I have Win 7 and more than minimum reqs for game.
I can get title screen, but when I click New Game the screen goes black, no cursor, no music, and Task Mgr sez program Not Responding.
This is a dl from GG.
I'm open to ideas. BTW I just previously had to remove ffds in order to play a different game, so I'm wondering...

What is ffds?

Possibly ffdshow
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/

As for whether it's causing a problem with the game, I'm afraid I have no idea.

It could be that your video card (IGP) doesn't have sufficient memory.

What are your video specs?

I have downloaded a trial version for this game at the adventure shop. And the game crashed when I clicked new game as well. My videocard is an ATI RADEON 3650 512 MB RAM and my system is a 2,4 single core Ghz windows xp computer.

The game did have its issues - your card is more than adequate. Make sure you video drivers are up to date.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M with latest update 5 days ago.

The GT 540M provides support for Optimus (an Intel/nVidia combo) and unfortunately the drivers don't seem to detect the need to use the nVidia chip for this game. Another member had the same issues and never found a way around it.

So, assuming your PC provides Optimus, you're not going to be able to play the game.

Well, that's distressing.

I found a solution!
I right-clicked on the short-cut, chose run as administrator, and it worked like a charm.

Good deal - so, does you PC support Optimus?

Ran a scan on NVIDIA's website--no mention of it. So I'm thinking that's a resounding No.

Are you using a laptop?
If yes, what is the model number?
For example, is it an Acer Aspire 5742G?
A Dell XPS 15?
A SAMSUNG RF Series RF711-S01?

Sony Vaio laptop Model

VPCF136FM

No Optimus on that model. What you probably ran into was the game installing to the Program Files folder, it's protected under Vista and above.

Installing to your User folders will allow the game to be played without elevating it to Administrator.

I'll keep that in mind.