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I also have an HD7870, and I can't get it to run, either, regardless of what atiumdag.dll is used. Has anyone gotten it to run with newer AMD cards?
I indeed found a newer atiumdag.dll (extracted from the ATI Catalyst driver). With it, the error message doesn't show up but instead the whole game crashes after the game goes fullscreen.
My installation of Populous from GOG didn't even have an atiumdag.dll file in it... Where is it normally located?
It's in the main installation folder! (for me: "Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Populous 3\")
Have a HD 7670M, Windows XP. I get the "A 3D device with the required capabilities..." dialogue.

GoG really needs to address this. I joined GoG just because of this game, and its been a bad experience so far.
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Post edited March 04, 2015 by supersabre
Unless there's an even more recent atiumdag.dll available on the internet to use, I doubt this will be fixed.
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Post edited March 04, 2015 by supersabre
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supersabre: If that is the (sad) case. Then there should a warning mentioned in the games front page. It may not cost much but it still frustrating to pay for something that does not work.

E: well just saw this in games frontpage: "Compatibility notice: Newer AMD cards (7XXX and 8XXX series) are not supported."

Though it does not work even with my laptop that has older AMD card than those.
Apparently its advisable to think twice before buying this game if you have AMD card of any sort.
I wouldn't say that. I have an AMD 5700 graphics card and have no problems with the game. Newer cards are not necessarily the best to go for, especially if you plan on playing old games.
Just bought it and got this error, it worked with the replaced atiumdag.dll
Thanks ALOT, love this game so much!
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BloodCloak: Had this problem too. Just solved it by replacing the 'atiumdag.dll' with this one: http://www.mediafire.com/?wzm379223amren2

Looking at the default one included in the populous folder it is dated at 2009. I'm guessing it doesn't have references for newer cards? Anyway, this one seems to work.
Details.. after changing that .dll file...
-double click the D3DPopTB.exe file
-main screen is fine at first, but
-when I exit Tutorial mode, the menu screen is all "rainbow and psychedelic"
-gameplay screen is fine thus far, maxing out at 800x600

All of the previous suggestions below haven't worked...
-reinstalling the game
I did so through the installer, of which that was DL-ed via the GOG downloader program/app

-RC compatibility on the shortcuts and changing them to win98, win95, winXP SP2, and winXP SP3

-changing the shortcuts to point to "<path where Pop3 is installed>\D3DPopTB.exe"


I'm on Win7 Home Premium with SP1
AMD Radeon 6600
Post edited August 23, 2014 by ackmondual
I have the same problem with my ATI Radeon 7750 on windows 8.1.
Already tried replacing the ATIUMDAG.dll with a newer version but getting the same issue as some other people here.
With the old version of the dll the game wouldnt start up at all, i would get a windows error saying that i dont have a graphics card that supports D3D, however with the more recent dll the game would load but crashes as soon as the "loading" window dissapears and the game's application goes fullscreen.

The game runs fine in software mode, but as you could guess software doesnt look that nice on a game thats 15 years old, besides it used to work fine in D3D when i was still using windows XP with the exact same videocard..
D3D not only makes the game look much better, but it will also allow us to run modifications for the game again.
Right now, any MOD made for D3D will not function properly in software mode (graphics will be messed up in a way that the game becomes unplayable) while they are one of the reasons why this game is still popular nowadays (we still get around 100 users in our matchmaking service every day on www.popre.net).

I already contacted EA about this, but they told me to either contact AMD or GoG, since i already contacted AMD but getting no reply i decided to post here...
Hopefully GoG will come up with some solution anytime soon...
Post edited September 01, 2014 by TheGabber
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TheGabber: I have the same problem with my ATI Radeon 7750 on windows 8.1.
Already tried replacing the ATIUMDAG.dll with a newer version but getting the same issue as some other people here.
With the old version of the dll the game wouldnt start up at all, i would get a windows error saying that i dont have a graphics card that supports D3D, however with the more recent dll the game would load but crashes as soon as the "loading" window dissapears and the game's application goes fullscreen.
Which 7750 version is this? If it's the more recent 7750 HD version, this game is incompatible with that card, as stated on the gamecard on the site.
As i said in my previous post, it worked fine on windows XP with the exact same videocard, so it is compatible just not in combination with windows 8,1.
There must be a way to fix this for GoG or AMD...
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TheGabber: I already contacted EA about this, but they told me to either contact AMD or GoG, since i already contacted AMD but getting no reply i decided to post here...
I thought you wanted to contact GOG? You need to send in a support ticket.