I have installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, tried to verify...the game will not start at all. Everytime, the screen goes black and then I get the crash message that it has closed. I am running it as an administrator, checked my antivirus, all is green except the game. I need some assistance.

i have same problem just bought it it wont start did you ever figure it out?

Me too. But mine gets stuck on "Loading..." Alright. I got it figured out from reading around. The game has difficulty loading Direct 3D resources in fullscreen mode. So you have to play it in Windowed mode, full screen (in the graphics options).

I did it and it started playing fine right away.

Same problem here.

Ogre.log says:

17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BlurH_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: High-level program BlurH_ps20_hlsl encountered an error during loading and is thus not supported.
OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BlurH_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader Blur_vs11_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: High-level program Blur_vs11_hlsl encountered an error during loading and is thus not supported.
OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader Blur_vs11_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BlurV_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: High-level program BlurV_ps20_hlsl encountered an error during loading and is thus not supported.
OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BlurV_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader Bloom2_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: High-level program Bloom2_ps20_hlsl encountered an error during loading and is thus not supported.
OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader Bloom2_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(2:InvalidParametersException): Named constants have not been initialised, perhaps a compile error. in GpuProgramParameters::_findNamedConstantDefinition at ..\..\OgreMain\src\OgreGpuProgramParams.cpp (line 1709)
17:05:14: Compiler error: invalid parameters in bloom.material(311): setting of constant failed
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(2:InvalidParametersException): Named constants have not been initialised, perhaps a compile error. in GpuProgramParameters::_findNamedConstantDefinition at ..\..\OgreMain\src\OgreGpuProgramParams.cpp (line 1709)
17:05:14: Compiler error: invalid parameters in bloom.material(312): setting of constant failed
17:05:14: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BrightBloom2_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)
17:05:14: High-level program BrightBloom2_ps20_hlsl encountered an error during loading and is thus not supported.
OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): Cannot assemble D3D9 high-level shader BrightBloom2_ps20_hlsl in D3D9HLSLProgram::loadFromSource at ..\..\..\RenderSystems\Direct3D9\src\OgreD3D9HLSLProgram.cpp (line 284)