Gerrick Report post Posted November 21, 2009 (edited) Greetings all, and hello to those from long ago! Sorry to have been away for so long... but we've been relocated about 3 times in the last year and the wife and I finally said enough - packed up and moved back home. So now I'm just building websites and playing games these days Therefore I want to get back to playing THE game I remember so well and am suddenly having problems on my 'new to me' PC here. Details as stated in title and...: WinXP Pro 2GB RAM ATI Radeon 9600 - 128MB AMD 3400 processor (2.2 GHz) Standard cheapy VIA chipset 'Jetway' motherboard - straight from Taiwan baby Using the onboard Audio and LAN Latest EL downloaded yesterday Helpful info: My wife currently has accounts and successfuly plays the following games on this PC and her laptop when we're gaming together... City of Heroes (so do I) WoW Guild Wars (So do I) Everquest Runes of Magic Perfect World Error information: Click on Eternal lands icon - have tried start menu, desktop shortcut, directly from folder, and even trying from command promt for s&g. I get the initial splash screen for EL that shows you the login area. It hangs there for a count of around 5 seconds with less than 1/4" of the blue bar showing. Immediately thereafter I get the infamous This program has caused you serious frustration due to Windows message... and I click the 'Don't Send' button because I'd rather not let M$ in on any other part of my life. What I've tried: Renaming the 'main' folder to 'main2' - have now renamed it back. Tried reloading my ATI drivers. Downloaded latest ATI drivers and installing complete bloated package (Now you realize how much I like you guys right? RIGHT? Seriously... Memory test - came back clean. Disabled every possible startup process. Edited my .ini and tried poor mans, each individual combo of resolutions, disabling, enabling various gfx options, doing the same on my driver settings. Performed ancient chinese ritual and sacrificed my last diet coke to the Gaming Gods while chanting in broken Draconian Oh and yes - I did just yesterday download the latest and greatest from the Germany mirror and install it. I have downloaded it again and reinstalled it just in case. Uninstalled and re-installed also - you know.. just in case. I did my best to read through the forums and try some of the things I've listed here, that I found you guys talking about before I went asking questions because I hate being a pain, but I'd appreciate any further help anyone might be able to suggest. Anything would be appreciated - no matter how trivial you might think it is - it could be the solution you never know. Thanks all for taking the time to read my ramblings and I hope to see you all in world soon. Hopefully I'm still there andif not I don't care if I have to start over. Got lots o' fond memories! Take care all, Gerrick EDIT: Forgot to mention, I have not been able to successfully download the sound or music files. They both get to around 30% or so and error out no matter which mirror / file I try. I've tried many times at different times throughout the day yesterday and today. Have tried via IE and Opera both. Just wanted to throw that out there in case it may be either related (some kind of weird timeout maybe??) or in case it is something you guys may need to check. Edited November 21, 2009 by Gerrick Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gerrick Report post Posted November 22, 2009 Ok, so I went ahead and did it. It's been a while since this computer had it done so I wiped 'er clean. We now have a fresh and clean install of Windows XP Pro SP2. Same darn error in the same spot. :\ C'mon... any ideas at all anyone? I found some old RAM - even though my mem test came out clean I'm going to try it just for s&g... will report back when that's switched out later. Appreciate any ideas in mean time. Thanks, Gerrick Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gerrick Report post Posted November 22, 2009 Went ahead and swapped out the RAM b4 I head out here... same issue. Sorry for the quick repost. Take care all, Ger Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gerrick Report post Posted November 23, 2009 [sOLVED] Ok so here was the fix: I installed Vista. I had a copy of Vista Biz laying here that came with my laptop that I have since uninstalled and replaced with Ubuntu. So hey, I had a license and I used it. Right off the bat EL would at least load and then crap out once I was in with just the built in WDM drivers. Downloaded and installed the 32-bit VISTA drivers from Ati ... works like a charm. So - apparently Ati has done something to their latest XP drivers that hoses something in EL. Might want to note that somewhere for future reference. Take care all, Gerrick Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
affreckles Report post Posted December 9, 2009 [sOLVED] Ok so here was the fix: I installed Vista. I had a copy of Vista Biz laying here that came with my laptop that I have since uninstalled and replaced with Ubuntu. So hey, I had a license and I used it. Right off the bat EL would at least load and then crap out once I was in with just the built in WDM drivers. Downloaded and installed the 32-bit VISTA drivers from Ati ... works like a charm. So - apparently Ati has done something to their latest XP drivers that hoses something in EL. Might want to note that somewhere for future reference. Take care all, Gerrick Sorry but i didnt read the post sooner could of saved you from installing vista but the problem you had is similar to the one i had to solve it i had to remove my graphics card reinstall it and refresh the drivers and doing that worked Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zephlix Report post Posted February 26, 2010 [sOLVED] Ok so here was the fix: I installed Vista. I had a copy of Vista Biz laying here that came with my laptop that I have since uninstalled and replaced with Ubuntu. So hey, I had a license and I used it. Right off the bat EL would at least load and then crap out once I was in with just the built in WDM drivers. Downloaded and installed the 32-bit VISTA drivers from Ati ... works like a charm. So - apparently Ati has done something to their latest XP drivers that hoses something in EL. Might want to note that somewhere for future reference. Take care all, Gerrick ouch sorry to hear man, yeah ATI drivers been very schechy, i had to revert back to catalyst/driver v6, but good news as of feb 2010 ati update all works well with cat/driver v10.2 on xp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tico Report post Posted February 26, 2010 ATI calls theyre old video cards LEGACY (Radeon 9600 went to that list last year). They had made a crap driver to all legacy video cards that doesnt work properly in XP ive had several problems with my Radeon 9600. ATI has on their site a place with old drivers (older version then the legacy driver thing) wich runs A LOT better then the new ones for legacy video cards. ATI does not give any suport to legacy video cards (wich sucks) but you will do fine with old driver versions. Sorry i didnt helped before you install VISTA... if you wanna downgrade back to XP and need any help to get this video cards fell free to pm me in forum or ingame. Regards Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
