Hi to all...

Since the last re-install of my system (notebook Toshiba, Windows 7 64 Bit, ATI Radeon graphic card, I could go on) - harddrive was replaced - I have problems with running many games, some of them even from GOG.

What it does: when I start the game, the whole screen goes black. I hear a music snippet from the intro music/vanity plate/main menu, then game pops back into Windows and stays minimized on the taskbar. When I click on it again, again there is a moment of black screen with short music cue and back to Windows again.


I am runing administrator account, usually run the games with the windows xp or windows 98 support.

SOMETIMES helps to run the game in the 640x480 resolution, then change it in-game to 1600x900 or the maximum possible resolution. Sometimes helps to edit ini file with setting etc. Sometimes doesn't help even that and I am unable to get into the game at all.

I am running the same software as before, same OS, same antivirus (Kaspersky). It's really annoying and I am pretty sure I just forget to click somewhere and it should work as before.

It's actually pretty funny, considering I had this problem with World of Warcraft (eventually managed to get it working somehow), GOG's Inquisitor (just the resolution change helped, as stated in FAQ), one game from Steam and plethora of early 2000 adventures.

Any chance for an easy solution? ;-)

Two guesses:

*) Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphic card. Get the ones from the manufacturer of your graphics card not the ones the laptop manufacturer supplies or the ones Windows Update has. These are usually horribly outdated.

*) Since you are using Windows 7 you already have DirectX 11. But do you also have the latest DirectX 9.0c installed? Older games require DirectX 9.0c and DirectX11 is not compatible to it. Get it from here and install it.

Thanks for reply. DirectX I have, I run the installation always when the game demands it. Mostly it just says the drivers from the 9.0c version are already there).

I will try the drivers, that could be it. Some games also won't let themselves to be alt-tabbed - or they let themselves, but then they stay minimized on the tray again.

Well, I still don't know for sure why it does, but it seems it's a problem of my screen resolution. If I set the whole resolution at the standard 1024x728, games both run and can be alt-tabbed there and back. Well, at least something:-)