After I bought the game online and installed it without problems via Stardock Central, I tried to play it. Tried, because it continuously crashed on me, after 20-40minutes (in Single Player & Tutorials). I changed Details to Low, no AA, etc. (keeping the resolution at 1400x1050)
I'm running:
Pentium-M 1.6GHz
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 64MB
WinXP Pro SP2
and not much disk space left. As you can see, it's already old
The constant crashes (every game) enabled me to create lots of minidumps, which I sent to support@ironcladgames.com , together with my dxdiag.
I then updated the graphics driver, after browsing the FAQ and forums, but I simply installed it over the already existing driver.. Silly Me! This is not Linux, the old packages don't get simply removed, so that it works.. Well, It seemed that Windows decided it was cleverer than I am, so it recovered some registry entry or whatever after rebooting. In the Device Manager, it listed the newest driver as installed, so I had no problem with that notice.
But the game would not run, same problems as ever. In the meantime, Josie from Support had answered (after an initial wait of a few days, IIRC, which was no problem to me, simply meant I could generate more minidumps to send). Josie said it always seemed to be a video problem..
(I was thinking, that maybe my Page File was too small, had found that error in the forums too, and since my hard drive only has 1 GB to spare, I'm running out of space..)
Well, the video tip did it. In the last step, I changed several things at once, which is why I cannot pinpoint the error-source just yet, but what I did was:
- I reinstalled Sins (don't think this changed anything)
- I changed the resolution (might have helped a bit) 1400x1050 to 1280x1024
- I cleaned the ATI drivers and reinstalled them (probably the winner)
http://www.ati.com/online/mobilecatalyst/ I remembered, that the ATI drivers always have issues, if you just
install the newer driver over the old one, so I followed this to clean
my system of the driver, before I installed the newest:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33606840 1. Go into the Control Panel and under the ADD/REMOVE SOFTWARE icon uninstall the ATI MultiMedia software and/or the ATI DVD software.
2. Uninstall the ATI drivers also found in the Add/Remove section. Once removed, it will prompt you to reboot....do so.
3. When returning to windows, the NEW HARDWARE FOUND wizard will come up and will tell you that it has found a new VGA card and will prompt you for drivers. Hit CANCEL!
4. Now, go to START - SEARCH - FOR FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for all files and folders using the filename ati*.*
This search will normally give you 3 to 4 files found in your c:/windows directory and subdirectories (including the Windows/System directory). Select these files and erase them. Now go to your Recycle Bin and Empty your bin.
5. Next...time to go to your Registry. Go to START -- RUN -- regedit
Here go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SYSTEM -- ControlSet001 -- Control -- Video . Here there should be 4 entries. 3 of them are default Windows XP entries and the 4th one is put in by the ATI drivers. Expand each one by one until you see ATI entries. Once found, erase the entire key.
Now repeat the same step above for the ControlSet002 key and the CurrentControlSet Key. Normally, whenever you erase a key in the ControlSet001, XP automatically deletes it in the CurrentControlSet section too. So if the ATI key is not found in the CurrentControlSet section, don't worry about it.
Once all keys are deleted, proceed to the next step.
6. While still in the registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SOFTWARE section. Here you should find an ATI Technologies key. Select it and delete it. In that same section, look for an Installed Options key. Expand it and there you should find another ATI Technologies key. Select it and erase it.
7. Still in the registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -- Software and there you should find another ATI technologies key. Select it and erase it. Once all this is done, close the registry. the registry is now clean.
8. Close all windows and reboot.
9. When in windows after the reboot the NEW HARDWARE FOUND WIZARD will pop up again. Cancel that. Now find the new ATI drivers that you have downloaded and extracted and run the SETUP file. Once complete, reboot and you are done. You may want to reinstall your ATI MMC software and DVD software if you use them. DONE!
The game is running flawlessly.
I've only tested Sins once, with all details on low and resolution on
1280x1024, but I am going to go a little higher, now that I can
Once I have reached my upper limits, I'll post here again.
Just wanted to let you know and thank you, I'm enjoying the game immensely!
