Rome Total War gold edition doesn't work on Vista?

OK, I consider myself fairly tech savvy, yet I just bought a copy of Rome Total War Gold Edition from Target($5) and was going to sell it to my one friend, who planned on playing it on a computer with Vista installed. He was looking for it for a while now. Unfortunately, it has issues with Vista.

He gets up to the end of the Prologue(training missions), then the game crashes and says that Microsoft is working on a solution for this problem and the program exits out.

He has DL'd DirectX 9, since I found an article from Sega's Help Desk that says you need to have DX9 running in behind DX10(which is in Vista to begin with) in order to have this game work.

Unfortunately, after DL'ing DX9, it asks where to install it. I am stumped, since I rarely use my pc for gaming, but that's ALL he does on the pc he's on.

Any ideas where to install it to at least make THIS game run?

Thanks in advance....
 
Have you tried compatibility mode? As far as I know DX9 isn't truely supported in Vista, but emulated in DX10. I don't think you can actually install it. What are the spec on his computer?
 
See, I knew where to look for compatability mode in ME and XP, but Vista seems to be a different beast. I'll just Google it, though Sega's own site said to install the latest version of DX9 on their pc that's running Vista. I just don't want to tell them to do something that may screw it up for them.
 
right click - properties - compatibility and then select XP with service pack 2. If that doesn't work you can also trying reinstalling it that way
 
oh, and please give me his computer's specs if possible. A lot of compatibility issues actually have nothing to do with vista and has to do with hardware.
 
I had this same problem with my copy of Sacred, turns out it wasn't that it couldn't run, it was that the autoplay was broken on Vista.

I can't say if this will work for R:TW or not, but try turning off autoplay for your cd/dvd drive, then installing the game.
 
[quote name='CaptainPlanet!']I had this same problem with my copy of Sacred, turns out it wasn't that it couldn't run, it was that the autoplay was broken on Vista.

I can't say if this will work for R:TW or not, but try turning off autoplay for your cd/dvd drive, then installing the game.[/quote]
I dont know what game I had that this problem occured, my work around was that when the autoplay feature opens up, open to view the files from there and just click the installer from the file menu.
 
[quote name='p00ndawg']I dont know what game I had that this problem occured, my work around was that when the autoplay feature opens up, open to view the files from there and just click the installer from the file menu.[/quote]

I think that's basically the same method, funny error though, that a buggy autoplay would affect the installation of a game's resources.
 
Basic specs for eMachines T5234
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.1 GHz)
  • 1 GB DDR II SDRAM
  • 320 GB Standard
  • Microsoft Windows Vista
  • Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
  • video card:geforce 6150se nforce 430
And before anyone says it, I know E-Machines are routinely crap computers.
 
I had some issues with Rome: Total War but none with Barb Invasion. Go Figure.
This is the *only* game that I have not been able to get to work with Vista. Planescape I had some issues on spell castings and had to disabled hardware acceleration, and Freedom Force needed a patch but this game doesn't seem to work well.

I guess this has been my only complain with Vista so far. No I am not joking.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Basic specs for eMachines T5234
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.1 GHz)
  • 1 GB DDR II SDRAM
  • 320 GB Standard
  • Microsoft Windows Vista
  • Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
  • video card:geforce 6150se nforce 430
And before anyone says it, I know E-Machines are routinely crap computers.[/quote]
The video card could be the issue. I know that when I try to put a game on my tablet with it's measly 64mb video card it won't ruin and looks like it's a compatibility issue. It doesn't tell you that the game is incompatible with your garbage video card though!
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']I had some issues with Rome: Total War but none with Barb Invasion. Go Figure.
This is the *only* game that I have not been able to get to work with Vista. Planescape I had some issues on spell castings and had to disabled hardware acceleration, and Freedom Force needed a patch but this game doesn't seem to work well.

I guess this has been my only complain with Vista so far. No I am not joking.[/quote]

Same here. What patch did you use for freedom force? It's the only game I've had trouble with on vista.
 
[quote name='n25philly']Same here. What patch did you use for freedom force? It's the only game I've had trouble with on vista.[/QUOTE]

http://www.freedomfans.com//news.php?id=37 I believe it's a patch for Service Pack Volume 2 (yes the patch is old,but oddly installing the patch and running backwards compat to Windows XP Service Pack 2 the game works 100% from my twenty minutes of testing.
 
meh, I tried the sp2 patches before and had no luck. Since my computer has 1.5tb of harddrive space I put a 30gig partion of XP on so I could play it. In other words I haven't play it as I've had no interest in booting into xp. maybe I'll have to do it as a virtual from vista.
 
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