Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna (2003) not loading on WinXP SP3

dungeon-siegetechnical-issues

Legends of Aranna is the 2003 expansion for Dungeon Siege, and I have run this for years without incident.

Recently I exchanged my monitor with an identical model, and now DSLOA doesn't run any more. The game tries to load, but the usual partial line of dots appears at lower left of dark screen, "wait" hourglass appears, then absolutely nothing happens.

System info:

  • Compatibility mode: W98/ME. I tried W95 as well but it did not help.
  • OS: WinXP_SP3
  • CPU: Intel quad core
  • Graphics Card: ASUS EAH4870 DK 1G Radeon HD 4870

I even performed System_Restore to the date when I had last played successfully (mid-August), but to no avail. Also, exiting internet connection and all malware blockers makes no difference. The game previously played perfectly well with those in operation.

Best Answer

I ran into this on occasion while playing years ago, and one of two things seemed to fix it.

  1. Set your shortcut parameters to Windowed Mode

While it doesn't seem like anything big, this sometimes seemed to trick the game into loading for me. Once I got in, I was able to save again, remove the parameter, then reload with no issues. Here's how to do it (Tutorial)

  1. Backup your save folder, then completely uninstall and reinstall the game. The default location of you save folder is:

%USERPROFILE% \Documents\Dungeon Siege\Keys\

Once you reinstall, copy you save back in and try loading the game up.

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