Demo crashes on startup

[Rotational]

Hi! I was a huge fan of Uplink, but played it on a fairly aging computer, so I waited until I got a new one to check out Darwinia.

Now that I got a new one I downloaded the demo, installed it, ran it and: black screen, then the default Windows program crash window with the Report/Do not report crash buttons. Rebooted and repeated: same thing. Uninstalled the demo and reinstalled it: same thing.

The game looks really cool and interesting and I really want to play it!...

Now that you have the steps to reproduce, here's the other Mandatory Bug Report Data(tm):

My computer is a brand new (delivered last Thursday) Dell Latitude D410 laptop.

OS: Win XP Family 5.1
CPU: Pentium M 1.86 GHz
RAM: 504 MB
DirectX 9.0c

Oh, and before you make fun of me for trying to play games on a laptop, rest assured that all through high school I had phat home-built gaming systems. But these days I like to spend my money on a computer that will help me through uni and on treats for my girlfriend.

Thanks in advance.

[kingeliran]

i have exsclly the same problem with the game

[John]

Check out this topic, specifically the trick about RenderLandscapeMode. Let us know how it goes.

[monk fish]

help i have read it but i cant find how to open prefrences.txt file and so i am compelely stuck. ps i have bought the full game.
can you plz help me

[trickfred]

It's a text file, you can open it with any text editor, like notepad, wordpad, word, etc.

It's found in your Darwinia game directory - but if you haven't run the game yet, you'll need to run it at least once to generate the file.

[monk fish]

But every time I even try to start it then it just crashes before I can even get to the menu.

[trickfred]

Try this then:

Create your own text file in the Darwinia directory named 'preferences.txt' (without quotes, obviously). Open it up, and paste in one or the other (but not both) of these lines:

RenderLandscapeMode = 0

or

RenderLandscapeMode = 1

Make sure there's a blank line after the RenderLandscapeMode line - the file should have two lines; one of the above lines, and a blank line. Then save it, close it, and try runing the game. If one doesn't work, try the other. Darwinia accepts partial preference files.

If that's your problem, then that should be enough to get you playing. Post back here with results either way.

[Pigpen]

I also get this problem, the game crashes as soon as the Darwinia window appears. Nothing actually in the window, just a blank black window.

I've tried the RenderLandscapeMode thing as mentioned in the below post but it has no effect. No blackbox.txt file either.

System info anyway:-

OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 (fully patched)
Processor: Intel Pentium D 830
Memory: 1GB
DirectX 9.0c
Graphics chip type: GeForce 7900GTX
Graphics memory: 512MB
Graphics driver: nv4_disp.dll
Version: 6.14.0010.9131 (English)
Date: 01/06/2006 17:22:00

Edit: the appcompat log thingy is here if you want to look at that too... http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hoyle.pete ... compat.txt

[Pigpen]

Bump....... Anyone?

[TinFoil]

Installed the patch? It's on the support page (darwinia.co.uk/support/ , methinks)

If you're running Steam, then... Errr... It should've updated.

[artifact]

i am also trying to run the demo and get the same black screen right after starting the program. Will the patch work for the demo?

[Pigpen]

Whatever was preventing it from working before has now fixed itself and its now working.

No idea what I did in the meantime

[TinFoil]

i am also trying to run the demo and get the same black screen right after starting the program. Will the patch work for the demo?

I doubt. I don't think so though, no...

[artifact]

so if the game crashes on start up with the demo, would it do the same for the real game?

[xander]

so if the game crashes on start up with the demo, would it do the same for the real game?

In all likelihood, yes. Have you tried changing the RenderLandscapeMode setting in preferences.txt?

xander