Intro running over 45 minutes?

from PolMach Forums
Rec'd the game today from Amazon. Installed it fine. Loaded it up. The intro movie runs fine. But then the generic screen with all the various little pictures comes up and stays there for upwards of 45 minutes (haven't gotten passed it yet).

The individual pictures come up VERY slowly and fade out just as slowly. Music is playing this whole time but hitting ESC does nothing.

My PC:
P4 2.6 Ghz
NVIDIA 5200x video card (Latest drivers)
1 gig of RAM
Win XP
Set my resolution to 16 bit.

Am I missing something here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
12,878 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top
Yes, I am having this problem too. I can see stuff flickering in the background though. I did get past this point, to what looked like a menu but there wasn't any labels saying what the options were. I must have clicked on something because then I got to another menu, again with no labels.

My PC:
Athlon XP 2800+
Nvidia 5900xt w/updated drivers
1 Gb Corsair LL RAM
Win XP Pro
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top
I tried upgrading from DirectX 9b to DirectX 9c but that didn't help. The only way to get out of the game is to Alt-Tab from what I have found.

The menu's still flicker in the background. If I get lucky and click on a selection, a non-flickering menu will come up but there is no labels. The last time I tried running it, a table thing came up but it was blank. About 6 columns wide and a lot of rows tall. The mouse cursor started acting eratic on that screen as well.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top
I have the same problem. The game goes 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 suggestions?? Thanks
Reply #5 from PolMach Forums Top

Let me ask the guys about this.  This is very odd for sure.

Are all you running at least service pack 1 on Windows XP?

I seem to recall our nVidia tech saying that SP1 was needed to fix some underlying issues in DirectX. 

Reply #6 from PolMach Forums Top
Yes, I am running SP1. Haven't installed SP2 yet though. I wish I had a way for video capture. I was lucky to get that garbage flicker at the bottom of the first screenshot. There are larger artifacts above that one and another in the middle near the top. The Political Machine Logo will sometimes show up and sometimes it won't. There is also a large delay in loading the screens. Oh and I am using the latest drivers from MSI not Nvidia since I have an MSI video card and motherboard.
Reply #7 from PolMach Forums Top
That is really odd.  We have Geforce cards in our lab.  I've forwarded this post to the DirectX team here at Stardock to see what they make of it. Hpoefully we'll have a solution very soon and a build to try out.
Reply #8 from PolMach Forums Top
Just curious, are all you guys using MSI video cards or the Detonator drivers?
Reply #9 from PolMach Forums Top
Well, low and behold... I installed the latest detonator drivers straight from the nVidia website and it fixed the problem for me.
Reply #10 from PolMach Forums Top
That is good to hear but still troubling that the MSI drivers would cause these problems.  Any chance you could drop MSi an email letting them know about this?  PolMachine is pretty much cut and paste DirectX 9 3D code.
Reply #11 from PolMach Forums Top
Actually, yes, I can try. I am not sure how I would describe the problem so that they would understand. The screenshots worked for you because you knew what was supposed to be on those screens.
Reply #12 from PolMach Forums Top
I am using neither an MSI card nor a Detonator driver. Mine is a PNY brand GeForce 5200x. As suggested, I upgraded to DirectX9.0c. Didn't work. Oddly enough, the game works great on my crappy 1.2 gig refurbished gateway laptop that I use for taking notes in class (with DirectX 9.0b). But the screenshots show exactly my problem--though I can't even get past the initial screen. I am also running SP1....tried downloading SP2 to see if (wishful thinking) that would solve the problem. It didn't. Uninstalled that bloated pile o' crap. So now back to SP1, DX 9.0c, and the setup described above.

And it especially sucks because from playing the game on the laptop, I really enjoy it. I just don't want to have to be in class to play it.

Any help would really be appreciated.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Please try going to NVIDIA's site (http://www.nvidia.com) and downloading the newest drivers (which are the detonator drives). That should clear it up for you.
Reply #14 from PolMach Forums Top
I've downloaded the most recent drivers from NVIDIA (twice)--that's what's been on my system when this problem occurred

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77

Dated July 27, 2004.

If there's a different set of drivers, I ain't seeing it.
Reply #15 from PolMach Forums Top
Hi,

I'm having the same exact problem! I have been trying to get the game to work for two days, and nothing is working. I do not think it can be anything that was previously mentioned, as here are my specs:

Dell Inspiron 8600
1.7Ghz Centrino P4 M
512 RAM
nVidia GeForce FX 5650 go
etc. etc.

So it's not my performacne...

Her'es software:

Windows XP Pro (updated up to service pack 2...and it won't be including it thank YOU )
DirectX 9.0c (just updated today)
nVidia Forceware drivers version 61.77 (current drivers as of today)
Every driver I could get from Dell's website

I have the same exact symptoms as Slaghead, with the two pictures alternating and a lot of artifacts on the screen flailing about.. Sometimes the game doesn't show the artifacts, sometimes the game just closes after the intro!

I have updated to 1.01, and I am sure it is passed the safedisc v3 check, as I hear it checking the CD, and it passes that point. I also tried applying the 1.0 patch before I updated to 1.01, and the same exact problem occurs (in 1.0 clean, 1.0 cracked, 1.01 clean).

I also have tried running the nointro and the w parameters when starting the game (windows shortcuts make life easy ), and I have tried them together as well. Nothing gets the game past this point. Also, if I click around fast enough, the game will freeze and I have to alt + tab out.

It's not DirectX or the graphics card or my drivers (all updated). And it wasn't fixed in 1.01...is this known? And will it be fixed soon?

Thanks a bunch everyone,
EagleRock
Reply #16 from PolMach Forums Top
You may need to rebuild your textures in order for it to work properly after doing your updates. It will take longer to load Political Machine longer than usual to load because it will have to recreate all the textures.

Open your PolMachine.ini file and set these values:

ForceTextureUpdate=1
DeviceType=1
BehaviorFlags=68
Reply #17 from PolMach Forums Top
Running the demo, I am having the same problem - but I never get to any menu, since it fubars to the desktop if I press Esc. But since I would probably have the same graphical errors as you guys are, that isn't much of a loss, I guess.

GeForce FX 5200 with latest nVidia drivers, DirectX 9c, generally updated WIndows XP client (with SP1).

Using CariElf's advice does not help, and neither is running Windowed Mode or anything of the sort.
Reply #18 from PolMach Forums Top
Even if I am running the demo, I tried these other things -

*that special build that Frogboy posted in another thread (polmachine_test1.zip)
*nocd-exe of both 1.00 and 1.01
*Fiddling around with different settings in the PM and Prefs ini-files (when it didn't change anything, I restored it, of course (as well as making back-ups before starting)

Nothing has helped yet.
Reply #19 from PolMach Forums Top
HoloDuke: try opening Data\Prefs.ini and setting

SkipIntro = 1

then save the file and see if you can get to the main menu, or if it hangs at a black screen. If that doesn't work, please run dxdiag and send the report to me along with a detailed description of what you've tried and I'll get you a new test exe.

Anyone else still having problems with the corrupted graphics after rebuilding your textures, I would also like you to e-mail me your dxdiag report and a description of your problems and/or a link to this thread. I get a lot of e-mails and if I have to e-mail you to ask you what I'm supposed to be helping you with, it's just going to waste time for both of us.

--Cari
Email
Reply #21 from PolMach Forums Top
EagleRock and CXCross,

Are you still having this problem? Did you try rebuilding your textures?

When you installed the new drivers, did you install on top of the old ones, or did you uninstall the ones that were there and re-install them?

--Cari