Rise of Nations and Windows XP

[Andrew Proudlove]

Hi all, Im hoping someone here will be able to help me with
a problem that has been driving me crazy.
Recently I reinstalled my system, just to get it 'clean'
again. As part of the reinstallation, I also downloaded all
the latest drivers, patches etc. Before I go any further
though, heres a list of my hardware;

Athlon XP 2200
Motherboard K7S5A
512MB DDR RAM
Geforce 4 Ti 4400 128 MB RAM
Audigy sound card with firewire port
Sony DVD Drive
LG CD-RW Drive
Monitor - Samsung SyncMaster 152T digital (with latest
drivers also installed)

I installed onto the computer WinXP SP 1, I then went to
the MS win update site and basically downloaded and
installed everything there, so all patches have been
applied.
I have installed the MB drivers required for XP (its using
a SIS 735 chip).
I installed NVidia 52.16 WHQL drivers and the latest
drivers for my audigy card.
Im also running Norton Antivirus 2003, and Kerio Personal
firewall 4.0.7

Ok now to the problem;

I installed Rise of Nations succesfully, downloaded and
installed the latest patch, also without problems. I can
start the game and see all the videos, Microsofts logo, the
intro movie etc...
The problem is that when I get to the game main menu, the
whole screen flickers, by flickers I mean shows the menu,
then goes black for a fraction of a second, then shows the
menu etc, and this repeats. The behaviour is the same even
in-game.
So far in attempts to resolve this I have tried;
Reinstalling the game
Reinstalling the graphic card drivers (uninstall then
reinstall)
Reinstalling the monitor drivers
Trying older versions of both the graphic card and monitor
drivers
Changing the refresh rate of the monitor
Changing the resolution
Changing the colour depth
Performing the DXDiag tests (all successful)
Trying nohardwarecursor when starting the game
In dxdiag forcing the refresh rate to match my monitor
(70mhz)
In the game itself changing the resolution colour-depth etc
Turning off hardware accleration for graphics and sound,
plus various combinations of the above.

I have installed other games on my system, Diablo II,
Warcraft 3, Splinter Cell, Freelancer, none of them exhibit
the same behaviour as rise of nations.

I have also tried installing rise of nations on a friends
computer, a dell gx150 with a geforce 4 mx card, and he has
none of the problems that I do.

Checking the event log, Ive noticed that for each
'flicker', the following is posted in the applications log

Event Type: Error
Event Source:
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 11/16/2003
Time: 23:30:02
User: N/A
Computer: <Name withheld>
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot
be found. The local computer may not have the necessary
registry information or message DLL files to display
messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the
/AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and
Support for details. The following information is part of
the event: 1.
Data:
0000: 3f 3f d1 2a e7 ea 92 2d ??Ñ*çê'-
0008: 92 3b d9 22 88 9a f7 c5 ';Ù"^s÷Å
0010: 2f 2f c1 3a f3 f1 82 3d //Á:óñ,=
0018: a1 1f 2e 45 f8 f9 8a 35 ¡..EøùS5
0020: 3e 1a 62 13 03 3b d5 08 >.b..;Õ.
0028: 2a c9 07 03 89 36 ae e4 *É..?6®ä
0030: 80 28 54 ea 9f d1 2f fe ?(TêYÑ/þ
0038: 48 f8 fd f3 c8 69 07 ad HøýóÈi.­
0040: 6e 7f 91 6a 3f 5e c6 8c n'j?^ÆO
0048: e9 88 da af e7 a9 da 65 é^Ú¯ç©Úe
0050: c0 90 95 9b b3 b1 c2 7d À.>³±Â}
0058: 99 98 76 8d ba b9 ca 75 T~vº¹Êu

Could any of you help me to shed some light on this please?
I have exhausted all the possibilities I can think of at
the moment. Thanks in advance for any help.

Regards

Andrew

 

[Andrew Proudlove]

As an update to my previous message, Ive noticed that if
log in as "Administrator", then the game runs without the
flickering mentioned in the previous post.
Also noteworthy perhaps is that Kerio Firewall doesnt seem
to be started by default under this account.
One things though is that the same error message as before
-
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot
be found. The local computer may not have the necessary
registry information or message DLL files to display
messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the
/AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and
Support for details. The following information is part of
the event: 1.
-
Is still listed in the event log....

The usual account has admin rights on the computer and is a
member of the local admin group. Ive checked in the
settings for kerio and I have given RON permission to run
etc.

Now Im honestly more stumped than ever, I dont see why it
works in admin and not in my account when it has admin
rights, and if the firewall is 'filtering' the event log
message and preventing it from displaying all the
information, then why is it the same message in the
administrator account which should have full rights and no
firewall...

Once again any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
Many thanks

Andrew

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Andrew,

I would disable / exit the firewall before playing RoN then,
use XP's ICF firewall instead. You don't need to run your
antivirus program while playing RoN, so you can disable or
exit it during game play as well. You could also try using the
Run As... command to play RoN using the account which
works (Administrators). Hope these ideas are helpful!

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| As an update to my previous message, Ive noticed that if
| log in as "Administrator", then the game runs without the
| flickering mentioned in the previous post.
| Also noteworthy perhaps is that Kerio Firewall doesnt seem
| to be started by default under this account.
| One things though is that the same error message as before
| -
| The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot
| be found. The local computer may not have the necessary
| registry information or message DLL files to display
| messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the
| /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and
| Support for details. The following information is part of
| the event: 1.
| -
| Is still listed in the event log....
|
| The usual account has admin rights on the computer and is a
| member of the local admin group. Ive checked in the
| settings for kerio and I have given RON permission to run
| etc.
|
| Now Im honestly more stumped than ever, I dont see why it
| works in admin and not in my account when it has admin
| rights, and if the firewall is 'filtering' the event log
| message and preventing it from displaying all the
| information, then why is it the same message in the
| administrator account which should have full rights and no
| firewall...
|
| Once again any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
| Many thanks
|
| Andrew
|