Help: Dominions 3 black screen hang after updating to 3.27

kestrel_80 · #1 September 10th, 2011, 12:10 PM

I had to switch motherboards because my USB-controller started acting up. Plus I re-installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, because the previous installation wouldn't start with the new motherboard.

Anyway, Dominions 3 3.00 runs fine, but after applying the 3.27 patch, I always get a black screen hang when I run dom3.exe that requires a hard reset to get out of. Alt-tabbing or ctrl-alt-delling doesn't do anything.

What I've tried so far:
#1 Running dom3.exe in Windows XP SP 3 compability mode. Nothing.
#2 Downgrading from nVidia GPU 280.26 drivers to 275.33. No effect.

Maybe my 3.27 patch is corrupted? I'll download it again and see if that works. After that, I'm out of ideas... I'll report back once I've tried re-applying the patch.

kestrel_80 · #2 September 11th, 2011, 01:01 AM

#3 I downloaded the 3.27 patch again and re-applied it, the game still hangs when I try to start it.

kestrel_80 · #3 September 11th, 2011, 05:54 AM

Got the game working again. I had to disable fullscreen mode before applying the 3.27 patch. My weekend isn't ruined after all!

nordlys · #4 September 11th, 2011, 09:56 AM

Do you have a firewall like Zone Alarm by any chance? It has common issue with patched software - it freezes a program popping up an alarm window warning that an executable had changed since the last launch, but when the program in question is a game in fullscreen, the alarm window remains buried beneath it, effectively locking up the computer.

kestrel_80 · #5 September 12th, 2011, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nordlys

Do you have a firewall like Zone Alarm by any chance? It has common issue with patched software - it freezes a program popping up an alarm window warning that an executable had changed since the last launch, but when the program in question is a game in fullscreen, the alarm window remains buried beneath it, effectively locking up the computer.

My PC is protected with Avast! Antivirus and Comodo Firewall, it's possible that either of those might have popped up an alarm. But I still think it's a graphics issue, since I don't recall seeing any security alarms when I ran the game.

Edi · #6 September 12th, 2011, 08:59 AM

Uninstall all graphics drivers and then reinstall them from scratch.

If that doesn't help, open a support ticket with Shrapnel.