I have been trying to play The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and I keep getting a crash at the first dead body on the rail road tracks. I get a blurb from my computer that says not enouph video memory so we will exit. Well something to that effect. I went to my virtual memory and upped the paging file to the max but no releif cause I still crash. So I wonder if adding ram will help.

No, that won't help. Your clue is "video RAM." I suspect you have an integrated video chip and not a stand alone video card. They will not play Ethan Carter. I believe there is a patch or two from the developers that you might try. You can also try going into the game options and see if you can turn off some of the high end video effects. This is a fairly demanding game video-wise.

You can check out what Can You Run It says

Video Ram is different form Virtual and System Ram. What is the make of your Graphics Processor? You can run DXDiag to see what you've got installed (as well as total Video Memory).

Follow the instructions below - and post the content of the Display Tab back -

Run DirectX Diagnostic Tool

If you're running Windows 8 or 8.1 follow these instructions -

The Windows-8 and 8.1 directx diagnostic tool

Thank you for your reply Inland. My dxiag says Memory: 3070 mb ram., and page file 1473 used, 6124 available.

When you run the Direct Diagnostics, there should be tabs at the top of the screen; click on the Display tab - that will give the information needed about your video card. Let us know what it says. The information you gave us looks like it came from the System tab.

IT says
chip type: GE force gtx 460
Dac type: Integrated ramdac
Approx. total: memory 2257 mb
display mode: 1360 x 768 (32bit) (59 hz)
and then there are three more things below that that are enabled.

My thanks go to Draclvr, Inland AZ, and Maian for helping me with my problem. I have looked back in archives and found info that I should have taken into consideration before I bought this game. At least I am not shopping around for a new ram chip. Thanks again Fred

Fredaz, before you give up, have you installed the patches and tried turning down video options in the game? This game is well worth a little tweaking to get it to play. I think that video card should work, but Inland might know more. Get the patches and turn down video options and see if it plays. If it doesn't, then definitely contact GOG or wherever you downloaded it from.

Yes it should work -- unless this is a laptop, in which case it's probably using Optimus and not detecting correctly.

As far as I'm aware the GTX 460 came in 2 different flavors - A 760MB card and a 1GB card, either exceed the minimum requirements for the game (512MB).

I've seen several references to the same issue from others, but it doesn't look like the developer has addressed it.

Visit the NVidia web site and update your video driver -

NVIDIA Driver Downloads

OK I will look at the upgrade for my video card. And I have tried to turn down the video options in the start menu. I purchased the game from GOG. They have one patch that upgrades the game to 1.03 right from the start. I was reading their support pages and it would seem that steam has patches for this sort of thing from the game developers and that GOG is slow to get these options. So I am not giving up on the game after all I waited for 5.3 GB to load it. I am still investigating options and as I said I will update my video card. Thanks, Fred

Don't give up yet! And contact GOG too.

I'm not giving up. I sent GOG a message and told them about my issue. Also I included an attachment about my dx text file. I looked into video card updates thru nvidia and my card seems to be up to date. Also I am using Cinepak for a video codec. It seems to me that in the past I found some nifty video codecs that were adjustable. So now I am thinking why wait for a patch if I can just install and use software applicable to all of the latest and the greatest. Any comments would be appreciated. Fred

Well GOG got back with me and said that I did not have enouph ram to run the game,( The Vanising of Ethan Carter ). I have 3 gb of ram and they say that the game takes 4. They offered to let me apply what I paid for it to another game if I choose.

The minimum requirement for system RAM (system memory) for Ethan Carter listed at ***Game-Debate*** is 2GB, not 4GB, but that may only be for XP and not later versions of Windows. 4GB is the "Recommended" amount. Steam and GOG both list 4GB on their respective webpages for the game.
http://www.gog.com/game/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter
http://store.steampowered.com/app/258520/

I suspect that the game originally listed minimum requirements at 2GB of system memory, but they never tested the full game with that amount -- and later they realized there were parts of the game where it needed more than 2GB. Although there are reports of people playing the game successfully with only 2GB of system memory, those people may have optimized their computers by closing down all background programs.

Adding memory to a desktop computer isn't that difficult as long as the motherboard supports 4GB or more, but you need a 64-bit version of Windows to make use of 4GB or more. If you have a 32-bit version of Windows, you wan't be able to make use of more than around 3.25GB or at most around 3.5GB of the memory, depending on the computer's motherboard.

You never mentioned whether you have a 32-bit version of Windows or not. But if you have a 64-bit version of Windows, you might consider adding more system memory so you can play the game -- especially if you were able to buy the game at a discount.

Jenny thank you for your reply. I did get a discount on this game it was 7.99 at GOG. I guess I won't get another memory chip at this point because I am running a 32- bit system and I don't want to change to a 64-bit system because from what I have read there is no changing back. Also I don't know what my mother board is capable of. I wouldn't think anyone at HP used anything more than the bare necessities when they built this machine. In fact I changed the power pak from a 460 watt to a 600 watt myself when I replaced the video card back in December 2010. The original mother board burnt out and I was in warranty by 3 weeks so I got lucky. It was out of warranty by the time I got it back and the original video card burnt out then. No more love from those people. I am considering one more option; I want to delegate another Gb of memory from the 3 I have to video or vram. I think. Maybe, not sure. Fred

Edit -

For 32 versus 64 Bit OS's -

You'll find that info in the DXDiag report on the SYSTEM tab. If you're running a 64 Bit OS it will be displayed on the "Operating System" line, all 64 bit OS's will include a 64Bit tag (or x64 for Windows XP).

Thank you AZ for the reply. I am running a 32 bit system.