astan21: When I starts the game, it crashed after the Intro sequences (in software renderer or Direct3D).
Removed the Intro sequences (Hear music for less than 1 second): Game crash.
Tried Windowed mode using DxWnd (PCGamingWiki): Game starts, characters visible as grey spheres, game crash at first encounter.
Hello. I tried to launch the game today for the first time, but without success. I was facing a very similar situation: the game crashed after playing the intro video (the one with the company logos), either using the software renderer or Direct3D, with or without dgVoodoo.
I tried DxWnd, too, but here things went differently: the game crashed right away, even before playing the intro (no game with "characters visible as gray spheres" for me).
After a bit of research, I finally managed to get the game running; I'll tell you how, even though there's no guarantee it will work for you (but you can always try... and, judging from your posts, it's something you haven't done yet).
My problem was with
DEP (Data Execution Prevention), a security feature of Windows aimed at protecting the machine from viruses and similar threats.
This is what did the trick for me: quoting from
"General Troubleshooting" on GOG support center:
1) Right click Computer on your desktop (or in start menu if the icon is present there) and click Properties
2) Click Advanced system settings
3) Open Advanced tab and select Settings in Performance section
4) Open tab Data Execution Prevention
5) Change DEP setting to the first option - Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only
6) Confirm with OK
Here's the catch - simply adding "gorky17.exe" to the list of exceptions won't do. I thought it would be enough, but you really have to choose the first option ("Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only") - at least, that's what I had to do to make it work.
Hope this helps, keep us updated.
PS it could be argued that restricting DEP this way could make you more vulnerable to computer viruses and the like. I'm not an expert on the matter; it could be that keeping it active for all programs with exceptions is a bit overkill, especially if you use a good bit of caution (as you always should) when launching applications. Or you could always turn DEP back to max each time you stop playing, although this could become wearisome pretty fast.
