Hi folks, any suggestions to resolve this would be appreciated.

I recently had to replace my failing graphics card, and now have an nVidia GeForce GT-740. Now, when I try to play Pharaoh (the GOG version, latest code available on this site) it'll last maybe 5 minutes, and then it hangs with whatever sound was playing at the time repeating over and over like a stuck CD. When this happens, the game itself is completely locked up -- no game keystrokes or menu items will respond -- but I can Ctrl+Alt=Del to Task Manager and lose the game down,

The game ran fine on my system before the new graphics card, so I know that it *does* run on this hardware -- except maybe the graphics card. I've read about an issue with nVidia's Shadowplay, so I've confirmed that's not even installed, let alone running. (I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer.)

I've left Pharaoh at the default installation resolution. I haven't installed the widescreen Cleopatra patch, just the GOG code as-is. I've tried setting the resolution to 800x600, and 1024x768, but neither of those help. I make sure there's nothing running in the background, including my e.mail client and anti-virus.

I've tried uninstalling Pharaoh, including my saved games and the installation folder, and re-installing from scratch, but the problem persists. I've tried setting compatibility to WinXP and admin rights in the game's launcher, but that doesn't fix it.

Can anyone suggest other things I can try?

Thanks for any help.
Branais

p.s. I also have Zeus (the GOG release) installed on this same system, and it doesn't have this problem.

Try enabling the widescreen hack, this has been known to fix several stability issues with the game and has made it run longer. However, a lot of the issues with Pharaoh can easily be solved simply by restarting the PC.

If a restart does not solve it, you can just reinstall the game (save games will be untouched, since it only removes files that aren't touched so any customisations you may have made will be kept). I see you've tried this already, so I think it may be fixable simply using the widescreen hack.

Thanks as always, Shukaku. ;-)

I've been wary about installing the widescreen hack, because of the longstanding awkwardness in pretty much all GOG releases of trying to know what version of the game they represent. But more than that, my game already runs to the full width of the screen, so what does the widescreen hack add?

I hope it doesn't make everything small. I'm having eyesight issues of late, and although it would be nice not to have to scroll around so much, I don't want to have to start squinting just to see the walkers.

At least for Pharaoh, there are two versions of the hack: one for Pharaoh only (aka, original cd version with patch) and one for the GOG.com bundle.

The hack simply allows you to select a higher resolution that is more native to your screen resolution. For example, when I played Pharaoh on 32-bit, I didn't really need the WS hack, simply because it worked fine. But when I upgraded to 64-bit, I kept getting crashes which were solved by the hack.

The download package offers a wide range of resolutions. 1920x1080 can look a bit small, but you can pick lower resolution versions from the zip. The only thing that's important is that your computer allows you to select different resolutions (right click empty desktop -> screen resolution), otherwise the thing won't work and will turn into a black screen.

You don't say which one is the correct patch to use with the GOG version.; I have one named Cleopatra.7z and one named Zeus.7z -- I think I got one from the Heaven website.

I extracted the Cleopatra one with 7-zip -- it just gives several different-res versions of the main executable. So I backed up the installed executable, and copied the updated 1980x1020 over. (That's the native res of my monitor.)

It wasn't a success. The display along the top edge and right of the screen was corrupted, to the extent that I couldn't read the menu or the funds/population stats. I tried all three in-game display resolutions, but none of them seemed to resolve it. I don't have a readme file on the patch, so I'm not sure what I need to do from here on.

But even with the patch applied, the game hung on the "Impressions" startup screen, so ... hardly auspicious.

Dammit! I don't want to have to buy a new card, AGAIN. I've been toying with the idea of setting up a dual-boot into WinXP, and have a WinXP driver for the graphic card ... but I don't want to go to the hassle if this problem is going to persist. Aagh. So frustrating.

The Cleopatra.7z on wsgf.org is the one for Pharaoh + Cleopatra offered by GOG.com. If you are getting the download from somewhere else, it might not be the proper download.

All you need to do is rename the default executable in the pharaoh folder (where it's presently installed) (rename it to something like Pharaoh_default.exe), copy over the appropriate exe from the zip to the same place, then launch the game as normal using the new exe.

When it's loaded, load any save game and go to the Display Settings and select 1024x768, which will set it to 1920x1080 properly. If it worked okay, it should be in the proper resolution.

And that's pretty much it. If things are appearing corrupted, you might need to run the Auto Adjuster on your monitor to clear it up. Put up screenshots if you need further assistance. :)

Sorry, what's the Auto-Adjuster?

I'd already done what you described here. Choosing 1024x768 makes things too small for my liking, but I guess if that's the only thing that makes the game work ...

Except, it doesn't. I find the stats up the top get corrupted very quickly, because the bar isn't being refreshed as the numbers change -- they just write themselves over the top of the existing numbers. It gets messy very quickoly, and then ... the game hangs, just as it did before. Ugghhh.

I wondered if the code I was installing from was damaged somehow, so I've just gone in to re-download it.

Firstly, I HATE what GOG has done to the Library. I can no longer group things by genre. I don't want to group things simply alphabetically -- it makes no sense. Adn then, GOG LIED when it said it would allow people to continue using the Downloadee. Not only do you now need to go hunting for the links, they're only half active, and the Downloader is slower now than an http download through my browser.

Not a happy bunny.

It's a thing on most monitors which makes the screen update it's position automatically based on what's on the screen. You could try one of the smaller resolution executables, as long as your graphics card supports the resolution (see a previous post to check where to confirm it) I'm not sure why that's happening. Sounds like a reinstall is needed. I'm out of options I'm afraid. You might want to write into GOG.com Support and see if they can help you out a bit better than I can :)

I appreciate your trying to hel me, Shukaku. Thanks for your efforts! ;-)

After a recent bunch of windows 7 updates i started having this issue too, on windows 64bit, where before it was working fine (i had done about 9 stages of the campaign).

Bizarrely i got it to work fine again by NOT selecting windows XP compatibility mode. I had tried a few things before this, like changing to 16-bit colour (sometimes old games need this), but checking out Zeus i noticed that was not set to run in compatibility mode either, and seemed to run ok. I run it in normal 1024x768 resolution (full screen), and with Administrator rights.

This worked for me with the widescreen patch on win10. Thanks!

The problem has long since been resolved, but I thought I'd post an update just for the sake of completeness. Once again, I appreciate the efforts of those who tried to help sort it out. Really, really appreciated.

It turned out to be a problem with the graphics card driver. Even though, according to the installation routine, I had chosen to install only the driver itself, the installation had been "helpful" and installed some auxiliary software intended to be useful to people playing games. I ended up doing a complete re-install of Windows (the only way I could find to completely remove these utility programs), and this time did a "custom" install of the driver -- only then would it let me truly install only the driver for the GPU itself. And since then? Not a single problem. ;-)

(Oh, and since then, my house got struck by lightning, frying my ADSL2+ modem, motherboard, graphics card and power supply. But now I know what to do, and haven't had the problem with the new hardware.)