GRRR!!! I have been having a really, really, REALLY, bad time with this game! Whenever I try to play the Conquer the World Campaign it acts like it will be fine it loads bt as soo as i try to take ove a county the game quits and says
"Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
Program: ...rogram Files\Microsoft Games\Rise of Nations\nations.exe


abnormal program termination"
Frist off, what the heck does that mean, second do any of you know how I can fix it? I been trying all day! And third but not least, what does the degauss button do/mean and why does it look so cool when i push it?
Well if you can answer any/all of these questions I would be very very apreciative. Anywho its 11:00 o'clock and i have finals next week so i gotta go!
Regards,
Pkiff

As for the game need some system specs as it works fine for me under windows XP pro.

The degaus botton basicly reset the polarity of all the pixals so to speek. IE if you had say a magnet near the screen for a while and a spot on the screen ad gone a little red degaus would (Well hopefully) fix it for you.

One question did you reboot after you installed it I had a problem with Rise of Nations before I rebooted (Course it rebooted my machine for me .. ).

In addition to the specs listed above i also have a 32 meg Nvidia TNT2 video card. Ihad always wondered what the magical degauss button did. I knew it had to do with magnents but i wasn't sure what.
Thanks a bunch!
pkiff

Personally I would upgrade the RAM on your system first. Besides, I get blue screens from time to time playing Rise of Nations and I happen to have over 1 gig of ram.

hehe didn't see it it was early yet for me..

Try see if there is an upgrade to your bios. Possible upgrade the Video card (drivers and or the Card .. ).. The game ran perfectly for me no Blue Screens nothing.. Upgrading your drivers for your motherboard might help as well. I only have 512 ram so not sure if ram is totaly the problem course more ram can never hert . Try turnning of any thing that you have running in the back groud.

There was a patch released today, you might want to try that. Try as I may, I have not seen a changelog yet.

http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/riseofnations/ronpatch.exe.html

That site, 3D Gamers, reports the version as 1.01, but after the patch is applied, the version is 1.14, for reference.

The patch didn't work. Thanks anyways though. I have already upgraded all my drivers with the exception of BIOS and motherboard. After trying these things I will post back.

These are the system requirements off amazon.

"500 MHz or faster processor
128 MB RAM
16 MB video card"

You are using the bare minimum in two out of three of these. Software (especially games) rarely run well at the minimum reqirements.

yeah i would try lowering every detail to low then try it, and if it doesnt work then it is probably due to invalid sys reqs.

It is true that I am using the bare minimum for two of the requirements, but even the bare minimums should still allow the game to run! Anyways, Microsoft Support, in all its great wisdom, pinned the problem on the missing 1 megahert. I can't believe it. Well, I guess its all up to you guys to try and fix the problem. I really shouldn't be that surprised though, this isn't the first time this has happened. (and the last time you guys pulled through ) Well I tried turning all the settings to low and that didn't help. But, thanks anyways. I will try and dink around and see what helps. Ill keep you posted.
Pkiff

I was having the same problem with rise of nations, and i did this and i got rid of the freezing up of the game. Here is what i did.
my computer specs:
asus a8n-sli deluxe motherboard
amd athlon(tm)64 processor 3700+, mmx, 3dnow,~2.2ghz
Nvidia geforce 6200 turbocache(tm) video card 256 mb
sound blaster 2 audigy sound card
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Memory,latencies of 2-3-3-6
seagate 250 gig sata hard drive

Let me first state that it is important to ensure that you have the latest graphics and directx drivers. and this solution refers to people who have a nvidia graphics card;
1. Right click on your desktop and hit properties in that box.
2. You will now see the display properties box, chose settings and in your "color quality" section chose (highest 32 bit).
3. Next hit the "advance" button that is just below the color quality option. A new window opens up and you will see an option tab with the name of your video card, hit that tab.
4. You should now see some information about your processor, etc. there is a little tab on the left about midway on this window, hit it, or if by default it is already open, you should see this bit of info; + 'name of your graphics card' and + desktop management and then below that you will see menu editing.
5. hit the plus (+) that shows the name of your graphics card, and you will see a list of options, chose the option that states "performance and quality settings."
6. on the botton of the big window you should see a box with a check mark in it that says - application control. you must uncheck that box.
7. Just above that uncheched box you should see "global driver settings", in the section that says 'view', by default it is set to basic, chose the option for advance.
8. just under that option box you will see a list of options to chose from, select the option that says- Antialiasing settings.
9. you will now see the options of the antiialiasing settings at the bottom of this same window which should look like this:-
off___________2x_________2xq_________4x.
move the slider to 2x or 2xq.
10. next in the section for the 'global driver settings' hit the "image settings" option.
11. You should now see some options at the bottom of the window which should look like this:-
high performance________performance______quality____high quality.
by default it should be quality, move the slider to the performance option.
12. Now hit the apply button and then hit ok.

This should remedy your pc game freeze. by chosing the performne option more of your computers resources will be used for the games, but if your computer isn't powerful, you might have to chose the "high performance" option.