Game Crashes, Difficult to run on Win 10

[Nemesis Whip]

I've spent the past few hours trying to get this game to run. It's definitely one of my favorite city building games of all time. Spent countless hours on it.

Years have passed since I last played this on Windows 7, which ran just okay. I recently installed this game and immediately after running the application my screen goes black and tries to exit out to the desktop. This occurs when the game is running cutscenes, which didn't happen on the Windows 7 computer I had.

So I search around and I find some widescreen mods, thinking okay I should be good. Windows 10 keeps informing me I should change resolution. I already replaced the Pharoah.exe with one of the numerous Pharoah.exe mods I downloaded based on a post I found here on Steam.

Takes me over a minute to finally get to the title screen of the game and I go to the Map Editor section. Change the resolution in-game to the highest it will go and sure enough, the widescreen mod takes effect.

Now my problem is getting the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game to run consistently. I was a few minutes into the second mission when the game suddenly crashes. I tried everything from CTRL + ALT + DELETE to pressing the Windows button to attempting to log out of my Windows 10 account. Finally I had to restart the entire computer system and when I log in back to desktop everything is small. The icons, desktop, everything. Likely the mod I replaced the Pharoah.exe with.

I'm at a loss with what to do. I don't know if the GOG.com, Steam ports of Pharoah + Cleopatra are updated or not. I don't know if any unofficial patches will make this game run better on a modern system. I still get the black screen and automatic exiting out to desktop when cutscenes are trying to play.

I'll troubleshoot some more but outside of that my only real option is to buy and get Linux, which I hear runs this game like a charm.

Any help is appreciated.

[5M0k1N]

you tried running as admin and in compatibility mode?

[Nemesis Whip]

Yes I have.

I disabled the stupid igfxEM Module that keeps popping up whenever I try to run the game. Still get the black screen because the cutscenes and generally the game itself doesn't recognize the very high resolution my Windows 10 laptop.

[Face_roll_dude]

are you trying to play it in 4k by any chance? i have mine set up to 2k resolution and the game has never crashed on me once. sometimes when it autosaves my game speed gets locked at like 40 % though and i have to turn autosave off to prevent. it could be some sort of compatibility issue since the game is so old we can't expect it to run under every circumstance but sucks you have to be one those guys. does your game successfully save? maybe it failed to properly set up a save file directory as i have seen old games crash from those problems before

[Franky]

how to setup this game graphic setting ?

[Xaphnir]

Oh, boy, I can wait until the all but forced upgrade to Windows 10 coming at the end of the year. I so look forward to never being able to play many of my beloved older games again just because Microsoft are a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥.

Originally posted by 5M0k1N:

you tried running as admin and in compatibility mode?

Compatibility mode for Windows 7 does ♥♥♥♥ all, and I see no reason to expect anything different from Windows 10.

[5M0k1N]

theres no "forced update". ive been with win8 for like 6 years lol

anyways compatibility with win xp does make the game run for a lot of people

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by 5M0k1N:

theres no "forced update". ive been with win8 for like 6 years lol

anyways compatibility with win xp does make the game run for a lot of people

Well, yes, it's not technically forced, but at the end of this year Windows 7 support will end, meaning no more security updates, meaning that as soon as a security exploit is found anyone running Windows 7 will be wide open to attack as long as they're running Windows 7.

[cerrita]

I've played this game for years and never had any issues on any platform (98, Vista, 8, 10), except for the last month or so on my win10. There was apparently an update recently that caused animations in buildings to not play, but seems to be fixed or reverted now. However, the game is now freezing suddenly during play. Not during cut scenes or tabbing out, or any other cause that I notice. It's freezing pretty hard, too; closing from the task bar and using alt-F4 couldn't do it and I had to get task manager to force it to close. Not sure exactly what's changed.

[jane_s_fletcher]

In case this helps anyone. I had Pharaoh running fine, and then I added Cleopatra - which is when the problems started.

At first the game kept locking up, and I had to use task manager to kill the process. After reading various posts I tracked down and installed the widescreen mod, which improved the display (thumbs up), but did not resolve all problems. The game still crashed at random intevals, although it now went straight to desktop.

I then checked the event log which pinned the MP3dec.asi file as the cause of the error. This tied in with other posts I'd read linking problems to audio. So I found a more recent issue of this file in the Emperor game directory, I copied it over and it seems to have fixed it. I've now played for over 4 hours without a crash.

[5M0k1N]

good one jane

[Mstr_Bates]

jeez..computers. what does all that mean

[Evilbones76]

Originally posted by jane_s_fletcher:

In case this helps anyone. I had Pharaoh running fine, and then I added Cleopatra - which is when the problems started.

At first the game kept locking up, and I had to use task manager to kill the process. After reading various posts I tracked down and installed the widescreen mod, which improved the display (thumbs up), but did not resolve all problems. The game still crashed at random intevals, although it now went straight to desktop.

I then checked the event log which pinned the MP3dec.asi file as the cause of the error. This tied in with other posts I'd read linking problems to audio. So I found a more recent issue of this file in the Emperor game directory, I copied it over and it seems to have fixed it. I've now played for over 4 hours without a crash.

Didn't work for me :(

[LaVine]

I tried everything I could and the game last for 10 mins for me... I loved this game when I was a kid... Maybe I should look forward to the New Era launch day

[Grizmo]

You can play it through Steam Proton (linux) flawlessly.

[Telariust]

Updated
You need to install DirectX 9.0c on the system
DirectX 9.0 with Runtime Pack (June 2010)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Regular freezes/crashes of the game are associated with a bug in the playback of sounds.
Especially strong when "Compatibility WindowsXP(sp2/sp3)"
Use "Compatibility Windows95/98"
Or update mss32.dll+Mp3dec.asi (from Zeus+Poseidon v2.1)
CRC32:9BD81E9D mss32.dll (Version:6.0m)
CRC32:FA4BC870 Mp3dec.asi
https://wdfiles.ru/e11658

If the problem is still not fixed, then

Looping audio problem
When you have more than 2 speakers (2.1 or 5.1 or 7.1 sound)
Older games don't know what surround sound is.
Also, modern sound cards can work in surround sound emulation mode.
Download, unpack and copy-paste with replace to game folder.
www.indirectsound.com/downloads.html
Try v12 (EAX=ON) or v14 (EAX=OFF) or v15 (noX3DAudio)
This dsound.dll replaces the native one from DirectX, like a wrapper, reconciles the old with the new.

More
https://steamcommunity.com/app/564530/discussions/0/3185737486660609902/#c3185737486660612737