Troubleshooting Guide

If you are experiencing problems with Dungeon Keeper 2 then help may be found here. Please also refer to the Readme.txt file on the game CD, the reference card and the manual supplied for extra help and guidance.

We have recently received reports of problems encountered when attempting to run Dungeon Keeper 2. Most of the problems we have seen relate to bad, outdated or incorrectly installed drivers. Though we do not produce the drivers, and we must therefore recommend that you consult your driver manufacturer's FAQ, we have included a section in this FAQ to point out the common problems.

Question: Dungeon Keeper 2 keeps crashing at seemingly random places in the game. It will sometimes play for a couple of hours before crashing.

Answer: We have seen this happen for three reasons:

• Memory Resident Programs. This seems to be the number one cause of game crashes once correct drivers are installed. We recommend you close down all applications before playing DK2. To ensure that there are no memory resident programs, you should press CTRL-ALT-DELETE before going into the game, and ‘end tasking’ any unnecessary programs. Systray is usually the only program you need running but please consult your computer’s documentation to establish which memory resident programs you require.
• Disk State. Disk fragmentation naturally occurs over time when large amounts of data are being stored, copied, moved, juggled and erased – a very likely scenario for users who install and uninstall games software on a regular basis. Use Windows Scandisk and/or Windows Disk Defragmenter to clean up your disk drive. These can be found in the Accessories | System Tools section of the Windows Start Menu.

• Overclocking. You should be aware that if you overclock your machine then you are operating outside the chip manufacturer’s recommended specifications. We have found that overclocking causes overheating and errors when running DK2. This can result in crashes.

Question: I am experiencing frequent crashes in the game.

Answer: This is likely to be an outdated graphics or sound driver. To establish which driver needs replacing use the command line switch –nosound. See the section on adding command line switches at the end of the FAQ if you are unsure how to do this. If this resolves the problem then it is likely to be the sound driver that needs replacing. If you continue to experience problems then it is likely to be the graphics driver. To enable sound again, just remove the –nosound command line switch.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I have an ATI Rage 128 and DK2 seems to crash frequently, or will not load.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I have a Matrox Millennium I / Millennium II / Mystique and DK2 will not load. The DK2 banner appears on the desktop, then I wait a long time until, finally, the screen goes blank and eventually quits to the desktop.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I have a Voodoo 1 / Voodoo 2 / Banshee and the game will either crash straight away or intermittently.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I have an AGP Voodoo3 with an LX motherboard: the game will not run and quits to Windows.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I have a Riva TNT and find the game will not load.

Question: When using –nosound I’m still experiencing problems. I can see funny pixels on my ATI or Intel 740 based card, etc.

Answer: Use the command line switch -disablegamma. New drivers may also fix the gamma interpretation problem on your card.

Question: DK2 seems to be working fine – I get movies and so on – but crashes when the actual levels load. Is this because I don’t have MMX?

Answer: If you have a 3D card, make sure that the Graphics Options are set to make use of it. The Hardware Acceleration option should show a ticked box. If it doesn’t, try right / left-clicking on the Driver options below to cycle through to the right driver option. Setting this option manually may need to be repeated on some machines, as there seems be a problem with recognising the correct default graphics options for certain configurations.

Question: I have been playing DK2, and it was fine at first, but after a while it just stopped working and refused to play.

Answer: Until the exact nature of this issue is resolved, we have a work-around for machines that exhibit the problem. Download this small registry program and double-click on it to initiate a registry update. This should solve the problem whenever your game stops working.

Question: Using –nosound seems to fix my problem, but I’d like sound back! I have an Aureal-based Sound card and I get a popping noise in Dungeon Keeper 2. Also, the game sometimes crashes.

Other solutions that may help the stability of your card involve modifying the game's options:

1. Go to the main menu

2. Click on options

3. Click on sound options

4. Try changing the sound quality to Low in the in-game options -this has cured some problems seen.

Question: Using –nosound seems to fix my problem, but I’d like sound back! I have a SBLive-based Sound card and the game keeps crashing.

If you have an "SBLive Value" then we would recommend disabling Environmental Audio EAX Support through the game options:

1. Go to the main menu

2. Click on options

3. Click on sound options

4. Then, if you have an option for Environmental Effects, make sure the tick box is unselected.

This will disable the Environmental Audio Extensions, or EAX, which seem to be causing problems with this card. If this does not work, try changing the sound quality to Low in the in-game options this has also cured some problems.

Question: Using –nosound seems to fix my problem, but I’d like sound back! I have a Maestro sound chip on my motherboard. DK2 crashes after the first level and seems unstable.

Question: I have the latest Drivers and I’m still having crash problems with Dungeon Keeper 2.

Answer: Assuming that you have tried all the suggestions in this FAQ, you may find that either the drivers you have are bugged or there was a problem installing the drivers. We have noticed problems where people attempt to install new drivers and are prompted by Windows to keep the files they already have, because the files they are trying to install are older. This may be because you have previously installed a beta driver. Please make sure that you replace all these files when prompted, or else you may find that you have not actually replaced the problematic part of the driver.

Question: I installed Dungeon Keeper 2 it seemed to work fine. I have since changed my graphics / video card etc. and now it will not run.

Answer: This seems to be a problem where DK2 is not checking for these new cards when it loads. Uninstalling Dungeon Keeper 2 and re-installing should solve the problem.

Question: The game works, but the cut-scenes and movies are 'choppy'.

Answer: Some CD drives seem to be experiencing difficulties when playing the DK2 movies. One work-around for this is to skip the intro video, go straight to the main menu and then open and close the CD door. The video should now play smoothly.

Answer: Please mail EA's support department

The Customer Service department will provide assistance as soon as they can. We will need as much information as you can provide on both the technical specifications of your machine and the drivers that you are using. DK2 supports a huge range of sound and graphics hardware, and relies on the user installing the recommended drivers for that hardware. Nevertheless, it greatly concerns us that some players have been unable to enjoy DK2 because of such problems, and we are therefore dedicated to helping and advising our customers with any technical support or information that we can provide. Furthermore, we are continuing to investigate all technical difficulties reported to us, and we will be updating this FAQ regularly whenever we discover any new or relevant information that may assist those still experiencing difficulties.

To add command line switchs to Dungeon Keeper 2 simply:

1. Open the Windows Start Menu and select RUN to open a dialogue box.
2. Type in the name and location of the DK2.exe program file, or use the browser to locate it, or use right-click on the program file to discover this information in its Properties. Simpler still, if you followed the installer's default options regarding where to install the game, then you can either copy the following exactly, or use cut and paste to place it in the RUN windows dialogue box: "C:\Program Files\Bullfrog\Dungeon Keeper II\DKII.exe"
3. Add the option to the end of the command-line, after the quotes, always leaving a space before each command-line option. For example: "C:\Program Files\Bullfrog\Dungeon Keeper II\DKII.exe" -disablegamma -nosound

Alternatively, you can create a shortcut to DKII.exe, open the shortcut's Properties and add the options to the command-line in the Shortcut dialogue box.