Hi,

I just did the pre-buy for the Diplomacy expansion to SoSE and SoSE:Entrenchment. As part of this transaction, I was given a download of the Diplomacy beta. I downloaded it, and after it downloaded and installed, I was given the option of running the program. I did, and it blanked out the screen, as SoSE and Entrenchment do (I run them full screen, 1920 X 1200 on a Dell 2407WFP). However, the graphics that start up the game never appear, and I lose control of the system (i.e. I have to power off the system, it does not respond to Crtl-Alt-Del to bring up the taak manager, or to Alt-TAB to allow me to change windows), and I have to power the system down. Figuring this may be something that required me to restart the system, I power up the system (getting the standard Windows "System was not shutdown properly" warning screen), clicking on "start the system normally" and Windows comes back up fine. I try to restart Diplomacy, same thing (screen blanks out, need to power down the system with the power switch, etc.). SoSE and SoSE:Entrenchment run fine, and show no outstanding patches on Impulse.

System is:

Mainboard: Intel DG33FB, Bios version is DPP3510J.86A.0572.2009-0715.2346

CPU: Intel Q6600, 2.4GHz

RAM: 8GB DDR2-800

Video Card: EVGA nVidia 8600GT OC, 256MB GDDB3 (685 GPU Clock, 810MHz memory, 1500MHz Shader), PCI-E X 16 slot.

Video Drivesrs are nVidia Forceware 191.07

OS: Vista Ultimate 64 bit, SP2, Build 6002. Windows Update shows no outstanding updates.

Kostas