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wolf4492000 said:
Hey MrtT, do you know how to get it to work with the FX5200 cards series, cause I still cant get the game to work. Even in window mode it crashes when I try to play a game, and full window mode just crashes at startup.

Thanks.
I second this question. Will the performance of the FX5000 series differ in the coming patch? Cause if not I might buy a new one, so it'd help if I know if I actually need one.
 
All shadows disappear and come back in 0.5 seconds whenever I move the cursor over a province border, and after each day.
The flags over the cities don't cast shadows.
The cursors won't load.
 
How do I know if my card supports pixel shader 2.0?

I get a message saying it requires it to run when I try to start it, does that mean I can't support it at al?
 
Deaghaidh said:
How do I know if my card supports pixel shader 2.0?

I get a message saying it requires it to run when I try to start it, does that mean I can't support it at al?
If you've got a nVidia card, go to nVidia.com and check out the specifications of your card. You'll find which version of pixel shader it supports.
 
MrT said:
The devs expect to have a fix that will allow these to work. Performance may suffer depending on how much system RAM is "stolen" and how much remains to run the game. Assume that you'll need at least 512MB + however much is being used to top up your graphics card. 1GB would probably be a good starting point (guessing).
This seems to be the category where I fall in. I hate to ask the cliche "will it run?" question, but I don't really have a choice. I am very much interested in the game but hesitant to buy it on blind faith without seeing how a demo runs..

Here's the laptop specs:
Athlon 64 4000+
1GB RAM
256MB Radeon X600 Mobility
 
It's extremely hard for me to answer a lot of these card-specific questions because I lack the hardware to try it on and I can't really continually pester the devs with those questions either (they need time to actually do work) so...

Here are a few guesses but none of this should be treated as being in any way "official":


First off, those of you who are experiencing graphic anomalies (artifacts, odd shadow behaviour, strange colours, etc.) but can otherwise launch and play the game should probably be fine with the release version since most of those card/driver-specific problems are being actively worked on (or may already be fixed). If they persist in the release version (or 1.1 when it's released), I am quite confident that they will still be addressed. There will be a special means of reporting such issues and getting them dealt with.

Further to this, I received a PM from one of the reviewers who received a full finished version (for testing for his review) but he also downloaded the demo, just to see what it looked like. He reported that the demo version had some weird graphic glitches on his card, but that the full version worked perfectly. I have no idea why this would be (the devs might) but it gives me some confidence in guessing that there we some issues introduced in preparing the stripped-down demo version that are probably not going to occur with the gold (1.0) version.

One last note on that subject...I installed the demo version on my Core2Duo with GeForce 7300LE and am having some odd graphic issues myself (Windows mouse pointer instead of the EU3 pointer, etc.) and yet my beta version runs perfectly on exactly the same system. I have no idea why there's a difference (though that doesn't mean that the devs don't). I don't have an older beta version archived to compare it to, but this same system has been flawless with EU3 betas since I got it in December. I also installed the demo on my older machine (an AMD 64 X2 Dual 3800 with GeForce6100 (same nVidia driver)) which I used for most of my betatesting and have roughly the same issues. Again, this is the system that has been flawless with all betas since early November, and I know that the demo build is later than that. This again makes me think that something happened with the demo build that shouldn't happen with the final release version. (Also a side note that for each system, the performance of current beta is a bit better than the demo's performance in spite of having more content -- though there are some optimizations that have been made since the demo build so that's probably the reason.)

* * *

For people with nVidia 5xxx series cards, I have some serious reservations about the performance you'll get with the game, though I expect that the game will probably load and "work". This has been discussed in some detail in other threads so I won't rehash it here. The bottom line is that this series (particularly the very early ones) are only barely able to support the Dx9.0 library requirements and will probably only barely be acceptable on a 1024 x 768 monitor. Trying to drive higher resolution monitors with these cards is probably pushing them too far. Whether any sort of "fix" for this will be forthcoming from Paradox is hard to guess. I have no doubts that they'll look at it, but I don't know what would be involved in terms of code changes or whatever so I wouldn't even try to guess how long it might take (if ever) before the game will work well with them.

* * *

People with somewhat high-end cards/integrated chipsets that (for whatever reason) aren't reporting 128MB v-RAM but use turbocaching (or equivalent) to share system RAM will probably be okay once Paradox releases a bypass for the v-RAM check. As I posted earlier in this thread, you may experience some (or no) performance reduction but I'm pretty confident that the game will run acceptably if your overall specs are good.

* * *

As was pointed out in another thread, there are issues with a few Intel series that may not be resolvable and also seem to have a problem with a number of mainstream games (i.e. if the huge budget game designers can't make those cards work, I'm highly skeptical that Paradox will be able to). From what I gather (and I'm certainly no expert) with would require a fix directly from Intel, and Intel refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem at all (or rather, they dump it back on the game designers).

* * *

People with business laptops (good/great sys specs but less-than-great integrated video chipsets) will probably be fine once Paradox releases the fix that removes the 128MB check, provided that the laptop does have PS2.0 support -- i.e. full support for Dx9.0. (Obviously this excludes laptops with the aforementioned Intel series). You might not get quite as good a performance as you would on a similar-spec desktop with recent graphics card, but it shouldn't be too far off.

* * *

People with graphics cards that are 4+ years old and don't support the full Dx9.0 library will almost certainly either need to get a new video card or stick with EU2. Sorry, but EU3 is far from unique in terms of games that won't run on what (for the computer industry in general and games industry in particular) is essentially an antiquated system. If your computer is the same vintage, you really might want to consider a whole new system.

No...I'm not saying you should buy a new computer or new card just to play EU3. There's no way I could possibly justify that kind of expense to play a $40 game. However, you should consider that any software released anytime in the near future is probably going to force you to do this anyway, so start planning and budgeting for it, and when you get the new system come and give EU3 another look.

My understanding of the issues involved in trying to make EU3 work on an older system like that leads me to believe that it's beyond the scope of the company's capabilities and development constraints (not to mention that it's like trying to part a 40-foot 18-wheeler in my one-car garage). I feel sorry for you, and am disappointed that you won't get to play the game (and it's also unfortunate that you won't generate sales revenue for a company I like), but I understand that we all have to make our own decisions about what's important to us. I spend my money on computers and beer, but I can't fault any of you who have different vices. :p

* * *

For those of you who don't know whether your card or computer supports PS2.0, see this post (which you really should already have seen since it's in a stickied thread entitled "EU3 Forum - PLEASE READ FIRST" but I know some people find the number of threads in the forum overwhelming so I'll cut you some slack) and proceed from there.

EDIT: if you really still can't figure it out, I'll try to help you but I have a huge volume of threads/posts on this forum to keep up with, and lots of other gameplay-related questions to answer, so perhaps a few computer-savy members could help the process along by looking up the cards and then helping out your fellow members. I'll try to assist when possible, but I can't continue to devote 90% of my time to it.
 
*updates FAQ with the above*
 
Thanks MrT a great post!
BTW I was going to buy a business laptop (Dell Latitude, HP nc6400, Lenovo Thikpad, Toshiba Tecra)amd I 'll do the effort and pay more to thake a X1300/X1400 or Quadro NVS110 instead of GMA950 :)
 
MrT said:
1. Cards without HW T&L ( e.g. GMA 900/950 ): game starts with 3Danalyze hack, except the weird blue color...
Not sure if a fix is possible for these. The devs will let us know.

thanks for the update, mrT
so I can still dream to play with my laptop... please just remove the overall blue color.. I'm fine with the performance..

thanks again, anyway :)
 
I have all the requiremants and just after the music starts playing a Runtime error occurs or something like that
 
Kosh said:
Thanks MrT a great post!
BTW I was going to buy a business laptop (Dell Latitude, HP nc6400, Lenovo Thikpad, Toshiba Tecra)amd I 'll do the effort and pay more to thake a X1300/X1400 or Quadro NVS110 instead of GMA950 :)
I did the same. I could have gotten a deal on a Core2Duo with integrated Intel graphics board but my experiences with Intel graphics in the past (with other games) made me leery of doing so. I ended up paying about $150 more for the one I bought, and supposedly the Intel graphics spec was better than the one I got...except of course that I couldn't have used it for EU3 and would have had to spend some serious extra money on a second card for it anyway. It kindof annoys me that Intel is being so pig-headed about it, but I guess that's their way of trying to pull a Micro$oft monopoly thingy...
 
Mezzo said:
I have all the requiremants and just after the music starts playing a Runtime error occurs or something like that
I'll need more detailed info about this one.

System specs?:
Slightly better description of when it happens (is it during initial launch or during game start or after the game has stated and you unpause?)
Exact error message you receive?
 
It is when the game is loading and it says "Map properly intialised"

the music starts playing and a message comes up:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

then is says that euIIIdemo.exe needs to close

My video card:

RADEON 9250

Chip type: RADEON 925 AGP (0x5960)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Memory size: 128 MB
Adapter string: RADEON 9250
Bios Information: BK-ATI VER008.015.058.000

My Computer:

Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 2

AMD Athlon(tm)
1.14GHz, 512MB of RAM
 
I downloaded a program version of Pixel Shaders 2.0
 
Mezzo said:
It is when the game is loading and it says "Map properly intialised"

the music starts playing and a message comes up:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

then is says that euIIIdemo.exe needs to close
I'm seeing a similar CTD when I launch in 2560x1600. 1900x1080 does work. My display supports 2560x1900 for other games (Company of Heroes, Dark Crusade, etc).

NVIDIA 8800GTX 768MB VRAM
ATHLON 3700
1 GB RAM
 
Mezzo said:
I downloaded a program version of Pixel Shaders 2.0
Radeon 9250, in fact a modified 8500 only support in its hardware DX 8.1 &PS 1.4, not DX9.0 & PS 2.0
I know that there are some programs that can do the trick (3D Analyzer) but I'm not sure that those software patches work (I try using 3Danalyze in my old GF4MX with other games with bad results)
 
wolf4492000 said:
Hey MrtT, do you know how to get it to work with the FX5200 cards series, cause I still cant get the game to work. Even in window mode it crashes when I try to play a game, and full window mode just crashes at startup.

Thanks.

I got a FX 5200 Ultra, and the game will only show the left side of the screen, but stretched over the whole screen. Kind of funny...my hardware specs besides the FX 5200 Ultra are not the newest, but fine enough for it to run (AMD XP2600+, 512MB Ram)

Any fix for this?

edit: Just read I should reduce my screen to 1024*768... Well, that's hardly nice, but I'll have a try... guess my 3 year old PC needs replacement... anyone like to send me some money? :D

second edit: Tried now with even as low as 800*600, still the same (Only left side, streched over screen)

Well, I guess that means EU3 only for me when I get a new PC... :(
 
Last edited:
This is not exactly a graphical problem, but is there any idea about what's causing this?
--> http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=281441&page=1&pp=20 <--
A number of people, including me, with various types of hardware are reporting:
-Mouse lag: it takes a while for the program to recognise mouse movement and clicks: buttons will highlight after a few seconds and mouseclicks take time to register
-Scrolling and zooming stutters
-Sometimes, but not always, this seems to be accompanied by anomalies in the sound. I don't have this problem, but it looks as if it's mainly happening to people with onboard soundcards.

Interesting is that a few people have improved (not solved) performance by updating their sound drivers.

Anyway, it'd be greatly appreciated if someone could look into this or guarantee that this is a demo thing only, and not in the full game. Much as I'd love to have EUIII, I won't be buying it if this problem persists.