I have just downloaded Dream Pinball 3D. Started ok after install, but get blank screen and PC locks up when trying to start now. I have waited a while for any loading delays, but still no good. Windows 7 64 bit is supported, so can't understand why I am having this problem. I haven't encountered this with any other games.

Hi.
I succefully play Dream Pinball on my W7 64bit setting the XPSp2 emulation: in fact it seems it has some problems with direct3d if you don't set the emulation.

By the way, the same trick does not work on my notebook (W7 32bit).

On my desktop I have an AMD card (6850) while my notebook has an NVidia one (9600M): maybe the game does not like Nvidia cards?

Maybe I found the solution.
First install dx9 june 2010 package redist
Then set dp3d.exe to run disabiling composition

Hi darknight74, thanks for your suggestions, but the funny thing is the game will start with no problems after initial installation using GOG Installer option of "Launch game". Any further attempts to launch the game normally does not work. Maybe the GOG Installer "Launch game" option adds some extra data strings or commands that normal launch does not. I have detailed all of this with GOG Support and have had little assistance and very poor communication. They have suggested work arounds that I had already tried and any ten year old would have thought of, where are the tech heads? GOG are quite happy to take your money, but if you have any problems with their products........well, bye bye. Any future purchases by me from GOG will be in serious doubt after this unpleasant and uncalled for experience! Are you listening GOG Admin/ Support?

Tried checking "Disable Desktop Composition", but no good.........still won't work.
It all gets so tedious when the game fails to launch, my computer locks up and I have to do an emergency power down to get my computer operating again.

Yeah, I know it gets especially tedious when you need to reboot every single time. I've been there many times before and totally understand. The only other suggestions I have are probably ones you've tried already, but here goes:

Have you tried any of the other compatibility settings?

Have you tried rolling back your video drivers to an older version? I have one older game that will absolutely not run unless I use an older video driver. And your problems sounds video-driver related to me. There's nothing wrong with your video card or driver, but an older game may be finicky about it, or possibly they tested the game without taking newer drivers into consideration. And it's possible that if an older driver works, that same older driver may also work with your new games. Rolling back drivers is fairly simple, but it is also a pain, so it would suck if you had to do that every time you wanted to play the game. I'm suggesting mostly as a test to see if it would run with an older driver.

Another solution I've used with old games is shutting down certain processes in Task Manager, but this is also very time-consuming. It's possible that some other software is conflicting, causing the game not to run. I had DVD software that came with my computer cause this with one game. Shutting down the DVD software before running the gamefixed it. The funny thing was, I had no idea that software was running in the background at all, but it was.

Good luck to you. And if you should somehow get things working, please post here, as there are others that may also find it beneficial.

Do you have multiple monitors? If so, try disabling all but your primary monitor. That worked for me for this game and for GTA:SA.

can you tell us your system specs or laptop your trying to run this on it helps us a lot