To those who cannot get the game to work on their computers.....

Obviously there has been a huge amount of debate and anger over this topic, but we all have to remember: it is not like they are purposely screwing us. They want it to work too, because they realize that if we arent happy, they dont get as much money. So let's all be easier on the developers, and realize that they are working hard to get things fixed.

Now that being said, some sort of patch would be great towards quelling any fears that the developers dont care. Just saying it is our fault that we have bad computers/video cards wont cut it; this problem doesnt relate to that. If you read the forums, it is pretty obvious that it does not. Look at the people like me who have great computers/cards who are getting the same message as those using low end machines. I think a lot of people are having the problem where the intro works, but then it goes black and a few seconds later the comp messes up. THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM, AND IT IS ON YOUR END!!!!! So please get working on it as hard as you can, because probably hundreds of people who are paying you lots of money have this problem, and they deserve the product they expected. I know you guys will work hard for a good solution. Thanks

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

There may not be a solution to this, Aaron. That is what we have tried to tell you.

There are some low end video cards that simply may not be capable of running the game.

Certain laptops with low end video adapters along with the older Intel integrated video adapters do not work. We have made this a priority to look into.

My suggestion would be for those people to return the game. Those who can't can be assured that we are trying our best to resolve it.

Blaming the game though is unreasonable. We made the game, it works on virtually every video card out there. It works even on my 6+ year old TNT card. The game also runs fine on my ThinkPad T40 which has an ATI Radeon 9000 in it (and in fact, that is the machine I coded the AI with). It's not like there's some sort of if(videoCard == LowEndMobileEmbeddedAdapter)Crash().

Video driver makers are supposed to adhere to the DirectX specs. Some of them cut corners and don't implement software equivalents for the acceleration features they don't support. Luckily, only a few do that.

I'm sorry that the answer we have for you isn't what you want to hear. And I totally agree with your feeling - it's disappointing to go out and get a game only to find that your machine can't run it. And we are working on it. But since it is such a small number of particular video adapters, we will have to go out and find one, bring it in, and then see what exactly the problem is.

As I indicated in the other post, the Intel adapter, which is the main one along with the ATI IGP Laptop adapter. (which is what you reported to have, sorry but it's the driver, not the game, Aaron. You also stated that the game turns black on you and then your computer reboots -- that is definitely the driver. XP doesn't reboot unless a ring 0 -i.e. a driver- has failed. Games can't make Windows XP reboot, only drivers can. We will be in contact with ATI about it, hopefully you've updated to the latest Catalyst drivers).

The Intel adapters have a fairly long list of games they cannot run. It has nothing to do with animations or whatnot (that would merely make them slow). It simply has to do with DirectX features in use. The Political Machine uses the T&L engine of video cards. We did this so that we could deliver a more fluid game for players. We're pleased with the results. But we are obviously not happy that certain Intel chipsets and the ATI IGP are having problems.

But like I said, we ARE trying to resolve this. But it's not going to be some sort of 2 day fix. It's going to take some time. I suggest contacting support@ubisoft.com if you need additional news on this.

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