Strangely, this worked flawlessly. I do not know what are the launch differences between the two.

EzioDelpatchi's solution Worked for me on Windows 10. Very simple. Thanks

So I bought POP3 on the Weekend-Sale an had - like everyone here - trouble starting it in D3D (Application - Crash right from the start).
And I don't want to use the popTB.exe - because this will cause the game to run in software mode. Why the hell does anybody do that ? Invention of 3D Acceleration was the best thing on PC in the 1990's. (Holy Voodoo Cards!)

Finally I was able to run POP3 in D3D with an NVIDIA-Card using "dgVooDoo" (a dx and glide wrapper) on Windows 10
Thanks to the post of "ZellSF" who suggested using that little thing of software! (one year ago! - and this thread was opened in 2012 ...)

I am using Win10 (with Redstone-Update) with a GTX960 4GB

Here's what I did: (Step by step)

1. Download "dgVoodoo" from "dege.freeweb.hu/" (Latest Version 2.53)
2. Extract the downloaded file to a folder of your choice
3. Copy all files from the "dgVoodoo" main folder into you POP3 Installation directory
4. also copy the files from the "MS" folder (3 dll files for ddraw an direct3d) into POP3 Installation directory
5. Run "dgVooDooSetup.exe" and click the icon [.\] - that will point the path to your POP3 installation directory
6. Select the Tab "DirectX" and check the Options - I tried differnt settings and now use the ones you can see in my screenshot
7. Click Apply Button
8. Launch the game through the GOG-Launcher (the shortcut placed on the Desktop after installation) - Answer the question for recovery mode with "no"
Only via the launcher the game will allow you to use resolutions higher than 800x600 (1600x900 works for me - FullHD doesnt seem to be supported.)

You will always have to change the resolution ingame every time you start the game again.(Problem of the game, not the GOG-Release or the wrapper)

Notes:
- you dont have to run the dgVoodoo program again after making your settings - POP3 will always start with the wrapper until you delete the files from the wrapper software
- Turn the "dgVoodoo Watermark" setting off - I just used it to verify the game works with the wrapper
- using Antialiasing causes some screenartifacts, especially around the text-boxes and the map
- using less than 128MB VRAM in the settings seems to cause graphic glitches when driving the mouse around (like a mouse-shadow)
- Windowed-Mode doesnt work - crashes when Apllication loses focus

Hope this helps some folks out there


Just wanted to point out: that is no solution, it just uses the softwarerenderung path. No 3D - Graphics card will be used. And it causes the game to run only in 800x600 maximum. (what looks terrible)

I've been investigating issues regarding this game crashing on AMD video cards, and have come up with a patch. Usual warnings apply - no warranties, using this may cause your pet dog to explode.. but it works for me.


Short story:

- Download my patch at www(dot)danielhorne(dot)co(dot)uk/Stuff/D3DPopTB_l.exe
- Copy it to your populous: the beginning dir
- Data execution protection and this program are incompatible. Compatibility modes automatically switch them off, but I don't care for them because it seems to slow things down. Make sure this executable is listed as an exception in your system DEP settings.

Long story:

I looked at the code for this program in x32debug. Found a (disabled) logging function and re-enabled it. This showed that IDirectDraw2::CreateSurface() was returning an invalid argument error. This could only have been the surface capabilities structure. I diabled some of the mode setting and it started working. Some of the time it crashed with an access violation in one of the CSEG segments. Setting the program as an exception to data execution protection sorted that.

I got it working on Windows 10 64-bit with NVidia 980 Ti roughly according to theoturtle's instructions above. One notable thing I did differently is that I added the -allres command-line option to D3DPopTB.exe.

Here's what I did:
1. Install the game from GOG.
2. Find the installation directory (the one with D3DPopTB.exe, popTB.exe, Manual.pdf and such).
3. From the dgVoodoo zip file, copy the contents of the MS folder and dgVoodooSetup.exe to the installation folder.
4. Run dgVoodooSetup.exe. Click ".\". On DirectX tab, select VRAM 128 MB. Click Apply, then Ok.
5. Right click on "Launch Populous - The Beginning" shortcut. Add '-allres' to the end of the Target box. (So that it will read something like '... Beginning\D3DPopTB.exe" -allres'. Click Ok.
6. Launch the game by running the "Launch Populous - The Beginning" shortcut.

Now the game runs and allows me to choose higher resolutions, up to 1600x1200 (though it doesnt work very well at that resolution). There seem to be some performance problems. I'm not sure if it really helped, but I ended up changing these options on dgVoodoo:
- General -> Adapter(s) to use / enable -> Set to the graphics card you actually have.
- DirectX -> Videocard -> GeForce4 Ti 4800

Update: The "performance issue" is that moving the mouse causes the game to lag. On another thread, there was a solution: Change the compatibility settings from Windows 95 to Windows XP SP2. To do this:
- Right click on "Launch Populous - The Beginning". Go to the Compatibility tab. Either change the Compatibility mode to 'Windows XP (Service Pack 2)', or if it's grayed out, click "Change settings for all users" and change it from the popup dialog. Click Ok.

(Also, you can just create a shortcut of popTB.exe and put '-allres' in there and change the compatibility mode and it'll probably run fine, even without dgVoodoo. But I didn't really try this.)

I am using win xp and when i run the game the first time when turning on my pc it simply just does not respond so i have to like go to the task manager and end the process then i run the game again and it works,the same things only happens when i turn off my pc everyday and need to turn it back on and then the game doesn't respond the first time.
Didn't have this in the cd version, though it also happened rarely that the mouse wouldn't respond.
Edit: running the games exe from the install folder without the gog shortcut seems to make it work for me without becoming unresponsive at first start

This worked for me also but I had to skip the video for the game to run.

D3DPopTB.exe does not work, but works through popTB.exe

But in this case, in the gog client not consider time in play(((


P.S. win 8.1 64x

I'm using a Surface Pro 2 with Windows 8.1

I found a solution to my game crashing, hopefully it'll work with everyone else's.

From the game's Galaxy menu, select Show Folder.
Go to PopTB.exe's Properties.
In Compatibility, select Change settings for all users at the bottom.
Select Windows 7 in the drop-down menu in Compatibility Mode.
Apply and select the exe to run.
GL

popTB.exe uses software graphics rendering that is lower quality than D3D rendering. But performance should not be an issue.

I can't get neither software or directx version to start at all on Windows 10 - 64 bit. I have a Geforce 970 card.
Anyone got this working on Win 10 with Geforce 970 ? I tried the different suggestions in this thread with dgVoodo2 without any luck :(

Open the file and duble click pop TB and game, sorry for my eglish. Open the file and duble click popTB and game, sorry for my english.

I have a solution for windows 10 users:
Click the start button, type windows features, you should see an option that says “turn windows features on and off”. Click that. Then under Legacy Features there’s an option called Direct Play, enable it.
After that you should be able to run the game using the software rendering exe (the one that doesn’t start with d3d).
On some cases you may even be able to run the d3d version but I’m not sure because I just tried it on one pc with an ATI graphics card.

I had this issue with another game [Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire] and it fixed it, so it was already enabled. I read in a previous post that switching it to Windows 7 compatibility could work, so I tried that, which got me further, creating whatever other files it needed to run, but it still crashed. But I tried the software rendering exe and it worked straight off the bat.

All praise GOG.com for allowing people with shit hardware to satiate their gaming desires!

Win 10 x64
AMD V140 2.3GHz
8GB RAM
AMD Mobility HD4200