Age of Empires II, DirectDraw please help!!

This message appears when I try and play. "Could not initialize graphics
system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with
DirectDraw." I've checked my direct x and it says that DirectDraw is enabled.
If anyone could help me with this it would be great, I love this game!

"ECHO4DELTA" <ECHO4DELTA@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:20B35586-9515-4E83-A511-DBB51CD43906@microsoft.com...
> This message appears when I try and play. "Could not initialize graphics
> system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with
> DirectDraw." I've checked my direct x and it says that DirectDraw is
> enabled.
> If anyone could help me with this it would be great, I love this game!
>

Has it worked before but isn't now, or is the first time of trying?

Does your hardware meet the minimum specifications given on the game's
packaging?

Have you updated your video card with the latest drivers from the
manufacturer's website?

"Olórin" wrote:

> "ECHO4DELTA" <ECHO4DELTA@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:20B35586-9515-4E83-A511-DBB51CD43906@microsoft.com...
> > This message appears when I try and play. "Could not initialize graphics
> > system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with
> > DirectDraw." I've checked my direct x and it says that DirectDraw is
> > enabled.
> > If anyone could help me with this it would be great, I love this game!
> >
>
> Has it worked before but isn't now, or is the first time of trying?
>
> Does your hardware meet the minimum specifications given on the game's
> packaging?
>
> Have you updated your video card with the latest drivers from the
> manufacturer's website?
>
>
>


Yea its played before on it, just fine no problems. It does meet the
requirements. As far as I know my video card is up to date, but just to be
sure, how do I check. My operationg system is vista. Thank you .

=?Utf-8?B?RUNITzRERUxUQQ==?= <ECHO4DELTA@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in news:7D755646-B269-4CE9-9E7F-A1FCEAA99D6B@microsoft.com:

> Yea its played before on it, just fine no problems. It does meet the
> requirements. As far as I know my video card is up to date, but just
> to be sure, how do I check. My operationg system is vista. Thank you .
>

Then you should be posting to the Vista gmaing group and not here. I think
your issue is because you need to install Directx9. Vista comes with
Directx10 and is missing some files that some Directx9 games need. Download
'dxwebsetup.exe' from Microsoft and run that file while connected to the
internet. It will update Directx and install the missing files you need.

[Bethlen]

I have the same problem. It worked perfectly well on my old graphics card but when I got a new one (ATI Radeon RX2600PRO) it stopped working, giving me that message. Using XP. Anyone got a solution?

[Mad Hatter]

Basically i had this problem for months and was getting some real heartache, and nearly killed my pc several times. however i have found a possible solution, but it does depend on one thing: does your pc have a graphics card or processor on the motherboard, other than the outboard one? find out, becease if it does then you go on to the device manager (through "system" on the classic style control panel) and find it in the "display" field. disable it. it will probably ask you to restart ur pc. say yes, or do it later. it should now work. to re enable your graphics card just go to the device manager and enable it.

[Heather B]

Hi

I've tried the solutions offered in this thread and even the one offered in another thread (Age of Empires problem solved) but no luck yet.

I'm trying to run age of empires 2 on a toshiba laptop with an
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 graphics processor and Vista.

From the research I've done over the last couple of days (and bearing in mind I'm no computer expert - just trying to load this up for my son) it seems that ATI isn't allowed to sell catalyst graphics drivers with the mobility cards for laptops - see ATI entry in wikipaedia.

Has anyone managed to solve this problem on a new laptop yet?