Hello,

I have downloaded the Disciples 2: Servants of the Dark game and tried to load it. It flashes black screen then says cant initialize. I have tried to turn on compatibility mode and change the screen resolution and run as administrator but nothing works. Any help out there?

Asus laptop I believe a 2013 edition
AMD A10-4600M APU
Radeon(tm) HD Graphics 2.3 GHz
Windows 8
64-bit operating system

I have an ASUS netbook and on Win7. Same problem I think. If I try running the game I get a box saying something in French like "can't initialise*. if i directly run the goglaunch.exe a black window appears for a split second and then nothing happens. Also tried compat mode, changing screen res, rightclicking and running as admin. Nothing works too.

I miss this game and was looking forward to playing it today after purchasing about 2 weeks ago.

Exactly the same problem here (not on a laptop though, but a desktop PC). The strange part is that GOG's Disciples II Gold used to work perfectly on this computer, a little while ago. And today, I reinstalled it and I get a frozen black screen at full screen launch, and a boxed "can't initialize Disciples II" message in windowed mode.
The only important thing that has changed on this computer, since the game worked fine, is a graphic drivers update from Nvidia (v327.23 for Windows 7 64bit).
Pretty annoying... I tried every compatibilities and setup combinations, nothing works.

Did you set the configeditor.exe to run as administrator too? Try that and using the 800x600 resolution. Also, tick "Use Direct 3D", "Stretch to Full" and "Compatibility Mode" there.

I had the same problem, I did this, and it runs smooth.

Thanks for the suggestion, Frosty. I tried just as you said, unfortunately it's still the same.

It seems I'll have to settle for playing Disciples III, which is a thousand times less fun than II.

Sorry to hear that Merchito; you can also try installing the game in a different folder. You guys are probably already aware of it, but there is more information about compatibility here:

http://www.gog.com/forum/disciples_series/disciples_2_gold_win8_based_problem_jerky_interface_and_graphical_issues

I was pretty disappointed yesterday, I purchased the game to take advantage of the 60% off, and I just could not play it, either it was incredibly jerky or I got the same "can't initialize" screen that you mentioned. It was until I was just fiddling around with the config editor that I got it to work.

What did it for me is most definitely the resolution change or the installing it in another folder.

Nothing, nothing solves the problem. :( I wish GOG's team would tend of this problem...

You're right, it is worth a try.

I used dgvoodoo ( https://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/ ) and dropped the files from \ms\x86\ to the main Disciples 2 folder. I also added the folder in the dgvoodoo control panel and on the directx tab set it for 'stretched; keep aspect ratio' this let it run normally.

*it may ask if you want to overwrite ddraw.dll, i chose to replace it.