Playing AoEO on Netbooks

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Greetings

I'm writing this post, for the reason mensioned in the title of course. Probably the main question many will ask me is, "is that even possible?" i don't know, till i tested it for myself, and it works moderatly well, i also have AoE3 whichneeds more resoucesi think.

The problem is:

I played the beta both in my netbook and My Desktop PC, and now with the prerelease, i only can play it on my Desktop, i'm having some errors on the netbook, is there a way to workaround this? it says direct3d initialization failure. i also have the latest drivers from Intel, my netbook is a Acer D150 with windows XP.

Hope this helps,
Congratiolations for this amazing and truthfully awsome game

Apcoop

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Apcoop wrote the following post at 08-11-2011 3:22 PM:
it says direct3d initialization failure. i also have the latest drivers from Intel, my netbook is a Acer D150 with windows XP.

Do you also have the latest version of DirectX supported by your GPU installed?

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Yes i have, i just updated the game but its the same, it says:

Game initialization failed.

Direct3d initialization failed. Possible causes:

Video card is below the minimum requirement.

Graphics driver is old or corrupted

Direct3D is improperly instaled

Hardware acceleration is disabled

Application was started with the workstation locked

...

|||Go Start > Run and type "dxdiag". Under the "Display" tab, do you have "Direct 3D acceleration" set as "enabled" ?|||

In addition to what dean said:

You don't seem to have hardware acceleration enabled. To enable it:

http://www.pixelmetrics.com/Tips/VidBlank/GlobalAcceleration.php

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yes, i have it enabled,and it passed all tests.

As for the hardware Accelaration, it was also enabled in maximum.

i just checked aoe3 and its working perfectly, maybe the game is currupted?

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I'm still having the problem, any ideas? :(

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I've been struggling with this for the past couple days. I have an thread on here that people have been trying to help me with but I"m not having any luck. I wrote to customer support and we've been having dialog. The last email sent to me said that "the game only supports certain resolutions". I got from that that she was saying the game does not support 1024 by 600 screen sizes. I've been trying to mess with the config file to try to manually change it to 1024 by 600 but it tells me the game is corrupt every time and tells me to run a scan. When it does, it changes the y resolution back to 768, which netbooks can't run.

Going through the forums, I read that there were people playing the beta in 1024 by 600 mode. Was it taken out of real version?

I find it hard to believe they didn't include 1024 by 600 resolution support. Starcraft 2, Dawn of war 2, Dragon age 1 and 2, even Age of Empires 3 all included 1024 by 600. I actually can't think of a recent game that doesn't have 1024 by 600.

Is there anyone who uses 1024 by 600 resolution successfully?

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Here's the link to my thread. Maybe you can try what they suggested to me.

http://forums.ageofempiresonline.com/forums/thread/100499.aspx

|||I think in your case it would be easyer to solve, (with your PC specifications) but it seems not, it is true people used to play it on netbooks, i did!, while it was the beta, not a single problem, and now know i don't know what to do. Maybe i'm going to send an email to support.|||I find it so weird it that 1024 by 600 would be included in the beta but not in the released version. That is bizarre. I hope they release a patch soon.
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I put a post in the suggestions forum asking for 1024 by 600 support. Maybe if enough people post on there echoing my plea, they will come through with a patch.

Here's the link.

http://forums.ageofempiresonline.com/forums/thread/101994.aspx

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These seem to be 2 separate issues...

Apcoop:

Have you tried finding the file AOEOnline.exe, RIGHT CLICKING and "Run as Administrator"?

Tutman22:

It is correct the minimum resolution is 1024x768. Try this,

Check off "Windowed Mode" in the graphics options.

If this doesn't correct your issue, the game only requires Shader Model 2.0 and above.I would attempt to change the Shader Quality to LOW from Medium. Sometime turning off the Shadow Quality and other effects will improve the graphics of the game. Let me know if this fixes your issue.

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Thanks for the help Bill

Is there a way to change those settings without being able to get into the game? I was trying to change the resolution by altering the config file but I can't find a way to change it to windowed mode and to change the shader quality through the game.cfg file. Is there another config file I can try? I can't get into the game either and I get the exact same error that Apcoop gets.

Thanks again Bill! I appreciate the effort!

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Yess!!! Thank you Bill! I got it to work. I hooked it up to a tv and was able to get into the game. I then changed it to Windowed mode and lowered the shader models to low and it worked. The only thing is that when I went to the options, it messed up the screen. I had to plug it back into the tv to get it to work again. It works now as long as I don't go into the graphics options menu.

Thank you so much Bill! I'm so pumped that it works!