The game does not play....

Spark

I am trying to play a game, it installs all the files etc allright but after that when I click on the icon to play the game, I end up with a black screen, I wait a while but nothing happen, and nothing I try on the keyboard work, I have to call the task manager and restart to get rid of the black screen.
I have tried the game on two computers but it does the same on both.
Have I bought a defective game?

Baldur

Do both computers meet (at least) the minimum system requirements shown for the game?

fox2319

More information might be useful. What game is it and what sort of spec is the computer?

Spark

The game is scrabble 2003 edition, I first tried it on my samsung NC10 as I am trying to find little games for it and I bought that game for my netbook, I thought about the fact that my netbook specs might not be suited for it, but then I tried it on my desktop which is an Intel core 2 duo E6400 with 1024mbmemory and nVidia 7600GT graphics card, and found strange that I couldn't play the game on it as the minimum specs for the game is : OS 98-ME-XP, PII 400 Mhz, memory 64MB, 3Dcard 16MB, direct X version 8.1, DVD/CD-Rom 4X, Direct sound compatible, 350MB hard drive.
Unless it had become incompatible with XP SP3.

Jaffa.

That sort of thing normally happens when the disk is scratched, the screen will go black while it checks you have the disk in the drive and because it can not read from the disk it stays black. Is the cd drive light on when the black screen comes up?

Spark

I couldn't see on my desktop as the tower is under my desk, but when it was on my netbook my cd drive didn't lit up, as you said, when the black screen was on.
If it's that, why can it read the files and install them, then stop reading the disk once I want to play the game?

fox2319

Couple of things: Check for patches and driver updates to make sure you've got the latest version of everything.

However, it sounds like it could be down to the game trying to run in an unsupported resolution. (presumably both machines have LCD monitors) The link below goes to a page where someone had the same problem, they had some luck by shutting down all other apps but otherwise not sure what to suggest,

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-305706.html

Spark

Thanks for the link, it seems as if I want to play that game I have to switch everything else off, not worth the hassle in my opinion.
Someone gave that game to me, so I am not losing anything.
Thanks again.

Pitchshifter

Online Scrabble is even better. No installation required.
http://www.lexulous.com/solitaire_lexulous.php