Christofurious
10-11-2007, 05:58 PM
I'm trying to get a friend of mine started on EQ2. He had fun playing when we used my laptop, but when we try to get it to work on his computer, he's out of luck. Irony of ironies, if it wasn't for him having troubles getting the game going a few years ago, I would not be playing. When it didn't work on his computer, he gave me the CDs and I started my account and the rest is history (I ended up having to get my own CDs due to the serial number, but its what got me interested in the first place).Anyway, enough of the history...here's what we've done and what happens when he tries it.We downloaded the patcher from the eq2 site that has it, installed the patcher, let it update, tried my account to see if it would let us in...and nope, it didn't work. What happens, step by step is this:Double click the Everquest 2 icon on desktop, start menu, or the eq2.exe file in program files...screen goes black for a second, then comes back with the SOE screen (little black box with SOE in the middle, before it goes to the eq2 patcher), but after the screen went black, it came back as 640 x 480 resolution and 8 bit color.After a few seconds like that, it goes black and then goes back to his normal resolution and color settings and brings up the login screen for eq2.We log in with either my account or his newly created 14 day trial account, it brings up the EULA, we click accept.Right after clicking accept, the screen goes black again for a second and comes back up as 640 x 480 and 8 bit color again...and it shows the patcher checking and/or downloading the files.After a few seconds, the screen goes black again and reverts back to his normal resolution and color settings.By this time, it has finished checking and/or downloading files and the Play button lights up.We click play...and get one of the infamous Directx errors (which unfortunately I can't remember the exact one at the moment)We've searched the web and forums on the error and tried the various things they suggest (uninstalling video drivers, using a driver cleaner program, reinstalling video drivers, checking various settings in this and that...I know, I'm a lot of help here!), but nothing we do seems to work. Earlier today, he downloaded the Play the Fae trial, and we were both surprised that it worked. He was able to create an Arasai and play around in Darklight Woods. So, forgive my ignorance on this, but what is the difference in how the full game version and the trial enter the game, and why does one work and one not? It just seems like we are so close to getting it working right if he's able to play the trial. When we were searching on the Directx error, it didn't seem like anyone else was having the problem with it changing the screen resolution to 640x480 8bit color...or at least it wasn't mentioned. Has anyone else seen this? I'll see what I can do about getting his dxdiag info it that helps.