When I click to load pharaoh the screen goes entirely black and the mouse it a loading blue circle, then a quarter of the screen is black and then none of the screen it black and it stops trying to load it

If you have any 3rd party overlay's enabled, such as Shadowplay/Share/Afterburner etc, disable them. They are known to cause problems with loading the game. If you have disabled them, but it still happens, try running in a compatibility mode and as admin to fix it.

Also, installing the widescreen hack can fix a number of peripheral bugs, see this post for the updated one (and a resizer that automates the process for any resolution): http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=14149&p=165662#p165662

Try right clicking on the .EXE, Properties
"Run as Admin" + "Windows98/XP Compatibility" (+ "Disable Scaling" + "Color Rendering 16bit")

When the Game starts for the 1st time, it tries to run in full screen (not windowed) mode at a resolution of 640x480.
Some modern graphics cards and monitors don't like this.
(now often the minimum supported native resolution is 800x600 or even 1024x768)
You can only change these settings from the Mission Menu, but it does not reach it.

The Game saves all settings in the .INF binary file.
There are special .INF sets for changing Game settings bypassing the Menu.
From the most primitive
support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/213038885-Windowed-mode
support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013499854-Pharaoh-Launch-crash
Up to improved
"Resolution Switcher EXEs"
"Windowed mode On or Off EXEs"
sourceforge.net/projects/xjdhdr-random-code/files/Game_related_files/City_Building_Strategy_Games_Series_files /

To run Windowed Mode, it is very important:
1) Color Rendering equal 16bit;
2) Scaling equal 100%;

During game development, Color Rendering was 16bit (Today 32bit);
(the eye of an ordinary person almost does not see the difference)

If you have a laptop or 4K monitor or TV.
Scaling over 100% (125% or 150%) is often used at high screen resolutions.
(this is to make the elements larger and the text to be readable)
Because of this, the picture or buttons are displaced, the mouse click does not fall.

For Windows 10, it is possible to set options only for the Game
(to avoid changes to the entire System)
Right click on the .EXE
Properties =>Compatibility =>LowColorMode =>16bit
Properties =>Compatibility =>HighDPISettings
check the box OverrideScalingBehaviour and "Application"

For Windows 7, you will have to set options of the entire System
Start =>ControlPanel =>Screen =>Resolution =>AdvancedSettings =>Monitor =>Color Quality =>16bit
Start =>ControlPanel =>Screen =>EaseScreenReader =>Small-100%

Overlays are known to interfere with the Game
(we are not talking about overlay-filters from the Game)
Disable overlays or close these programs:
- AMD GPU (delete GPU gaming profile)
- Nvidia GPU (GeForce Experience, Shadowplay as Share)
- AfterBurner, RivaTuner
- Origin (evil, 100%)
- Discord, Skype
- Windows Xbox
- Steam? (Steam overlay doesn't seem to interfere)
- other
Shadowplay, known as Share, must be disabled in the GeForce Experience Settings Panel.
Closing the process in Task Manager will not disable Shadowplay!

Try renaming the "/BINKS" folder
Actually the Game works, but it crashes when try to play Video.
Sometimes the Game works but crashes when trying to play a Video.
This is due to the fact that the Video briefly changes the screen resolution to fit, which may not be available for your monitor.

You need to install DirectX 9.0c on the system
DirectX 9.0с Runtime Pack (June 2010)
www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Regular freezes/crashes of the game are associated with a bug in the playback of sounds.
Especially strong when "Compatibility WindowsXP(sp2/sp3)"
Use "Compatibility Windows95/98"
Or update mss32.dll+Mp3dec.asi (from Zeus+Poseidon v2.1)
CRC32:9BD81E9D mss32.dll (Version:6.0m)
CRC32:FA4BC870 Mp3dec.asi
wdfiles . ru/e11658

Looping audio problem
When you have more than 2 speakers (2.1 or 5.1 or 7.1 sound)
Older games don't know what surround sound is.
Also, modern sound cards can work in surround sound emulation mode.
Download, unpack and copy-paste with replace to game folder.
www.indirectsound.com/downloads.html
Try v12 (EAX=ON) or v14 (EAX=OFF) or v15 (noX3DAudio)
This dsound.dll replaces the native one from DirectX, like a wrapper, reconciles the old with the new.

Spaces and Unicode (umlauts, cyrillic, hieroglyphs) in the path to the Games folder can lead to missing sounds.


More
steamcommunity . com/app/564530/discussions/0/3185737486660609902/