Arcanum won't run (goes black then back to desktop)

Discussion in 'Arcanum Hints & Tips' started by Tech_Rss, Dec 30, 2007.

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  1. Tech_Rss

    Tech_Rss New Member

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    Hello! I'm totally new to the Arcanum, but other Troika games are familiar to me (can't believe I missed this).

    My Fallout-junkie friend recently recommended Arcanum and after reading a little about the game, I was already drooling. So I bought the copy and immediately started installing.

    Installing went nicely, but when I clicked "Play" on autorun screen, screen goes black for about 3 seconds and falls back to the desktop. CD is buzzing in the drive, but it just won't start.

    I'm running on XP.

    Thank you in advance!
     
  2. Dirtman

    Dirtman New Member

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    I don't know. I run Arcanum on XP with zero problems. :D

    Try reinstall. Maybe that'll help. And patch the game before you play it.
     
  3. Jazintha Piper

    Jazintha Piper Member

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    That happened to my boyfriend's computer - he's modified it so much, but his OS is still Windows XP.

    His only solution was to reinstall Windows. After installing all the relevant patches, he can play now, but only when nothing else like burning, music or virus-scanning is running in the background.

    --Piper
     
  4. Philes

    Philes Well-Known Member

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    Jazintha, you realize that your retardedly long signature takes up like half of my vertical screen real estate, don't you? Why? What goes through your head when you copy and paste 20 lines of unfunny text from something that you'd find in a forwarded email from your aunt?

    In response to your question Tech_rss, I have XP and it works for me, so there's a way. I'd say a fresh install is worth trying. Make sure you patch the game as well. Other than that I don't know what to tell ya, sorry.
     
  5. Frigo

    Frigo Active Member

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    Yeah, we are phobophobiacs, so remove that sig.

    Besides, it lacks the most important fears; anatidaephobia (fear that somewhere a duck is watching you), anoraknophobia (fear of spiders wearing anoraks), arachnophobiaphobia (fear of people who are afraid of spiders) and luposlipaphobia (the fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly-waxed floor)
     
  6. Jazintha Piper

    Jazintha Piper Member

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  7. Quest For Glory Fan

    Quest For Glory Fan New Member

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    HI, I'm new around here but I've read a whole bunch of threads and you guys seem like an alright bunch. I'm in the same boat actually. I was getting that problem too with the blackouts and then I did a clean install and put the patch in again to no avail. Then I tried playing it in XP 2000 ME and 98 compatibility modes running at 256 colors and tried it with resolutions of 640X420 and 800X600. Sometimes in XP or in 2000 The game would actually start and this is fantastic news because I'm out of that frying pan, the fire I fell into was when I got the same error someone ELSE had before me. The Sierra intro plays, the Troika intro plays. I see the loading Train and Crash I'm out again. Any help would be awesomely appreciated from you guys and thanks already Grim Hatter for some of my troubleshooting ideas. I'm running Vista by the way and although I did own the game discs at one point I lost my Play disc so half my game is installed legitimately and the other half is Torrented. I'm also playing with a no CD Crack obviously but from what the other topic was saying it doesn't seem to have any bearing on the situation I'm encountering. Thanks again.
     
  8. Jazintha Piper

    Jazintha Piper Member

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  9. Quest For Glory Fan

    Quest For Glory Fan New Member

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    still having the problem, I'm wondering if it's a Direct X thing but I assume I have higher than 8.0 to run Vista
     
  10. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

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    It might seem kinda stupid...but uninstall and reinstall the latest video drivers for your software.
    I was having a great deal of trouble with Arcanum, Fallout, and Baldur's Gate 2 because the video drivers weren't installed correctly.
    Or, you could just make a rollback to your version of driver from before the update and try it.
     
  11. Quest For Glory Fan

    Quest For Glory Fan New Member

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  12. Jazintha Piper

    Jazintha Piper Member

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    It will take a while, but after you reinstall windows (or not), try installing the games in ascending order of Direct X versions.

    --Piper
     
  13. Quest For Glory Fan

    Quest For Glory Fan New Member

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  14. GrimmHatter

    GrimmHatter Active Member

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    That's an interesting suggestion. Have you had to that before? And it worked?
     
  15. Jazintha Piper

    Jazintha Piper Member

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    Yep. Worked my way up from Worms, through to Empire Earth, etc etc, Arcanum, and finally Halo, at one point.

    And also, when you uninstall the game, the Direct X involved is also uninstalled, and usually it takes down all the other Direct X versions above it as well.

    --Piper
     
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