I can't believe my luck.
I just bought the PC version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Partially because I have heard nothing but good from my buds, partially because I heard it's the only PC game to ever recieve ten out of ten from the Electric Playground.

I read the manual. That's a disturbing amount of moves.

I installed it. That took a while.

I ran it.


Nothing happened.

All I get is a gray screen. I can't even alt-tab my way out. No music, no graphics. NOTHING.

70 bucks for a blank screen. Egad, that's annoying.

Personally, I think it's the RAM. The min is 256 megs. My PC has 224 or 226, don't remember which. Even if I had somehow known this in the store, I would have thought "Well, Morrowind needs 256, and it runs just fine, 'cept for the occasional crash." Turns out that 256 is the Elder Scrolls III's recommened RAMage. Minimum is 128.

The really Ironic thing? Almost a year ago, I believe I posted a similar topic about Grand Theft Auto III. This computer has 64 megs RAM. GTA3 needs 96. That, in all honesty, was the major driving force behind my buying the new computer. It's not even a year old. I'm nowhere near being rich enough to buy a new one.

What the hell am I going to do? (partially rhetorical question.)

Anyone here suffered under similar circumstances? Misery loves company. The <EXPLETIVE DELETED> thing was only the best game in history anyway... :(

RAM is a lot cheaper than a new computer... Find out what kind your computer takes and buy some.

...And find a patch for the game; the textures of the start screen cannot be so big that they could fill over 200 MB of RAM, so the fault must be somewhere else. Just in case: update everything!

One word, drivers. 95% of errors are from drivers so sayeth Pc Powerplay. What operating system are you running, that could also be it though I doubt it.

edit: Maybe it's you'r video card, how much ram does it have cause I'm betting you'll need at least 64mb.