Emporer technical problems

[Ian]

I'm trying to run emperor on my new computer. Everything installed fine. I autoupdated fine. However, whenever I try to run the game, it brings up the opening window my screen goes blank and then cuts back into windows as though nothing happened.

I'm running Windows XP and I have the most recent version of Emperor. I have the newest drivers for my video card (Radeon 9800 pro). I also have directx 9.

Any ideas on what I can do?

[Dunenewt]

Can you post a DXDiag. Are you running Norton Anti-Virus?

[Ian]

I'm running Zone Alarm and AVG antivirus. . . Emperor ran fine on my old system with those installed.

Sorry, what is a DXDiag?

[Dunenewt]

go to your Start menu and then click on Run and type in DXDiag and run it.

Try playing Emperor with alerts switched off on Zonealarm.

[Ian]

ok, attached the results of the dxdiag. . .

tried running with ZA and AVG turned off entirely but change.[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[Dunenewt]

Do you mean there was no change?

[Ian]

yeah, sorry. It made no difference.

[Dunenewt]

What programmes do you have running in the background?

[Ian]

other than ZA and AVG nothing. Other than that just standard OS stuff. . .

[Dunenewt]

I think the latest drivers/Direct X 9 could be causing the problem. Try downloading some older ones and look at this thread:

http://www.dune2k.com/forum/?board=4;action=display;threadid=8710

[Ian]

The problem occured before I installed DX9. When I first booted up my machine it was one of the first programs I tried running.

I'll have a look through that thread. Thanks for your help!

[Dunenewt]

Thats ok although for better help you'll have to wait for one of the Tech Moderators to come on. I'm sure they'll sort it out for you.

[Gobalopper]

Is this a fresh install of Emperor? Sometimes if you do a major update, like installing SP1 for XP, re-installing Emperor fixes that problem.

[Ian]

It's a fresh install of emporer on a fresh install of XP. . . or atleast it was. Emperor was one of the first programs I installed on my new comp. No service packs installed, and I've since uninstalled/reinstalled Emporer to no avail.

Any known issues with Radeon cards Sound blaster Audigy cards?

I think it must be hardware/driver issue, because I was able to run Emporer just fine on my old system with essentially identical software.

[gryphon]

You could try to ad the " +w" option to the Emperor startup shortcut. . it might help.. .

Have you tried the WinXP backwards-compatebilety option for Emperor battle for Dune ?

Besides the above mentioned topic. . you could try to lower your desktop resolution before you run the game.

[Ian]

I already tried the compatibility mode (all of the options) which made no difference.

I just tried the +w (what does that do?) option and reducing the screen resolution and the problem persisted.

I'm totally stumped. . . but again thanks for the help.

[Atomic Mitten]

Here I go again. ;)

Ian there is a web site for modified ATI drivers, they helped my problem and a few others who had Nvidia cards.

They might just do the same for ATI.

Link is : http://www.omegacorner.com.

If that doesn't help try closing all background progs using ctrl,alt,delete, scroll down the list and close Anti virus progs especially.

Note:clicking close in the taskbar does not stop the anti virus from running completely.

Then re-install Emperor and the v1.09 patch.

Here is a list of what needs to be running in xp:

system

smss.exe

csrss.exe

winlogon.exe

services.exe

lsass.exe

svhost.exe(there may be multiple instances of this one,all required)

Explorer

spoolsv.exe

emexec.exe(maybe,if you have a logitech mouse)

[tom]

Please keep this thread going - as I now have the same problem on two PCs (we like the LAN game), but with a twist...

Both PCs use XP, one Home, the other Pro. Emperor-Dune worked fine until a few (3-4) weeks ago, when the same symptoms we saw in other threads appeared - game tries to start, emperor.exe process appears, then ~ef7194..(nice copyright screen)...then nada.

Clean re-install (including editing out Emperor stuff in the registry) doesn't work. Disabling NAV doesn't work - I will try and de-install NAV over the weekend, then reinstall the whole shebang. So given the two machines have very differnt hardware configs (one is a notebook, the other a desktop) my hypothesis is (a) a MS "security fix" has bust things, or (b) a NAV update has busted things. When I deinstall NAV we'll see, but that is only a temporary fix as I get a lot of virus attacks.

I am just hoping somebody a lot more savvy than me can suggest something as this game is an old favourite!

[Atomic Mitten]

Do you have an LG cd rom ?

There is a known issue with win xp and cd rom drives, after installing a particular SP2 patch to windows.

Let me know also which graphic card you have installed in both pc's and which drivers you have. ;)

Also is autoplay active on both pc's.

[tom]

>Do you have an LG cd rom ?<

The notebook (WP Home) has a DVD, the desktop (XP Pro) has a DVD and CD-RW. So I don't thing an LG CD-ROM is the problem. Remember, I have been playing Emp for 6+months on these machines; it only stopped working in the past few weeks. Thus my hypothesis that is is caused by a Microsoft "patch".

I'll send you the configs under seperate email - from what I remember the desktop has ATI, the notebook an embedded Intel video chipset.

[Atomic Mitten]

If you do a search at Microsoft, they list some fixes for cd rom drives.They are aware that some of their patches cause problems !

You might have to do what I did and phone them at Microsoft.

They then send you an E-Mail with a link to download the fix zip.

[Ian]

Tried running with the minimum programs listed above. . . no go. I have a sony drive and no service packs installed. I'm not really in to installing custom drivers. . . I value the performance boost my current drivers give me in other apps.

Any other ideas?

[Atomic Mitten]

Have you got the 1.06 patch for Emperor installed ?

Download this and check if your fast write is enabled.

Here is the link: http://www.aida32.hu/download

After you download this prog,click on Motherboard/chipset, there you will see listed all your graphic card settings.

Hope this helps a little,if not it's a really good program, go through every sub menu and you will find alot of very useful info, about your computer. :)

[tom]

First, I want to really thank all the people who responded to the problems I was having. This site is a very cool resource, with lots of useful tips and information.

In the hope of helping other poor souls......

Remember, I couldn't get eDune to work with XP; it just wouldn't load?

Surprisingly I eventually managed to get eDune working - WITH NAV!! How? Well, as with most computer fixes, I had to get awfully methodical. It took a while. (to complete that is, as opposed to me getting methodical)

First, I deinstalled eDune, cleaned up afterwards, including editing out all references in the registry.

I then updated every driver I could find, using Windows Update, and the manufacturer site for the video.

I then cleaned out all the temp files I could find, deinstalled any old programs I didn't need, deleted any old files...usual housekeeping stuff. Then ran DEFRAG for good measure.

Okay - with the PC in the best shape I could make it, I re-installed DUNE using the "CDROM" patch EMPENGINSTFIX10; taking the time (as the instructions said) to first set up a new "SETUP folder, copying over the new setup file, then installing eDude, then copying the new game executable over.

AND IT WORKED!

Now if I can just work out why it now causes my desktop to bluescreen at random times, I will be happy. But it only occasionally womps my game....

Thanks again for all of your help, guys.