The game cant find my videocard and thus i'm stuck to running the game in software mode.
Any way to fix this? Anybody else with this same problem?

Me too :( I had to uninstall and re-install and choose software mode ... and it's kind of awful ... D:

You don't need to reinstall, just open setup in the gog.com/populous folder

Actually I did have to re-install. Every time I ran the setup app it would go straight to hardware mode from my previous selection, and thus wouldn't let me select software again.

Same here, once I've made a selection (and the screenresolution I chose did not stick for some reason) I cannot get the setup to run again.

[edit]
starting the "setup" from the Windows Start menu seems to work fine
[/edit]

Yeah ... found this out too :O

I managed to get the setup to work properly by running it as an admin. It still only works in software mode though but I'm fine with that.

Both ways are working on my side. But the hardware mode has some glitches, makes the text hard to read. The software mode is ok. Also, I can't change resolution. The only two available to me are 640x480 and 800x600 but when I try to change to 800x600 nothing happens, seems to be fixed at 640x480...

When I try to run the game in hardware mode, it tells me a 3D device with the required capabilities could not be found. The game runs in software mode, but everything is really stuttery and messed up and it's impossible to play like this. I'm using Windows 7 64 bits and an AMD Radeon HD 6800.

I bought this game as soon as I saw it because I loved it so much back when I was a kid, but now I can't play it at all :(

What can I do?


Edit: I managed to get it to run in 640x480 in software mode. I created a .bat file in the game's directory with the following lines:

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
cd "o:\GOG.com\Populous 3\"
PopTB.exe
start explorer.exe
close

(In the second line, obviously replace the path with your own)
Running that, the game works mostly fine, the audio has cracks, though, and raising the resolution makes everything blurry, so it's not optimal, but better than nothing, I suppose.

I managed to get it working.Run it in software mode and after you load your saved game or start a new game select medium graphics.It works perfectly for me.

Yeah sorry should have said I meant the gog.com/populous folder under programs in the start menu, I have the problem with hardware mode too, software mode is ok but seems a bit choppy now and again and obviously not as high resolution

Got the same problem folks.
It's kinda sad, since the Hardware mode would support even some of the more modern resolutions like 1280x720, which is in 16:9 format.

I tried the bat method suggested by TigerITS, it made the mouse smoother in software mode, but the sound is still stuttering.

I am having the same problem trying to use 800x600 mode.

On this page are two patches for the org. CD of the game:

http://webgnom.com/populous-3-unter-windows-7-vista-spielen

with the unoffical patch 1.03 - i don't have shuttering sound and the mouse move very good,
only ingame i still have little graphic problems.

but this way it seems that the org. cd works better than the gog version (i bought this too).

Thanks man, made the game quite a bit more enjoyable!