of bi-monthly builds of that same version. I can tell you that if you don't have at least d3dx9_31.dll through d3dx9_36.dll, VR Sportfishing won't run. If you're having trouble running the game please use the link below to install the November 2008 update of DirectX 9.0c, which should include all the DLLs that matter. If that doesn't solve it for you let me know and I'll keep looking for other possible issues.
Use this link to update your DirectX version:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=enPaul