Ok, first my system:

Win 10x64
AMD FX-8350 ~4GHz
AMD R9-390X 8Gb
16Gb DDR3 ram

The game crashes after the intro video plays. The error popup is headed:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

X Runtime Error!

Program B:\Games\Blade of Darkness\Blade.exe

abnormal program termination

The B: drive is an SSD.

I have been through every resource I could find, this forum, gaming wikis, youtube vids etc. and not one solution is working for me. I have DirectPlay installed. I have tried different versions of nGlide, rOpenGL, r3DFX, played around with settings, tried dgVoodoo (latest) again played with settings, tried all the different audio settings from the launcher. Tried every windows compatability settings.

And yes I have renamed the intro video just in case even though it plays just fine.

I suspect I might need to install a particular VC++ runtime package or 2, or maybe one of mine is corrupted, but I can't tell which one, or even if that would solve it.

I remember getting in working acceptably on my old laptop which was Win 7x86. I have watched videos of people playing on Win 10, so it seems like it must be possible. Or perhaps the latest AMD Crimson Relive drivers (which are massively unstable) are simply incompatible with every current solution.

Any help at all would be appreciated.

Enter the game folder and rename the "Video" directory contained in the "Data" directory.

Thanks for the reply dr.schliemann :) unfortunately as I already stated: Besides which it played fine anyway.

The crash happens immediately after that, or simply immediately if it finds no video to play due to moving/renaming it.

I completely missed that part, sorry. :-/

Will look around for other possible solutions, but you seem to have tried the more logical ones. :-/

Again, thanks for the reply. It is reassuring to know that someone at least tried to help.

I would love to get it working but it's no great loss if the current hardware/software environment won't allow it.

I'll just keep trying after driver updates, perhaps the next hardware or OS update, If I ever get it working I will update this thread.

Let's take things in order here. For a start, i see something that can cause troubles in other things expect this game, and this is the letter B: for your SSD. I don't know how u came up with this, but from earlier versions of windows, the letters A&B were always reserved for floppy drives. Keep that in mind.

Now, you need not any VC package, the error is probably due to wrong settings. This game is a bit sensitive with this, so i'll give u some settings to try. First of all keep in mind if u don't know already, that if u choose to play in DX mode, then Vsync through AMD panel will not work, it's only for openGL, so u have to enable it in nglide and set your refresh rate to be sure.

Now, know that the intro video has nothing to do with those crashes, so u can simply delete it and load directly the game, avoiding the unnecessary resolution change for this. When u open the launcher, and select the r3dfx voodoo 1-2, u also select resolution there typically, which is your choice, but in nglide, u must have the same as your desktop.

Now the critical part is always the sound and here u can safely ignore all else but the Milesfast 2d and Directsound 3d Software and never hardware.

These settings must work 98% if not 100% and u should have no problem at all. I use those for many years since i left Win XP and they work either with nvidia or amd, guaranteed since i tested them myself on my own PC.

The only issue i have found so far and was unable to resolve, is that sometimes, game freezes while loading next map selection or next map itself, so u must save often and keep a 2nd desktop enabled to be able to terminate the game from task manager via keyboard.

If for any reason u select openGL which i don't recommend, keep the same sound selection and keep "Vsync on" in amd panel.