Unable to run game

from Stardock Forums
I'm looking to see if anyone has (or had) this problem:

My computer more than meets the minimum requirements of the game. I have all the latest patches, DirectX, have run scandisk, defragged, turned off all background programs, etc. etc. I install the game, everything seems to go smoothly. But when I run the game from the shortcut, I get a black screen, a few moments of flickering, then get dumped back to Windows.

If I run from the Start menu option, I get the menu (Play game, metaverse, etc.), but when I choose Play Game, it blacks out, flickers, dumps back to Windows.

I'm running Windows XP with 512 MB RAM, SB Audigy, ATI Radeon 9700, with the latest stable drivers. I've uninstalled, defragged, reinstalled several times.

I've sent a complete report, dxdiag results, and the error log generated by the crash to tech support, but haven't heard anything back from them.

So...any ideas? Anyone had similar problems?
144 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Can you post your debug.err file here?

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
It's kind of huge (100+k), but I can post it if no one minds. Here's some excerpts that jumped out at me:

Debug Message: Initializing sound card.
Debug Message: Game Initialization completed.
Debug Message: Creating cutscene window.
Debug Message: Creating soundtrack handler.
Debug Message: Creating movie handler.
Debug Message: Create setup screens.
Debug Message: Creating opening menu.
Debug Message: MemMan: Unable to find pointer in GetBlockInfo. Memory system: DataMan
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 579.
Debug Message: MemMan: Trying to free memory that has not been allocated. Memory System DataMan
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 361.
Debug Message: Creating player setup screen.
Debug Message: Creating race setup screen.
Debug Message: Initialize Game Options.
Debug Message: Initialize Tilemaps
Debug Message: Set mouse.
Debug Message: Set update timer.
Debug Message: Begin playing intro movie.
Debug Message: Preparing to change display settings.
Debug Message: Set video mode failed.
Debug Message: Canvas Initialization failed.
Debug Message: Main Shell terminating normally


And it ends with...

Debug Message: Unallocated Mem: 2048 bytes of memory from line 777 of G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\Canvas.cpp
Debug Message: Unallocated Mem: 128 bytes of memory from line 5741 of G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\Canvas.cpp
Debug Message: Not all memory has been freed from memory system Canvas.
Debug Message: 3237036 bytes of memory still allocated.
Debug Message: MemMan: Unable to find pointer in GetBlockInfo. Memory system: Palette
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 579.
Debug Message: MemMan: Trying to free memory that has not been allocated. Memory System Palette
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 361.
Debug Message: MemMan: Unable to find pointer in GetBlockInfo. Memory system: Palette
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 579.
Debug Message: MemMan: Trying to free memory that has not been allocated. Memory System Palette
ASSERT ERROR in file G:\PROJECTS\pear\SOURCE\MEMMAN.CPP at line 361.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
So...no one's ever seen anything like this? It looks like there are some memory allocation errors, and that it's unable to set the video mode. But I'd think that memory allocation errors would affect everyone, and my video card isn't exactly uncommon. :notsure:
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok...final question: is there anywhere else to get technical support for GalCiv? I've been waiting three days for Strategy First support to get back to me with no word except, "We'll need to send this to the developers." Are there any other forums around with decent info?