Dschilli

Okay, I finally got the demo to go! It does appear to be related to the video drivers. I think the following actions were the key: 1) In Extension Mgr, disabled "ATI Video Software Update 1.0", which includes: - ATI 3D Accelerator, v. 4.6.2 - ATI Graphics Accelerator, v. 3.9.7 - ATI Resource Manager, v. 1.2.4 2) Removed "ATI Driver Update 1.4.8" from the extensions folder. Replaced it with "ATI Driver Update 1.4.7", downloaded from Apple. I tried (2) without (1), and (1) without (2), but neither worked. Only both together. Also in the working setup: 3) Assigned 51 MB of RAM to CM 4) Disabled backside cache 5) Virtual memory on: 192 MB physical RAM, 58 MB virtual RAM 6) Most extensions disabled, but among others I reenabled the following and CM still works: - Quicktime 4.0.1 and 4.1.2 packages - Microsoft OLE 2.2 package - Microsoft Internet 5 package - Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0b package - Kensington Mouseworks package - FireWire Install 2.3.3 package, and - FireWire VST OHCI Enabler (The last two being for my VST FireWire external drive and Newer Technologies CardBus FireWire card) I haven't yet isolated which of items 3-6 are absolutely necessary. Setting the resolution wasn't necessary -- I started CM up with the resolution at 1024x768, and it reset it to 640x480 by itself. The upshot seems to be that CM doesn't work with the most recent ATI driver update for PowerBook G3's, but does with the previous version. Many thanks to all of you for your suggestions and help!

Thanks; yes, I had previously cranked it up to 51 MB (from the preferred 36), without success.

I trimmed my extensions down to the point where my poor little Hal 9000 sings "Daisy Daisy" in a deep, deep voice. That's it, I'm giving up on this game. I have no problems running any number of other games. Until these guys can make their demo robust enough to run on any reasonable machine, I'm wasting my time.

I tried the G3/G4 Cache Profiler, disabled backside cache -- same result as before (gets stuck at the "loading graphics" screen). Also tried a reduced extensions set, and each of the monitor resolutions 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. No luck. Help! The posts I'm reading say this is a great game, but so far I'm stuck at zero!

When I start the demo, I get to the splash screen with the various national flags that says "loading graphics", there's some hard drive activity, then I hear some birds chirping and bombs in the distance, but the splash screen never goes away. The only way out is to force quit. My machine: 1999 Apple PowerBook G3 (bronze keyboard), 400 Mhz, 192 MB of RAM, virtual memory off, built-in Rage Pro with 8 MB VRAM. I'm running MacOS 8.6. Thanks in advance for any help!