ATI 9870 X2
Phemom II 940
8 gigs ram
vista 64bit

Thanks in advance

Edit: I am running the startengine.exe. I am still getting the API virtual memory error message while running the game from startengine.exe.

If you wanna play the vanilla game:
the follow these procedures:

********Quoted from Official forums*****by Chimaeros******
Okay people...while searching for fixes I found a post by some German dude... Fact is the game's graphics mess up if you've got more than 2 GB's of ram so here's the solution:
(Translating it from German please excuse the mistakes)

1. In the Start menu go to " Run " then run the program " MSCONFIG ".

2. In the new pop-up go to the second flap called " Start " and then press "Advanced Options".

3. Tick the box on the right side of the new pop that says something like "Maximum Memory" and set it to a max of 2000 or lower.

4. Save and restart.

5. Now you will notice that when you're running HoAE you can't see the Cinematics so now go to options and set it to 16 bit colours.

6. Restart HoAE and it should work.

At least it did for me. If you want to use your full ram again all you gotta do is go back to " msconfig" and untick the "max memory" box.
*******************************************

"A Hopeless heart is the Devil's workshop"

From what I know, there is no working steam fix for the game. I don't know about your configuration, but I can guarantee you that this problem disappears when you use the mod.
In case if you wanna play the original game, then just take out the "mods.gs1" file out of the game directory. I'll try to make the mod work as a fix for the original game in the upcoming fix.

I've been quite busy these days so next fix can be a month away at max. But for now, you can try the mod I suppose .

"A Hopeless heart is the Devil's workshop"

David

*Running 2 different versions of Windows actually (Windows 7 32Bit, and Windows Vista 64Bit, both are Ultimate versions of Windows) They are on different HDD's and dont seem to cause any problems with any of my games, except, a game I put on Vista, can't always be played on Windows 7, and if it can, none of the save files are there unless I copy and paste them to the spot they should be.
*Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme CPU 6800QX or 6850QX not sure which one it is, tho I think it's the 6850, cuz I remember hating myself for getting the motherboard I did, only DDR2 RAM
*680SLI NVidia Motherboard, 1333MHZ Front Bus, 2.93-4.16 GHZ CPU Clock, depending on what I'm going to do.
*1267MHZ Extreme DDR2 RAM (Set from 800 - 1267 MHZ depending on what I'm doing)
*285GTX 1gb Video Cards (2) running SLI configuration (Check for new drivers 1-3 times a week and it's up to date) (2048MB from Video Cards + over 16.5gb virtual video memory from HDD)
*EVGA PhysX Accelerator Card
*Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty 7.1 Channels Sound Card
*4 HDD's, 1: 150GB(Velociraptor 10,000 RPM) 2: 320GB(Western Digital 7,200 RPM) 3: 450GB(Western Digital 7,200 RPM) 4: 1TB (Western Digital 7,200 RPM)
*1200Watt Power Supply
*Total of 9 Large fans (Including Power Supply Fan) keeping the system cool. 5 smaller fans on the Video Cards, Sound Card and RAM Cooling Kit, plus 3 fans blowing on it to help keep it cool
*Windows Vista 64bit on HDD 1, Windows 7 32bit on HDD 2
*Using a Vizio E470VL Monitor, (47" 120HZ Screen, 1920 x 1080 max resolution)
*2 - 1GB/s Network Connections Teamed/Combined With NVidia Control Panel for faster online speeds (Downloads can be 6MB-9.5MB/s depending on the Website's Speed
*Running an N+ Router with Cable Internet, and less than 2000ft from the Cable Internet Hub Station
*Razor Lycosa Keyboard and Razor DeathAdder Mouse, along with their pricey large mousepad that is really great, and the DeathAdder glides over it so awesome, I could never go back to a normal mousepad.

I know, long and a lot of useless info, but just trying to get this figured out, cuz this game looks really fun and I really wanna play it, and the fix seems so simple, just dont know how to make it work with Steam, since clicking the startengine.exe just tells me that the steam.dll file was not found, like all programs if you click them in the folder, and not the shortcut or in the Steam Library itself. I appreciate you speedy reply and help.

Thank you so much for actually caring and helping me get the game to work, I wont name names, but some company's games I have, crash, and I get no response at all from them about fixing it except, update my video drivers, and make sure my anti-virus is shut off while playing, and I can get more help from a fortune cookie then I do from those companies.

Customer Support and Consumer Tech Support has become a much larger factor when I decide to buy a game, and let me tell you, if this problem get's fixed, and I can play the Vanilla version and the mod version, this company will have a customer for a VERY long time for their PC games, even if you don't work for them, the fact that I can get help for this is awesome. Thank you so much. If there are more complicated steps, or steps that ould apply to only my computer, because of my system specs (no reason to think it would, but I don't know at all.) Please feel free to email me or send me a message. The sooner I can get the game working, the happier I'll be. Cuz all work and no HoAE makes David a sad boy

David
Hassie54@hotmail.com

PS There is going to be a HoAE 2?? Like Soon? I have 4 computers, this one being my gaming platform, but the game runs sluggishly on my laptop, and the game is great, a 2nd or expansion, or whatever it would be, would in fact make my day

Hello David, don't be sad .
And thank you for the inspiring words, I loved them . As for my relations with the game, I am only a modder. I thought like, why not help people out and promote the game with a mod, so I started the site. Currently I have too much unsettled issues on my plate and I've been silent for about 3 months or so.

You are right, it doesn't matter what spec you have so long as you don't have outa ordinary troubles. Download that mod, it is in alpha state though. Before you install anything, make sure you have HoAE patch 1.1
then,

- Unpack the mod
- Overwrite the existing files
- "if you are not interested in the mod of the game (which adds a new nation - sols and tweaks gameplay)", then
delete/move "mods.gs1".
- download the engine from http://www.riccardodini.altervista.org/download/engine.rar
- overwrite the existing engine and play .

If you do want to play the vanilla version without the bugs the HoAE2 engine can cause, then, you may need to follow the instructions on the Private Message I'll send you. Since this step involves going to great hassles, I recommend the above step, as the vanilla version engine is bit too rough with GTX and 64 bit Windows.

About HoAE 2, well its another story. I have the work in progress version of the game and that's all. The game development was stopped because of lack of profits, so unless they get some profit, I don't think they'll be willing to work on it.

You are welcome . Oh! and btw, great pc configuration .

"A Hopeless heart is the Devil's workshop"

So anyhow, thank you so much on helping me get this fixed. I played for several hours with almost no problems. I did have some problems with setting options, as in they were not staying after I set them and exited to set it to the 1920 x 1080 screen size. Everything went back to default, but I did something and it fixed it.

I don't expect a modder to go out of his/her way to help people run the vanilla version, so I thank you for that, and being a modder myself on several games, more notably Mount and Blade, I understand modding, and that just because you want your game to be done, it takes a lot of programming and work to even get small things to work right, so I have no problem waiting on a Beta, and Final version of your mod. So far the game has been fun, and only stopped playing cuz I got too tired to go on.

Well thanks again, and yah my computer was a great set up when I bought 30 months ago. It's a bit long in the tooth now, altho I have extremely high standards when it comes to my system, and I do pay a premium to get the best parts when, and update often, like with the RAM, Video and Sound.

Well you have a great week and thanks again, I imagine your mod is a fix for everyone with a newer computer that has a nicer PCI Video card, which I imagine will only be more and more people, which means you should start charging 5 bucks a download, you'd make millions

Or maybe not

Thanks again

David

Really happy to hear that you got it working. To fix the "Movie" issue and other issues that may creep up. Do the following steps:
1) Right Click the engine.exe then go to "Properties".
2) Under the Compatibility tab, make sure you run it in compatibility for "Windows XP", with "Disable Desktop Composition" and "Run as Administrator" checked.
3) Apply the settings and play the game. Voila, the Movie should now work, so should saving maps .

And Thank you for your patience.
Have a Great week to you too and Good luck with your modding works

Kind Regards
Flame Master

"A Hopeless heart is the Devil's workshop"