Hi:
Seem to have a problem getting this game to play.
I installed it on my laptop using my sons adapter (laptop does not install DVD's) & instalaled the game. When I go to open it to play I receive an Error message saying "Could not initialize Direct X adapter."
Can you please tell me what this means & is there a way I can get this game to play.
Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

El

Did you install the version of DirectX that came with the game?
If you didn't, that could be the reason.

There's also the possibility that you had an antivirus preventing the game from installing properly.

Or the possibility that your video card isn't up to playing the game, which isn't likely if you have a reasonably modern video card. But incompatible drivers could be a problem.

If you tell us the name of your video card we'll have more to go on.

Hi Jenny:
I do recall when installation was taking place that it was downloading the Direct X.
I do not know if I have a video card in my laptop, I know that I have NVIDIA Ge Force on my regular computer, but do not know about the laptop. Can you tell me how I can find out what & if I do have a video card for it?
Last nite I had my son take a look at it & he said that I have RAM 504, but the game says I need 512. (This is all foreign to me!). Is there any way I can get rid of some stuff on the laptop to increase the RAM?
Look forward to hering from you & have a great wekend Jenny.

If you have XP, click the Start button, then Run, type
dxdiag
in the box and OK it. The DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag) should open. On the Display tab, see what it lists for your video card. Under the "Device" heading over on the left, what it says for Name: should be the video card (or graphics controller).

If you have Vista or Windows 7, click the Start button and type
dxdiag
in the Start Search and selecting it. The DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag) should open. On the Display tab, see what it lists for your video card. Under the "Device" heading over on the left, what it says for Name: should be the video card (or graphics controller).

Did that & here is what it says under Device:

Name: Mobile Intel (R) 945GM Express Chipset Family
Mfg: Intel Corp.
DAC Type: Internal
Approx. Total Memory: 224.0 MG
Current Display Mode: 800 x 600 (32 bit)

Under Direct X Files tap is just a long list of numbers.

Hope this helps so you can help me.

El, can you tell us what model and make your laptop is e.g. Dell Dimension XXX....or Sony
Vaio ZZZ...

This help us decide if you can upgrade your laptop with a -cough- proper videocard; the intel cards, are I believe, integrated cards. And not really made for gaming...although a 945GM will run older games such Baldur's Gate, or maybe even Morrowind...

Try setting your laptops screen resolution to 1024x768 also instead of 800x600.

Hi Karsten:
Looked on my laptop & it says it's a Del Latitude D520. There is also a label on it saying Intel Centrind Duo. Does that help you?

Also to Cathy 1:
I adjusted my resolution settings as you suggested & am still getting the Error Report.

Look forward to any other sugguestions you both
might have for me.
Thanks in advance.

El

I don't think you'll get the game working with this. You need a video card with at least 128 MB of video RAM for Black Mirror 2 -- and that should be discrete RAM rather than shared RAM. Intel graphics only use shared RAM. Even if you do get the game going, it will be very slow.

And unfortunately very few laptops allow you to change video cards. Nearly all laptops have the graphics processor built into the motherboard instead of a separate card. So you'd have to change the laptop's motherboard to one that had a different graphics processor built in in order to change the video card. For example if you have Intel Graphics and you want Nvidia, you have to buy and install a motherboard that has Nvidia graphics built into it. It would probably cost as much as the laptop is worth to have this done, and may not be possible with your model if there were never any of your model made with Nvidia.

The laptops that allow you to change just the video card (without changing the motherboard) are big, thick, heavy things that you rarely see in stores. They're actually more like "luggables" than laptops. They generally have to be bought online and can cost over $5000.

Hi EL

I've googled your information on the Dell Latitude laptop. Unfortunately, Jenny100's post is correct, the chipset (graphics cards) is integrated:

It says this under graphics:



I've seen normal laptops in Denmark with their own discrete (proper) graphics cards in electronics stores* - and they cost about 1000 US dollars to maybe 2000 US dollars. In Denmark, it says on the card next to the computer that the graphics card is integrated (into the motherboard as Jenny100 explains).

I agree, though, that these 'luggables' can vost up to 5000 US dollars.

Here's the full info for those more tech savy than me:


http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/Lat_SpecSheet_D520_69970973.pdf


* Most electronics stores in Denmark sell computers, tvs, dvd-players, bluray-players,
iPads, and computers as well, both notebooks and laptops.

Thank you all for all the info you researched for me.
I wanted to try & play the game on the laptop on vacation, but, guess I won't & I'll install something else. Nancy Drew's are always good as they still make them for PC & not DVD's. I'll play Black Mirror II in my regular computer.
Thanks again one and all.

I am having the same problem as the original poster, but the crazy thing is, I have played this game in its entirety on this computer before. I have a Windows 7 64 bit with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT, which should be more than sufficient to run this game. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game, running as administrator, restarting the computer. I also tried installing this update for my card - http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-280.26-whql-driver.html. None of these things worked. The game has just suddenly decided it doesn't want to play. I also tried starting Black Mirror 3 as an experiment, and that game ran without issue. Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this?

At what point does it give up? Does it not start at all? Do you hear the disc spinning up? Do you get as far as the game's splash screen?

I wonder if the problem is Windows 7.
The ***Gamersgate page for Black Mirror 3*** says:


But the ***Gamersgate page for Black Mirror 2*** says:


Same with Adventure Shop.
The ***page for Black Mirror 3*** says:


but the ***page for Black Mirror 2*** only says:


***Draclvr's Windows 7 thread*** says Black Mirror 2 works, though with sound problems. But maybe it won't work for everyone -- or maybe it won't work with the Windows 7 drivers for the Geforce 8600. Have you tried older video drivers?

Jenny, I hear the disk spinning, see the splash screen, and then the message that it can't initialize the Direct X adapter comes up. The drivers I had when I initially tried to start the game were the older ones, and I was able to run the game perfectly with these drivers before. I only updated because the game stopped working, and I thought there was an off chance it might help. The only thing I may have changed in the intermittent time is my monitor, though I don't see why that would have any effect. Unless it doesn't like the larger resolution? Unfortunately, I'm really baffled here.

I don't know if it will help, but check ***this thread at techguy.org***

I checked this on a 64-bit Windows 7 computer and the key is the same as in XP. The Windows 7 computer I checked on had it set to 7. Make sure your key is set to 7 and not to 0. If it is set to 0, that could be what's causing the problem.


Also, if you're using Windows 7 and you've never played a DirectX 9 game on it before, make sure to install DirectX 9.0c from Microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35
or here for the full (not web) download
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8109

Installing DirectX 9.0c won't overwrite the DirectX 11 that came with Windows 7, but it will add DirectX 9 files that adventure games need, and which weren't included in DirectX 11.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately the value is already set at 7. I installed the DirectX 9 you linked to just in case, even though I had installed the version that came with the game. No dice. Do you think uninstalling any updates I added to the graphics drivers would help? I don't think I installed any updates except for those I downloaded today, but I can search and see what comes up. Sometimes Windows 7 automatically updates itself, though I don't think it would update graphic drivers on its own. As I've said, I played this game in its entirety on this computer before and had no issues. I'm not sure why it stopped working all of a sudden. I may try changing the screen to a lower resolution since I switched monitors, although I can't imagine that would make a difference. It couldn't hurt to try, though.

If worse comes to worse, I can always play it on the laptop, though I prefer the desktop's larger monitor.

Hi Venus,
Did you try the No CD fix for this game? Might be worth a try.

Ray

Thanks for the suggestions Starcom and Jenny, but I'm afraid this stubborn game just refuses to play no matter what I do. Though not ideal, I've decided to just play it on the laptop for the time being. It works perfectly on the laptop even though the graphics card isn't nearly as good as the one in my desktop. Very bizarre, but at least I have a way to play it.

Thanks again for your input.

venus,

I am so far from a tech it's laughable so this probably isn't your answer but I have Win 7, 64 bit, too, and of the three games I've had real trouble with, one of which kept quitting on me, they all worked when I installed them in My Documents.

Gil.

Traveler, you're not going to believe this - your suggestion worked!! I had actually thought of reinstalling it in that location, but I was so tired of trying different things with this game that I gave up too early, it seems. I'm so glad you suggested it as it gave me the impetus to go ahead and try it. So thank you, thank you, thank you!! And now I'm off to play the game.

venus,

I'm floored, to say the least. I felt sort of like an idiot suggesting it. <g>

It has occurred to me that with some games Program Files (x86) is just as persnickety as Program Files ever was but I will definitely leave that to the experts to consider.

Gil.

I always install somewhere other than C:\Program Files (or Program Files x86) on computers with XP SP2, SP3, Vista, or Windows 7. Sometimes I use (My) Documents and sometimes I make a C:\Games folder and use that. I forget that other people don't do this. So thanks for bringing it up, Traveler.

That would be traveler, Jenny! I missed this thread!

Oops. I'll fix it.

Traveler, I'm glad you did, thanks! It crossed my mind to try that, but I figured since the game worked perfectly fine where it was installed before, it was unrelated. Obviously I was wrong. Maybe changing the monitor in the meantime really did effect it in some way, since it plays in a lower resolution. Strange.

Jenny, I often do that too, but sometimes I get lazy and just let the game install in the default location. I definitely won't be doing that anymore. Thanks for your help!