Alright, so I bought the new Star Wars Galaxies. I’m getting ready to play, the patches are finished downloading, everythings going good. I press play and I prepare myself for a Star Wars experience like no other. When a message comes up and says; Direct3d could not be correctly initialized. Sometimes this will be fixed by rebooting your machine. If it still occurs after a fresh reboot, then your card may not support hardware transform and lighting. So I restart it, but unfortunately the problem persists. The manual says that I need to download the most recently released video-card drivers and that I should visit my video-card manufacturer’s Web site to find the proper downloads. I don’t know anything about my computer except that its a Compaq Persario 6000 (pentium 4, windows XP). Does someone know where I can find the right download so that I can play this game.
If you right-click on your desktop, then go to settings, and hit advanced there should be a tab there for your vid card. If you dont see anything that may give you some idea what kind of card you have, it is likely to be on-board. If this is the case, you will probably be returning the game promptly as most vid controlers on-board are quite archaic. If you can find out what kind of vid card you have, im sure i can help ya, but until then…sorry.
Right-click on the desktop, click Properties, then click Settings > Advanced button > Adapter tab. This will tell you the manufacturer. A Google search should find their website for you, but if you can’t find it, post the info here.
Most places that sell software will not take returns on non-defective software that has been opened, homercles. The general policy is to exchange defective, opened software for the same title.
Meh, i have taken back games in the past. EBgames is particularly good about this. The best “excuse” (which was true in my case) is that the game is a bug-ridden POS and wont run at acceptable frame rates. WHich is partially true in this case. 
Damn, you cant edit posts? No avatars, no edits, what other lack of options should i expect here? :mad:
I should add, that most places will allow you to exchange the game for another (ie store credit), but wont give your money back.
Alright. I have:
Intel® 82845G/GL Graphics Controller
Chip Type: Interl® 82845G/GL Chip
DAC Type: Internal
Memory Size: 64 MB
Adapter String: Intel® 82845G/GL Graphics Controller
Bios Information: Intel Video BIOS
Download driver updates here.
Ok, you have some problems.
This is an on-board controller. It does support directX, which is good, but it appears that it does not support T&L (could be wrong about this). Star Wars: Galaxies needs directX 9.0. Try downloading the the directX 9.0 RTL. try If you still get errors, its due to lack of support for T&L.
If you really want to play, there are some pretty good cards in the nVidia/ATI camps that are quite cheap now.
Also to find out what version of DX your running, go to start -> run and type dxdiag. Good luck.
I have a DirectX 9.0a (the game makes you download it), I’m trying Q.E.D.'s site and downloading the latest one. The latest one for my Windows XP Home Edition has and Intel® 865G, 855GM, 852GM, 845G, and Intel 830M chipset graphics driver
homercles is right. you need a video card that will support hardware transform and lighting. No driver is going to fix this problem for you. If you want to play the game, you are going to have to purchase a video card. You may want to check to see if your motherboard has an AGP slot before you do though.
Some other games I know off hand that require hardware T&L are Microsoft Rallisport and No One Lives for Ever 2. Just in case, you want to buy those games.
Oh man, looks like another week and another couple dollars before I can play the game.
Well, before you make some big investment in this MMORPG, you may want to check this.
Yea I know it hasn’t been getting the best reviews. But everyone I know and don’t know who has played it says it great. Even if its just for the month, I want to try out the game. Anyway, thanks for the help everyone.
If you’re an avid gameplayer, it will be worth getting a newer video adaptor anyway, since the trend will likely be more games which require T&L support.
Actually, its already here. The trend will be for cards to have hardware support for real-time lighting and shadows. See the new nVidia n35 chipset. Review
Yea excactly, so I might as well get it now and for this hyped up game then wishing that I got it then.
Just FYI, you don’t need an expensive videocard to get hardware T&L support. Nearly all 3D cards made, from the nVidia Geforce and ATI Radeon on up, have full support for hardware T&L. The ATI Radeon 9100 can be had for about $65, has full DirectX8.1 and hardware T&L support (more than any Geforce except FX), and provides excellent performance for the price. Similar cards from nVidia include the Geforce4 Ti4200 and Geforce FX5600. Specific cards to avoid are the Radeon 9200, Geforce4 MX-series, and the Geforce FX 5200.
And this is why we say things like this…
“sure get a Dell/HP/Gateway/etc, but if you ever want to play games on it, you might want to consider upgrading the video card or building your own(or having me build it for you)”
and people always respond with…
“nah, I dont play video games for the most part and I’m getting a really good deal on it”
then 6 months later I hear…
“hey dead, I just got the Sims/Galaxies/Rise of Nations/etc and it says ‘blah blah blah, video card sucks, blah blah blah’ can you install a new video card in my machine that doesn’t have an AGP slot, that will probably give you headaches turning off the built in video and can you do this all for me RIGHT NOW and for less than 20$ because I just spent all my extra money on the Sims/Galaxies/Rise of Nations/etc”
[sub]this exact scenerio has never actually happened to me, but I’d imagine that it does to some people[/sub]
last year I popped a friend’s case to help him upgrade his video. This on a P3 800 machine. NO AGP SLOT !!! can you believe it ?
best card I could find for him at the time that would go in a PCI slot was a Geforce 2 MX. ouch