Unable to start game

from Elemental Forums

The game used to run properly on this computer. Ever since an update late Beta 2 I have been unable to start the game. The problem is related to the game's ability to properly sense the revision/date of my video drivers. When I attempt to launch the game I get an error message stating that my video drivers are too old and need to be newer than 2005. My current driver is from June 2010.

Error message

The game is installed on a Windows Vista 64 Bit laptop, 4 GB RAM and 8800 GTS Video card. 32 Bit DXDiag gives me error messages when I run it. I am not sure if that is normal behavior or not. 64 Bit DXDiag runs fine and correctly shows all drivers and dates. I thought there was a problem with the computer and reinstalled the OS after wiping the partition. I installed Elemental after updating all drivers and got the same result. Tried different driver versions with no luck.

32 Bit DXDiag

64 Bit DXDiag

The game runs fine on my 64 Bit Windows 7 box, and DXDiag displays all imformation in 32 and 64 Bit modes.

1,795 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

As it would appear that DirectX is flat out failing to report the driver information correctly, it'd have to be a bug in the driver or DirectXitself. If changing the drivers makes no difference, you might try updating/reinstalling DirectX from Microsoft's site.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kryo, reply 1
As it would appear that DirectX is flat out failing to report the driver information correctly, it'd have to be a bug in the driver or DirectXitself. If changing the drivers makes no difference, you might try updating/reinstalling DirectX from Microsoft's site.
End of kryo's quote

You see it the same as I do. Already reinstalled the OS, have tried reinstalling DX9c. I have no problems playing games, DirectX 9 or 10.

I understand why you would have a check for driver dates, but it would be nice to have an option to bypass the check since this seems to be a registry problem. Why not let the user decide for himself if they want to try to run the game?

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I just wanted to post that I found a solution...may be helpful for the tech support types post-release.

Turns out the problem was related to DXDiag and its ability access the registry. On a whim, I copied DXDiag.exe from \\Windows\System32 to the desktop. I put a tickmark in the "Run this program as an administrator" in the compatibility tab. After that DXDiag and Elemental ran fine. Strangely enough, everything still works if I untick "Run as admin."