Failed to initialise 3D Engine

I just installed the emo and everytime i try to run it i get the following error:
“Failed to initialise 3D Engine:…\src\Game.cpp 321”
This is the ERROR report line for today:
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - WARNING: Desktop Screen Resolution is below MinScreenHeight
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - CreateDevice
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - CreateDevice failed again
7/4/2012 - 20::27 - Failed to initialise 3D Engine:…\src\Game.cpp 321

how can i fix this?

G’Day filippe and welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

Just reading the error message and i have a quick question:

  • Are you trying to run GSB on a on a tablet / micro PC or something with a really tiny screen ?

Because i would say whatever your trying to run it on, the screen resolution is below the minimum the game engine can handle:

Oh thanks,i’ll enjoy being here
this screen has 1024x600 and the minimum required for most games 1024x768 but so far i didn’t have the same problem with other games, yes this is a NETbook.

Hmm, ok - there may be a way to tell GSB what your resolution is. . .

  • Navigate to \My Documents\My Games\GratuitousSpaceBattles\
  • open prefs.ini
  • change the data in prefs.ini to look like this

[prefs] width = 1024 height = 600 windowed = 1 sound_channels = 512

  • Run GSB

see if that works . .

Well i don’t have that file in folder( the files i have are Fmodex.dll, GSB.exe, GSB Manual.pdf, readme.txt) but i tried creating it, and editing it as you said, no difference, running as admin or normal.
i found the true file and edited as you said and it worked!!! awesome thanks

From the sounds of that discription i would say you were looking at the Game folder.

When GSB installs it creates 2 locations:

  • Game Directory ← This is where you place your mods
  • User Profile ← This is where the game saves your uber ship designs (and keeps the game settings)

You need to find where your user profile is kept. On the system i run (ancient PC runing winXP) its located in:
C:\Documents and Settings<>\My Documents\My Games\GratuitousSpaceBattles

You will know that your in the right place when you see other files like met.ini and unl.dat and folders such as \ships and \debug