How to get DH to work on AMD video drivers Win7 or Win10

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novapaddy

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AMD video drivers 16.7.3, a real game buster.

I've had games running REALLY slow, as if confused.
I've had games crashing on start up.
I've even had DH working normally, even with sprites, but my mod not working at all, even just using counters.

This is for Windows 7 and Windows 10. I have both. One a modding pc, one a gaming pc. So I can test one against the other.

Steam or non-Steam appears to be irrelevant.

FIX:
The AMD driver 16.7.3 IS the problem. I have reported this to AMD.

WINDOWS 7, 64-bit.
Go to the AMD site and download the 15.12 driver from December 2015. OK to get the full package.

Remove the video driver on your pc, using the correct method (via control panel) see instructions here: adjust for your own system: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/GPU57RemoveOldGraphicsDrivers.aspx

MAKE SURE you turn off automatic upgrading of your video driver. There is a tick box in the bottom of the install gui.

Install the new driver.

To be absolutely sure it was the drivers, I reinstalled DH from new. I then upgraded to DH1.04.
My pc played DH with sprites and my mod with sprites immediately.



#####################################################

WINDOWS 10, non Steam.

DO NOT use the Game folder on Windows 10.
Try not to use the C drive. If you have another drive, use that instead.

Repeat the video driver steps as for Windows 7 above, so download the correct driver version for your pc, but use 15.12 from December 2015. OK to get the full package.

Remove your current driver, make sure you go back to the 1024 x 768 screen and everything looking BIG.

Install 15.12.
I installed DH as new, updated to 1.04. Installed outside the Win 10 Games folder on another drive.
Worked no problems first time, that is dh with sprites and my mod using sprites. No crashes.

#################

Steam:
I think with Steam just ensure you do not use the Games folder and you should be ok.

USING 15.12 is the main point.
AND removing your old drivers properly via the control panel is the other point.

Ta.

###############################

LATER FIX:

Following on from an earlier post by MartinBG, where he said guys should delete the 2 fire sprites for the Carrier to stop the game crashing on load.

The only other fix was to go back to an earlier AMD driver, version 15.12.

I decided to investigate and see if I could find a solution which would allow you to keep your latest AMD drivers.


SOLUTION:

My solution is to totally replace the carrier sprites for darkest hour with a different carrier sprite. The current dh fire sprite has 79 images. The replacement has 50.

I have tried the new carrier sprites on Windows 10 with the latest AMD drivers and Darkest Hour loaded with no problems whatsoever.

LINK:
https://mega.nz/#!j1hzRTgD!QmHwGwyLlUp5QdHrLft8kCHKDT7gbWFMC7Pk__uJnCk


STEPS:

Paste the palette file into Darkest hour/gfx/palette folder, and replace the file already there.

Go to Darkest Hour/gfx/map/units/bmp and delete the CARRIER bmp sprites. Replace with the ones posted.

Go to Darkest Hour/gfx/map/units and delete the CARRIER .spr files. Replace with the ones posted.
 
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Thank you so much, I spent a week to get this to run on my system with AMD graphics :)

I recommend DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to remove the old driver.

p.s. this is the GOG version without Galaxy.
 
Hi there, thanks for finding a workaround. Though reverting drivers to 15.12 is not an option for me.
So is this a driver bug or a game bug ?

Any chance this might get fixed ?
 
I just disabled the unit sprites in the launcher and the game now works, even with up to date AMD drivers. This thread here helped me out https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-04-crash-at-startup-not-amd.976327/
This fix worked for me as well.

FYI, My OS is Win7 64bit, and my copy of DH runs through Steam. I have an AMD card with the 16.10.1 drivers, but I didn't try rolling them back.

EDIT: Because I like using sprites, I tried rolling back my AMD drivers to 15.12 as the OP suggested, and this worked as well.
 
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Reverting to old drivers is hardly a solution. I really hope that the developers manage to patch the game so as to work properly with the new drivers.
 
Hello everybody. For a while now I haven't been able to play DH because of this problem. Now the urge became just too big and I found... this from HoI II forum:
I had the same problem with HoI 2 complete...
Try deleting the Carrier sprites in ...\gfx\map\units - that worked for me.
The sprites that causes the crash is actually; T-CARRIER A-FIRE C-MIN D-NE.spr + T-CARRIER A-FIRE C-MIN D-SW.spr
And would you look at that, the game works again, to some extent at least. The 'disable unit sprites' fix wasn't really a fix for me since all the units became just some random error-box (and after removing those files, they still seem to be.. sprites work fine).
 
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Hello everybody. For a while now I haven't been able to play DH because of this problem. Now the urge became just too big and I found... this from HoI II forum:

And would you look at that, the game works again, to some extent at least. The 'disable unit sprites' fix wasn't really a fix for me since all the units became just some random error-box (and after removing those files, they still seem to be.. sprites work fine).

I would like to say, on a brand new Windows 7 installation, latest AMD drivers, enabled sprites, that this solution does allow the game to work. I can finally play KR again. :)
 
I would like to say, on a brand new Windows 7 installation, latest AMD drivers, enabled sprites, that this solution does allow the game to work. I can finally play KR again. :)

Still not working, I'm using 17.1.1 and still can't play Darkest Hour mods except TGC mod, I just want to know if this is a game fault or AMD new driver fault, if this is Paradox fault and they still don't even work on the patch I will not buy any games from you guys again because of fuc*ing good support but if this is AMD fault and you guys already contact them about this bug but they still do not fix it I will make my next vga upgrade to Nvidia.
 
Guys, my DH launches but it is laggy a lot, especially after 1945. and I have AMD R2 graphics 15.3 version
GoG said that AMD drivers aren't supported in DH
So do you get all lags in gameplay, or you play it flawless, wthout any game and mouse freezes