HELP!!!

[TaiNteD]

I WENT TO TRY DoW TODAY AND IT WON'T WORK!!! IT SAYS THAT THE GRAPHICS CARD IS NOT ACCESSIBLE!!! WAHHH!!! I TRIED TO CHANGE THE SETTINGS SO IT DOESN'T USE DEFAULT BUT IT DIDN'T CHANGE!!! HELP!!!!!!!! :help: :help: :help: :help:

[TaiNteD]

Okay I just re-installed the game hoping that it would change but the same message pops up. "Failed to initialized video card" HELP!!!!I just turned the Firewall of and that didn't work either.

[TaiNteD]

I have a Nvidia Geforce MX integrated GPU graphics card I think.

[Mistress Crystal]

oooh boy. :| go through Relic tech support.

[The Dark Messenger]

Well, I know for a fact you have a shitty graphics controller :)

I don't knowwhat the problem could be, though. Could be anything. Do you have XFire? If so, add 00025. If not, try to PM him. He's our techie.

[Erik_Firewolf]

Clean your HSF. I had that problem.

[TaiNteD]

Hsf? X-fire? Sorry I happen to be a computer newb, what I need is detailed decriptions.

[laserflip]

wish i could help, but the only advice i can give is try reinstalling your videocard and getting the latest drivers. i hope you get it up and running again soon dude

[TaiNteD]

I have been playing Dawn of War often without any problems. However, today when I went to play the game it says "Failed to initialize video card" I do not know what this means but I will list the changes that I have made to my system to see if it will begin to work however none of them have made a difference.
-System Restore to earlier that day when it worked
-System Resotre to earlier that week
-Turned off firewall
-Reinstalled the game
-Changed the graphics settings on the game
-Tested the new graphics settings which still works
-Turned the graphics settigns to low
-Ran my virus scan
-Ran spyware scan
None of these have worked and when I do a system restore I no longer get the message but the game does not open. I am an avid Dawn of War player and I would like to get a reply to my problem soon. Also I do not know much about computer so I do not know if all the below information is correct and please try to explain things simply.
Processor: X86 Family 6 model 10 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD
Memory: 768.00 megabytes
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU
Sound card: NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
Operating system: Microsoft Widows XP Home Edition
3d accelerator card: Do not know where to find required information
Controller: Do not know where to find required information




Information sent to THQ. Of course with name of game and whatnot.

[Erik_Firewolf]

Heatsink/Fan. You will need to remove the card and clean it up with an old toothbrush. Unless your card doesn't have a fan...

I was getting your problem because my card's HSF was totally completely with dust and was overheating after long sessions of DoW. Other problems included DoW crashing, texture corruption in games that went over 2hrs. I've since did a thorough cleaning and it's fine.

[TaiNteD]

With the exact message?

[TaiNteD]

Erik, if you can and if you are still on, can you get onto chat live and explain the process to me? If you can tell me.

[Weavern]

If it just happens with dow then its dow, if it has other games then its the card. I suspect its the card and possibly something got fried, thou it cant be that major if you still can access the forums and you can see them. Seek tech support or try erik's suggestion as it should work if he had the same card.

Judging from his suggestion its basically remove your graphics card and clean off any dust or debris from the fan. As he believes it may be heat related and your card has overheated and possibly rendered itself inert. Depending on how bad this damage is you may need a new videocard but if it was that severe you wouldent be here. It may just be a necessary component for dow on your videocard doesent work due to dust. Use compressed air or pick up some special cleaning supplies for your card. The toothbrush may work but i consider that a bit crude.

[TaiNteD]

I dunno what the card looks like or anything.

[Weavern]

Then seek technical assistance from relatives, IT services or try to find someone here that can walk you through it step by step or try a generic google search etc. Thou my guess is if you do not know what it looks like, offsite assistance by professionals or a new card may be in your future.

[TaiNteD]

Yes but my mom will kill me :(

[The Dark Messenger]

00025 will be able to walk you through it step by step. Click on my bottom sig to go to the XFire website, and download their messenger program. Then, add 00025 to your buddy list and ask him. If you don't want to install, ask in the tech support board and wait for him to respond to that.

[TaiNteD]

I'm planning on getting my bro to help me sometime soon but it seems that I won't be abe to see him for AWHILE. He lives 8 hours drive away from me. :(

[Bentusi]

Tainted I'm moving it to the techniqual discussion forums, they'll be able to help you more.

Btw, my own few tips (since I am fairly computer literate).

1) Post your system specs (processor speed and the like). To find out what kind of card you have get into your device manager (Settings-->Control Panel---->System--->Hardware--->Device manager) and tell us exactly what kind of vid card you have.

2) If you haven't already done so download all the new drivers for your video card.

3) Backtrack. Go over the day before it stopped working in your head and tell us EXACTLY what you did to the computer. if family members use it as well ask them what they did.

[00025]

Since you've already told us that your a pc newb I don't suppose you overclocked any of your hardware(i.e. cpu or gpu) right?
And you said you have NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated. Well then this could be tricky since you can't pull that out of your mobo and clean it. So if its fried, then nobody can do anything about it.

But, just to make sure give me you system specs.
Follow this:
a) Go to Start
b) Run
c) Type in dxdiag, Press Enter
d) While your in DxDiag press Save All Information button on the bottom right corner of the window and save it in your desktop or somewhere you can remember.
d) send it to me as an attachment in e-mail or post it here. My email address: mark.00025@gmail.com

After you give me these info's, I'll see what I can do.

Don't forget to try Relic's Tech support too like what Mistress have said, just in case, cause maybe its not your system.

[Erik_Firewolf]

Hmm. Integrated GPU. Missed that bit. Somewhat invalidates my suggestion, but clean the HS all the same.

[Abyss]

Tainted did u change the memory allocation for the onboard video in the bios settings? Have u unplugged your computer? Your mainboard battery may have died and the bios may have gone back to defaults. Check that out. If the video does have shared memory (as in shares the main system memory) then try to allocate more of the system memory to the vid card and vice versa. Thats all I can think of for now. Hope you get it figured out so we can whoops some ass in DoW. Ohh and if the board is made by ECS better get a tech to look at it :-P

[TaiNteD]

Uhh...What Abyss? How do I do all that?

[Abyss]

First off check the motherboards manual that came with your computer and find out if the video onboard has its own memory or shares the system memory. Most boards share the system memory but there are a few that have their own separate memory for the vid card. If you don't have a manual for your mobo you can just go into your bios and look around to see if you can allocate more memory to your video card. This is not applicable to all boards mind you. To do that contiually press delete while your computer boots up. Then you will be in the bios. Do not change anything in here without knowing what it does. Change the amount of system memory allocated to the video card if there is a setting for it in the bios. If not well I suspect your memory may have seen better days. You can download memtest86 and run it to thoroughly test your ram. Let mem test do at least 20 passes. If the ram is good then It's most likely a software problem.

[TaiNteD]

Tainted I'm moving it to the techniqual discussion forums, they'll be able to help you more.

Btw, my own few tips (since I am fairly computer literate).

1) Post your system specs (processor speed and the like). To find out what kind of card you have get into your device manager (Settings-->Control Panel---->System--->Hardware--->Device manager) and tell us exactly what kind of vid card you have.

2) If you haven't already done so download all the new drivers for your video card.

3) Backtrack. Go over the day before it stopped working in your head and tell us EXACTLY what you did to the computer. if family members use it as well ask them what they did.
1) Already did
2) Did yesterday
3)What I did, get onto the computer, played with Amir and Ilia, we get stomped, flame fest, i left, got something to eat, then came back and tried to play when i got the error message.

[TaiNteD]

Oh, Abyss, PLEASE CHANGE YOUR SIG!!! I hate having to scroll over every time I want to read your writing.

[00025]

Relic games usually have problems with integrated video cards. But there are some ways around it, like using pre-tweaked drivers, but I don't wanna go and pre-tweak one for you right now cause there are still other resolutions to your problems. And using pre-tweaked drivers may just mess up your system further.

So, here's what you can do:
1. Go to BIOS by either pressing Delete or F1 or F9 when you start up your machine.
2. Look for advanced Features Setup or Display Settings or Hardware Configuration Setup (Depends on what moderboard and what BIOS type you have).
3. Once you're in the right Menu, you should see something like Video Card Memory Allocation or Onboard Video Memory. It is currently set to 64mb, change it to 128mb.
4. Save & Exit BIOS(usually by pressing F10).
5. Boot up normally and try playing DOW again.

If that doesnt fix it, now try this:
1. Go to Start->Run
2. Type DxDiag
3. Go to Display tab
4. On the DirectX features, Direct3D Acceleration should be Enabled. If it is enabled, disable it then reboot, then go back again and re-enable it. Sometimes D3D acceleration doesn't register so you'll have to refresh it by disabling then enabling it.

If for some reason you're still having problems with it after doing those two, PM me, I still have some ideas(like driver settings and those pre-tweaked drivers I was talking about), but looking at your specs its very unlikely that they will work.

[The Fell Hand]

Any thoughts dibs?

[Dibujante]

I've found that DoW doesn't recognize some integrated GPUs at all. That can be a fairly invincible problem.
The advice given here is good. Make sure you enter BIOS and ensure that you have enough RAM allocated to the integrated GPU. Download the latest drivers. Also, try flushing the drivers (uninstall them, reboot, then reinstall). Also, try a benchmarking utility, such as 3dmark, and see if you can get it to tell you how much RAM you have on your videocard. That should be a good indication as to whether or not system RAM is being used effectively.
Also, have you tried selecting "Default" as the GPU in DoW graphics config? On the integrated graphics card I worked with, Default would still function and allow me to see if it was a problem with the GPU or something more sinister...
Did you turn your computer off between then and now? BIOS refresh is obnoxious but it could just be a case of incorrect BIOS settings.
Also, push CTRL+ALT+DEL and check to see if there are any processes running that you don't recognize. If anything that's trying to use the GPU is trying to run and failing it could keep anything else from calling the D3D functions.
However, since system restore hasn't worked, it could be a hardware problem. There's a slim chance that part of your GPU has given up the ghost, but it's more likely that your drivers have. If you're feeling desperate, sysrestore as far as you can. Remember, flushing drivers is often a quick fix for an obnoxious problem.
Wish you best of luck, if anything changes post it.
Regards,
Dibujante