Failed to Initialize Display

from PolMach Forums


I'm getting this when I go to play for the first time. HELP?!
36,220 views 65 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top

This problem is normally caused by:

1) Not enough video memory (you need 16 megs or more)

2) Your video card not supporting 32bit Direct3D.

There may be ways of working around this in some cases:

a) Make sure you have the latest DirectX installed. It comes on the CD.

b) Make sure you have the latest video drivers for your video card.

c) Make sure you have at least Service Pack 1 installed if you're running Windows XP

d) Change your color depth to 16bit (65,000 colors) and then from the command line type: polmachine.exe w (from the polmachine directory). This will run it in windowed mode which may work in some cases.

e) You can try running the game without the intro movie by running it from this command line parameter: polmachine.exe nointro (from the polmachine directory).

The game should run on most systems. But some older video cards or some video cards that aren't up to par for running modern games may have issues. We will endeavor to find ways to make it work on as many configurations as possible.

 

You can also try this TEST build:  https://www.politicalmachine.com/test/polmachine101b.zip 

The above link tries some tricks to make it work on lower end video cards. Unzip the contents to your polmachine directory. You MUST have v1.01 already installed to use this (you can get 1.01 in the downloads area).

 

Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top
It looks like this cpu came with a AGP 4x - nVidia GeForce2 MX plug-in card

And XP
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top
I have that exact same message. and i have done EVERYTHING they say to do on the faq. I even tried it on my boyfriends computer, since he has a different video card and all, and it still did the same thing. I am so frustrated. I wish i could help you, but if anyone figures this out i'd love to hear the solution.
Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top
I did what is says in the FAQ too and also nothing. I'm going to see what I can do tomorrow. If I figure something out I'll let you know
Reply #5 from PolMach Forums Top

How much memory does the Geforce 2 MX you have in there?

Basically there's 2 main causes for this:

1) Your video card doesn't support 32bit DirectX. (so me of those onboard Intel chipsets and those old Voodoo cards).

2) Your video card doesn't have enough texture memory (i.e. 16 megs or less).

The Geforce2MX would be on the very low end I suspect.

Reply #6 from PolMach Forums Top
Hi,

I am having this same problem. Initially, when I started up the game, it would go through the whole intro movie with no problem (could see the pictures and hear the music). But when the intro was done, it went to a black screen. There was different music, but I couldn't do anything because there was no mouse pointer on the screen, and when I tried clicking around, it didn't do anything. When I hit alt-tab, it crashed the program, and went back to windows (which appears to have reverted to "safe mode" with 640x480 and 8-bit color.

I tried opening the program through the command line, doing "polmachine -w", and all that did was bring up this "unable to initialize display."

You might need some hardware specs for this one. I'm a bit new to PC's, but I have a Presario 2100 with a RADEON card with 64 MB of memory.

Thanks for any help you might have.
Reply #7 from PolMach Forums Top
Have you updated to 1.01?
Reply #8 from PolMach Forums Top
Mrwuzz: Actually I remember something about the Presario, my uncle has one and it comes with dreadful ATI drivers that don't have the DirectX support done correctly.  Download the latest drivers and then try it (cat 4.5 or later).
Reply #9 from PolMach Forums Top
Where do I download new drivers? By the way, when I installed the software, it said something like "You already have Directx 9, so we are not installing it."

Hope that helps a bit.

Thanks much!
Reply #10 from PolMach Forums Top
www.ati.com
Reply #11 from PolMach Forums Top
I downloaded the most recent driver from ATI, and I still get the same thing. Any other ideas? I am really eager to play this!

Thanks again.
Reply #12 from PolMach Forums Top
Unfortunately I found out from tech support that the reason i got that error was because my video card needed to be upgraded... even though i have a new sony vaio with top of the line everything... so anyway, im pissed and im going return my game tonight to get my money back. who makes a game that doesn't work on the majority of newer computers? its not like i have a dinosaur of a computer that im trying to run advanced stuff on. hope you have more luck than me!
Reply #13 from PolMach Forums Top
YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING! OR RESET ANYTHING! THIS PRODUCT IS JUST GARBAGE AND I AM WRITING MY REVIEWS ON EVERY GAME SITE THAT I CAN-----ANYONE WANT TO JOIN ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A VERY UNSATISFIED CUSTOMER.
Reply #14 from PolMach Forums Top

Well I hate to break it to you but welcome to PC gaming.

PC games often require a newer version of DirectX than what came with your computer. They also sometimes require you to update your drivers.

The CD INCLUDES DirectX 9 on it so you don't have to download anything. And generaly speaking you shouldn't have to update your drivers.

As for the newness of the computer, you can run this game on very old computers.  Kelli, I would be interested in knowning what kind of video card you have because I've run it on my Geforce 3 card, which I got back in 2001, without a problem.  It also runs on my laptop which has an ATI 9000 in it.  You don't need cutting edge hardware to run it. 

 

 

Reply #15 from PolMach Forums Top

btw, if people can simply TELL us what video card they have problems on, we can work to expand the compatibility even further. 

Mr. Wuzzman, we're not sure.  Do you know which Radeon it is? It sounds like you have the same video card as I have in my Thinkpad (ATI Radeon 9000) and it works fine here.  What version of Windows are you running?

Reply #16 from PolMach Forums Top
I got the same message "unable to initialize display." Unfortunately, I have the Intel 82815 Graphics Controller video card with Windows 98. Is there any hope that I will be able to play this game. I have not had any problems playing other games.
Reply #17 from PolMach Forums Top
I am getting the same message, my video card , as far as I can tell is an Intel 810E Chipset Graphics Driver? At least thats what it says when I do the DirectX Diagnosis. Under card type it says N/A but under name it says the Intel 810E. Please help!!!!
Reply #18 from PolMach Forums Top
YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING! OR RESET ANYTHING! THIS PRODUCT IS JUST GARBAGE AND I AM WRITING MY REVIEWS ON EVERY GAME SITE THAT I CAN-----ANYONE WANT TO JOIN ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A VERY UNSATISFIED CUSTOMER.


Just to bring to light a more reasonable side to things, I've had my current PC for 1.5 years now. Not top of the line at all. I DO know how to keep my PC up to date with drivers and in good running order. I bought Political Machine this past Saturday night at my local Wal-Mart afetr being instructed by some people that they had it available. I bought 2 copies, one for me and the other for a friend. It installed and worked perfectly out of the box on both machines under version 1.0. I have since upgraded both versions to 1.1 and they still both work flawlessly.

Most times problems like this have to do with sub-standard PC's or PC's that are not kept up to date. I'd also mention that laptops are horrible gaming machines and often have problems with many games on the market. Just because the game does not run on a persons system is no reason to get down on the Devs. Usually it's a problem with how your hardwrae is setup and NOT with the software (evidenced by it working on thousands of other PCs with no problems at all).

All in all, a very enjoyable game so far. Though I'll post more about that in a more "on topic" thread...

Best of Luck and Have Fun!
Reply #19 from PolMach Forums Top
To all having the Failed to Initialize problem.

Can you run an experiment for us and report back the results?

1) Change your display to 1024x768 16bit color.
2) Run political machine in a window (Modify the shortcut to say "PolMachine.exe w"

This may solve your problems. If it does, please let us know so that we can incorporate the necessary changes into the next patch.

Thanks
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
The actual Target parameter for the short cut should look like the following:

"c:\program files\ubisoft\stardock\polmachine\PolMachine.exe" w

Please take note of where the double quotes are.
Reply #21 from PolMach Forums Top


thats great, but I don't know how to do it, or how to change the display to 1024x768 16bit color.

Can someone tell me how?
Reply #22 from PolMach Forums Top
I used "c:\program files\ubisoft\stardock\polmachine\PolMachine.exe" w and changed my display to 1024x768 16bit color and that got me past the "unable to initialize display". The game went to the main menu but the buttons load very slowly and there are no words to identify what each button does. Also the mouse flashes to the point where I don't know where it is. Any other suggestions?? Thanks
Reply #23 from PolMach Forums Top
Well, not much has changed for me. I tried doing everything that was suggested in this forum. I updated my ATI drivers (by the way, in my Display control panel, it says ATI Radeon IGP 320M), updated DirectX, tried running it in window mode (though it doesn't appear to open in a window - it still takes over the whole screen), and anything else that was suggested. Nothing's happening.

When I open the game, it goes to the intro movie. This plays fine, without a hitch. I hear the music and see the animation. Then, when the intro is over (or I skip it by hitting esc), I go to an all black screen. I can hear music playing, but I can't do anything. Usually my cursor gets really big and turns orange, but when I click around on the screen, nothing happens. If I try hitting alt-tab, the program crashes (I get a window saying something like "Windows recovered from a system error") and I go into what looks like safe mode (640x480, 4-bit color).

I don't really know what more I can do here. If anybody has additional suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them. Otherwise, I don't think there's much more I can do.

Thanks very much for the help.
Reply #24 from PolMach Forums Top
Did you try the link we provided above? It tries a different build that supports 16bit textures that might work on less capable video cards.
Reply #25 from PolMach Forums Top
I was having the same problem with the black screen at the beginning as well. I could hear music, but there was no display. I tried all of the suggestions above including the command line change etc. I am now able to get to the main menu however when I click on one of the game play options nothing happens. The curser highlights the buttons, but is non-responsive to a click.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

P.S. I am using a 3D Prophet 4500 based on the Kyro chipset.