I have read all the existing threads and attempted their fixes, with very little luck.

I am using an AMD 6870 on Windows 7 64-bit.

I have done the following:

On being unable to detect my card, I followed provided steps in replacing the ATIUMDAG.DLL file with one link provided on the board and another on my system in the WOW64 folder. The results are identical; the game passes the graphics card check but crashes before playing the startup video, with a Windows exception (outlined below) and a small window saying ERROR.

This is the error:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: D3DPopTB.exe
Application Version: 1.0.0.1
Application Timestamp: 365c12fc
Fault Module Name: D3DPopTB.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.1
Fault Module Timestamp: 365c12fc
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00129ded
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 229b
Additional Information 2: 229b8d3b4ef6be548716745786262b62
Additional Information 3: c052
Additional Information 4: c0524960705d1c890921eb4c8608f544

I have tried each and every resolution in the setup, with no change. Results remain the same.

Software mode works, but only up to 800x600 resolution and colours are slightly messed up on some screens.

I am wanting to find a way to fix Direct3D mode. Any help provided will be vastly appreciated. Any attempted fixes will be tried and reported back on, and hopefully we can sort it out.

Got the same problem, but don't found any solution yet...

Have you tried launching the game using the native D3DPopTB.exe executable ? Remember that the maximum resolution is no higher than 1280x720 (16:9), 1280x800 (16:10) and 1280x1024 (5:4) and it must be in 16bpp. Don't launch the game using GOGLauncher or the "Launch Populous: The Beginning" button on the GOGSetup popup as they have loads of glitches and crash frequently.

Yep, tried that and that also didn't work.

Then why hasn't this been fixed? How many months has it been?

I bought a game that I expected it to work over 6 months ago and now 6 months later, it is still NOT working.
If the developers didn't think they could fix this for Win 7, then why did GOG advertise the game as Win 7 compatible? Then why did GOG sell this game in the first place? Where's the QC here?

The game didn't cost $100, but it is a broken product and broken products shouldn't be sold.

Populous is a very old game, it is hit and miss based on your hardware. It'll work for some and not others. That's just how things work with old games. I have no idea why you have been trying for 6 months to fix a problem, you should've contacted GOG support after a week of trying.

Then don't release it if isn't working. Like buying a cake but you're not allowed to eat it eventhough you bought it for yourself. Logic?

No I didn't wait for 6 months to fix the problem. GOG never had a fix for the game to begin with eventhough I contacted them.

There really isn't any point or need to take your frustration with the game out on me, I don't work for GOG and cannot tell you anything more than what I have said. Vent elsewhere, instead of venting at innocent users, who have been able to make the game work.

I have a laptop with an AMD A6-3410MX APU with an integrated (on chip) Radeon 6520G Win 7 home premium x86_64 with DirectX 11 installed. I've also done all the things you've done with the DLL in addition to copying the same DLL that is in my Dungeon Keeper 2 directory (GoG version) but that didn't work either. I think that installing the Populous unofficial 1.03 patch allowed me to play software mode in higher resolutions.

games (dot) softpedia (dot) com/get/Patch/Populous-III-Unofficial-Patch (dot) shtml
Sorry, after 1680 days with gog (since march 6, 2009), gog still thinks I'm a spammer. Granted, this is my first post...

I'm not entirely sure if that was what worked, though, since I also did a lot of uninstalling/reinstalling the launcher with/without compatibility with XP Service Pack 3. See screenshot of registry settings on compatibility. The location of the registry is at the bottom, I wouldn't edit the registry, just change the settings of the executable files until the registry looks like that. I think you can refresh regedit with F5 after you change compatibility settings. The Software shortcut in the start menu also has some options and I've included those.

My max resolution is 1366x768 and it changes to that in the graphics settings but the mouse is kind of slower than normal. Maybe someone can make sense of my rambling so they can tell GoG.com how to fix this mess, if not, I think my third machine has a radeon gpu on it, if it does, I'll figure it out in a couple of weeks, too much time wasted today. Also: grumble, grumble, EA. Grumble, grumble.

On the up side, installing Populous - The Beginning on Arch Linux with PlayOnLinux and the high res patch worked incredibly well, after enabling a virtual desktop and grabbing of the mouse. D3D version and everything works super smoothly. Although it's on another machine with an Nvidia card. Maybe next year will be the year of the linux desktop.

I know this is an old post, but launching popTB totally worked, thank you

yep, thank-you!