Political Machine Demo

from PolMach Forums
I have recently downloaded the Political Machine Demo off the Stardock Central's Gaming tab and have come to notice that it doesn't work... at all. So, pretty much whenever I start the demo it succesfully goes to full screen then a window comes up that says, "Failed to initialize display" I can tell you right now that I'm am thourougly peeved . I have 4 computers in my house that should be able to run it . But every single one has the same dang problem . Again, I'm thoroughly peeved . Can someone... anyone, help me with this problem. Much thanks, Thouroughly Peeved Alaskan.

P.S. I have the latest graphic updates and direct x 9.0 . thanks a lot
10,218 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top
P.P.S. I also have pre-ordered the game and it doesn't make me feel to confident if the demo doesn't even work on any of my computers. Just hope that the full game will be better then the demo!
Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top
Hey dtskp,

Sorry this is happening on all your computers. Here's my suggestion until the programmers can figure out a better solution.

1-In the "PolMachine\Data" folder there's a "Prefs.ini" file. Open that up.

2-Search for a value named "SkipIntro" that is probably set to '0' on your game. Set that to '1'.

3-This will skip the animated intro to the game. If the game still crashes, please use the above link to report your bug.

I'm guessing that the problem lies in compatability between your graphics card(s) and DirectShow, but I'm not positive. Hopefully, at the very least, this will let you get into a game. Please let us know if this worked, and if not, come back on and post your system specs so we can get a better idea what's going in (internally)! Thanks for your help...hopefully this will be solved quickly.
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Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top
IT is still not working for me
I have:
INTEL P4 3Ghz
1024MB RAM
and ATI RADEON x800PRO 256MB
Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top
ban13, that's a little vague.
Reply #5 from PolMach Forums Top

Which version of the game were you downloading?

Without the version we have no way of knowing whether you merely downloaded the last beta that was up on there or the final game.

Reply #6 from PolMach Forums Top
For the "Failed to initialize display" error, try updating to Direct X 9.0c. We upgraded our versions of DirectX from b to c when the update went up. This shouldn't have made a difference because we didn't make any changes to the graphics code, and it doesn't seem to be a problem for everyone. We will be building a version of Political Machine with Direct 9.0b for people who don't have Political Machine yet, but in the meantime upgrading your version of DirectX should work.
Reply #7 from PolMach Forums Top
Thanks to all that replied! The demo finally works! YAY! The Prefs.ini folder didn't work. But when I started it up working there was no animation. So... we know that that's how you turn off the intro. Just so you know I did download version 1.0.1.115 so it's not the beta. When I downloaded 9.0c of direct x it finally worked. I would suggest to the company of stardock, ubisoft, and totalgaming network to at least put up on the system requirements that it requires 9c if you actually need that for the game. Once again thanks a lot.
Reply #8 from PolMach Forums Top
P.S. Sorry CariElf. Forgot to read the ast part of your message. If that's the case, you didn't change the graphic code, I might suggest to just say that you need 9c. This is becuase I ran this game on a hp laptop (ATI IGP), Two Dell Laptops (?), one emachine (nvidia geforce 4, i think), and a gateway (nvidia... don't know the actual number but it is a very new one) and I had the same problem with all of them. Thanks a lot... again.
Reply #9 from PolMach Forums Top
I have 1 question.
where can I look which verision of DirectX do I hav?
Reply #10 from PolMach Forums Top
1) Click on your start button
2) click on run
3) type dxdiag
Reply #12 from PolMach Forums Top
The demo isn't available yet. About a week or two away.