Foreword
Ever since I installed the Windows 10 insider preview, I was curious to get things running that worked fine on earlier Windows editions but refused to work on 10. While most programs and even drivers that are compatible with Windows 8.x just work out-of-the-box on Windows 10, there’s a quite huge group of casual games (i.e. hidden object games) that just don’t seem to work.
The problem
Monitoring the games forums at Big Fish Games, a lot of people are complaining that even some of the most recent titles just don’t work for them. When trying to launch the program, they get an error like the following one:
| Error: Access violation at 0x00000000 (tried to read from 0xFFFFFFFF), program terminated |
This problem is currently quite specific to tiles produced by ERS Games, however it could affect games by other developers as well. The customer support gives general troubleshooting advice but no specific aid (or even acknowledgement) regarding these problems.
Fortunately, Big Fish Games provides demo versions of their games to try them before you buy. I was therefore able to download some of the titles for which users report the above problems.
The (possible) cause
My PC is not the latest high-end machine, rather a somewhat dated notebook (it originally shipped with Windows XP, was later sold with Vista, so you can do the math…). However, it is still in a good condition and has enough power to do the everyday stuff as well as running most casual games to date. While I was still running Windows 8.1, I had no problems with titles from ERS Games, they all worked like a charm so the hardware, although being old, is capable enough to support those games. But on Windows 10: nothing… I get exactly the same error message as so many people are complaining about. Of course I first tried the usual steps: compatiblity mode, run as administrator, disable background services, check for driver updates, install C++ runtimes, DirectX, Java, and so on. But all to no avail.
Then I had an idea. Like I said above, my PC is dated but usually still poweful enough. The main bottleneck is the integrated graphics card. It is a Mobile Intel® 945GM Express Chipset. Upon installation of Windows 10, this device has been detected automatically and Windows installed it’s included driver – how comfortable. The device manager showed no problem and the graphics card worked as expected. Almost. Because, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. Some further research showed, that while Windows 10 includes the drivers for this graphics card, it only includes a stripped down version of the driver package from Intel. The integrated search for an updated driver showed that I already had the latest available version installed.
The solution
Looking at the Intel download-center, I found 945GM drivers for x86 and x64 Windows up to version 7, all newer editions don’t seem to be supported by Intel anymore. However, I just downloaded the latest driver for Windows 7 (x64) (x86) for the Intel 945GM Express Chipset and installed it on my machine. Installation went flawless, at the beginning I was asked if I really want to replace a newer version of the driver that is already installed with an older one. I answered “yes”, and some minutes and a reboot later, my PC was using the older but complete Windows 7 drivers for my graphics card.
The result
After having “downgraded” the graphics driver, the games that refused to work before now run without further problems. I don’t even need compatiblity mode or any other tricks anymore.
Further thoughts
Although this post is currently quite specific to games from ERS Games and to Intel 945GM Express graphics devices, it might be useful in other combinations as well. I’m quite sure, Microsoft included further stripped down packages of graphics drivers in Windows 10 so it’s worth to have a look at the download area of your graphics card manufacturer. As older devices usually don’t receive further support, you might need to look for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1-drivers which might work on Windows 10. Some drivers do need to be installed in compatiblity mode.
Here are some links to the download areas of the most common graphic card manufacturers:
A word of warning
Installing new drivers, especially ones for core components like the graphics card and even more drivers that were made for an older version of Windows can be quite dangerous. In the worst case your display might just stay blank or your PC might not boot at all. So you should have a recent backup at hand, any method of recovery (bootable CD, USB-Stick, …) and maybe some knowledge how to boot into safe mode of Windows 10. There are a number of tutorials on how to enter safe mode, one of them being this one which is quite detailed.
Please note that I can not be held responsible for any damage that may be caused due to this guide. However, if you encounter any problems, feel free to comment this blogpost and I’ll try my best to help.
