Just Getting a Black Screen whenever I try to start game

Every time I try to start the game I just get a black screen. I have updated the drivers for my Radeon 9600video card, made sure I have direct x 9c, reloaded the game 3 times and still get the same thing. I am running XP sp 2 on a machine with a AMD athlon 3000+, and have 512 meg of ram. I have only seen this happen on an older game. Any ideas?

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Lucky_Jack

Join Date 01/2002

+62

I am a lowly beta tester and consumer, not a Stardock employee, but I will try to help as I can. They have undoubtedly gone home for the day, but you never know when one may be lurking here.

Since your ID shows you as a member for only two days may I ask a few questions:

1). Have you read about and installed SmartException (Called SE by many of us)? See https://www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=274&AID=72056

2). Located and scanned through the debug file in the GalCiv2 directory for possible clues? You will also need to send this debug file in on some of the problems you uncover. It also contains a wealth of information about your system and drivers. When looking at the information at the top of this file the first time you might want to look for things that are not as you expected (such as the dates of your display driver).

3). Did you download both the base code and the Multimedia files using StarDock Central? I think I recall not being able to even get the first screen of the game without the multimedia (My memory of past problems dims after just a couple of weeks).

The first screen you should see allows you to start a new game, reload a saved game (if you have any), go to the options screen, or quit. For a new game, the next screen allows you to select which race you wish to be and to set some conditions (galaxy size, star concentration, etc.). The third screen allows you to select your apponents. Continuing after selecting your apponents goes (after a few moments to generate your galaxy) to the main game window. How far did you get before you got the black screen?

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Please send me your debug.err file.

carielf@stardock.com

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@CariElf

Not wanting to hijack this threat... I mailed a debug.err file to scott@stardock.com about 2 weeks ago. Was I suppose to sent it to you ? Scott hasn't replied yet so either it didn't arrive or he's to busy and forgot..

Problem on my end is that the game crashes after it starts to initialize. (DrWatson as well).

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I haven't had a reply to any of my reports. Unless they need more details or something I wouldn't expect one.

I have no idea how many they're dealing with, but I would imagine that would end up being hundreds of replies...

And yeah, scott@stardock.com is the catch-all address for bug reports, CariElf's just asking to be sent this one in particular.

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I haven't had a reply to any of my reports. Unless they need more details or something I wouldn't expect one

Ah, I see. Well, all's well then I suppose..

I submitted the bug pretty late and having a Parhelia as a GFX card I thought I might have had a "unique" problem

I'll be waiting for the next release

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