Can't play Campaign

[Archmaster936]

Looking through this forum it looks like a lot of people have this problem too. I can play tutorials, but nothing else. I have included my DxDiag file. Any help would be nice.

[Keith]

What happens when you try?

We need a little more information. "Can't play campaign" doesn't tell us much.

Your screen resolution is fairly high, try resetting the in-game resolution to no more than 1024x768 or 800x600 to see if that helps. You may aslo want to try the 16-bit color mode.

Some of the maps in CotN are huge and high settings can cause the game to crash.

[Archmaster936]

Whenever I click "Play" or "Open" on the scenerios or campains the game just takes me back to my desktop like nothing happened.

I'll try setting the settings lower

Update: I tried setting the details to the lowest possible and it still crashed.

[Keith]

Whenever I click "Play" or "Open" on the scenerios or campains the game just takes me back to my desktop like nothing happened.

I'll try setting the settings lower

Update: I tried setting the details to the lowest possible and it still crashed.

You may want to try one of the v. 82.xxx drivers for Nvidia. I think the one that seems to work is 82.85(?). Some of the preivous drivers from Nvidia didn't work so well with CotN. The latest is 84.21 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_84.21.html).

You may want to try a newer audio driver for your sound card too.

When changing video drivers be sure to uninstall completely the previous Nvidia driver before installing the new one.

Have you tried lowering the hardware acceleration?

Run dxdiag, and then under the sound1 tab move the slider control back on notch. Then try running the game. Keep moving it back one notch at at time until the game either runs or you reach the minimum setting. But only do it one notch at a time.

On your control panel make sure that your sound card is the default output device. Sometimes when new hardware that has sound capability is put in it hijacks the default sound setting. Note: You can also change the hardware acceleration by clicking on the Advanced button in the "playback" sections under the Performance tab.

Open the Control Panel and click on the Sound,Speech and Audio Devices icon. Click on Speech and Audio Devices next. Under both the Audio and Voice tabs make sure that your sound card set as the default playback device.

You can also try by turning off all video and audio features in the game as well. Just to see if the game will run.

If that doesn't work, try running the game by disabling all background applications. You can do that through the START > RUN menu by typing MSCONFIG in the box. Under the general tab, click on the Selective startup button. Then under the STARTUP tab anything that isn't part of Windows itself. Changing anything here will require that you reboot your computer afterwards. Be sure you save the changes by clicking the APPLY button first. You can reset back to your normal settings later so make sure you make note of what is checked on the General and Startup tabs before you change anything.

Or, you can try rebooting to the Safe Mode and try loading the game that way just to see if the game will work. Safe Mode disables all background apps and processes.

If that doesn't work you may have to uninstall the game, run a disk cleanup and defragmentation, even if it says it doesn't need it. Then run a registry cleaner if you have one. I've been using a free program called RegSeeker without problems here for the past number of months. I posted about it in this thread (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8078). The reinstall the game and the patch.

[Archmaster936]

I have updated my graphics card drivers to the latest but can't find higher driver for my sound card. Some of the things I am not able to do because I am not Admin, and I'm sure the admin won't bother doing all this stuff for me. I'm surprised he updated the video drivers at all. All of the stuff I could do I did and it still crashes

[Keith]

This is just a thought, but on many of the latest games out there you have to have local administrator priveledges or be part of the local admin's "group".

I'm not 100% certain, but I seem to recall that this is required for CotN.

Did you try the creative labs downloads section for your audio drivers?

Go back to the main page and reselect the country if you are not in North America. This is the link to the downloads page for North America:

http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

[Archmaster936]

Ok, I may not be admin, but I am a Power User. If you don't know what that is, it is inbetween Admin and Limited. The only thing I can do that Limited accounts can't is install games in the "Program Files" folder. That means I can't tamper with any of the system files, such as DxDiag. I sent an e-mail to the admin containing the things to try that you said. He did update the sound drivers as far as I know.

[Keith]

I'm not 100% sure about it, but I think admin privledges may be a requirement. It seems to be hovering in the back of my mind that it was mentioned once a long time ago. Power User may not be enough.

You might want to send a PM to one of the devs like Jeremy Freyholtz, the board admin, to see if he can tell you for sure.

[Archmaster936]

Eh... First thing I'll do is probably get the admin to install it. If that doesn't work then I'll get the devs help. And if nothing else works then screw it one game isn't worth it

[Keith]

Is this a school network? Just curious.

[Archmaster936]

No. This is a home/gaming PC mainly used by me.

I wonder why Tilted Mill or someone can't get a patch out to get the game going straight. Over half the threads I see on here are because of the same thing as me. You would think that if that many people are having that big a problem, then they would at least try to get a patch out. Oh Well