Darkwind - Viewing Topic: Loading bar will not move during "downloading data"

Crow
Genocide
Pedestrian
Renegade

Member Level

Group: Members
Posts: 6
Joined: Aug 18, 2009

Hi,

I played this game years ago so I decided to try to give it another spin.

When I try to go into an event, the loading bar stops at ~5% at "Downloading data" & will not move, it will error out. Then I am unable to join another event afterwards.

I have tried almost every Windows compatibility, admin mode, removing read-only access to all folders, moved the game files into "My documents", C: root drive, etc.

Anyone have ideas? Thanks in advance.

......................... vet wv
Posted Mar 6, 2026, 1:35 am

PvtParty
TransMission
Darkwind Guru
Mutants Faction

Member Level

Group: Subscribers
Posts: 717
Joined: Aug 5, 2012

Which graphic mode are you running in? Options > Graphics > Display Driver - maybe try switching to the other option.

Also, are any of the tickboxes below that control selected?

Not sure how often Sam (or anyone who might know) checks this forum. If you have Discord, it might be worth asking on there - Sam's generally on there daily.

......................... vet wv ss2fl67 pvp5 paintball pvp3 pvp2
Posted Mar 6, 2026, 8:53 am

RANXEROX
Edwins Bedouins
Sunday Driver
Badlands Truckstop Faction

Group: Subscribers
Posts: 77
Joined: Feb 3, 2022

Start the game from the launcher with run as administrator. when you get a windows error message, write it down. go to the microsoft knowledge base and search for that error code, it will give you a link to a missing driver or update. you may have to do this as many as 10 times to get all the updates.

This game sues stuff that no one game or application uses anymore due to the age of the software, so they don't get downloaded in windows update and can't be found through windows update.

I have had to do this on a few systems to get them to run Dark-Wind.

FYI darkwind does not like Radeon GPUs

......................... vet wv paintladder pvp5 pvp4 pvp2
Posted Mar 28, 2026, 2:26 pm