Just quick guide to make the game WORK (it crashes or works slow if you just press the green "PLAY" button on steam)

(pressing play on steam made the game crash for me so i had to find a solution --- its all here - easy fix quick guide to just start playing :)

To quickly say what we gonna be doing -- we just gonna use the shortcuts in the game folder instead of pressing play on steam - no need to modify anything - youre just using the executables of the game directly from the game folder instead of pressing play on steam - thats the fix in a nutshell - now the step by step guide is down here for a quick fix to just get you going playing ASAP :)

Step by step easy fix:
->>

1) Instead of pressing play on Steam to play Populous the beginning - dont do that - cause steam uses the exe very often and for most people makes the game crash or be slow/laggy ... instead of that right click on "Populous the beginning" inside steam in the games list inside your library tab in steam - (" right click>properties>browse files> "" to find your game folder, and be inside the game folder in your windows

( or manually go in the folder of "Populous the beginning" on steam from steam) (usually is " C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Populous 3\ " folder ) )

2) once youre inside the game folder use the executables D3DPopTB.exe and D3DPopTBUW.exe to play the game instead - dowble click on one of them to launch the game

3) Note that on some PCs the 3 different pop3 executables without "D3D" works better than the ones with D3D ... just try them all see which ones work better on your system --- keep in mind that the game will keep crashing if you press the normal green stem "PLAY" button next time you wanna play so lets now create shortcuts on your desktop to make the game always work when you click those shortcuts on your desktop instead of the steam "PLAY" button :)

4) The Game consists of 2 games(each gonna have its own game saves), "Pop3" and "PopTB" there is 2 versions for each of this separate game - ones that uses D3D version and the ones without D3D (Pop3 and PopTB), you can use the exe directly from the folder by opening the folder each time or you can create shortcuts to your desktop to your favorite executables from the game folder (right click on each exe and click on "create shortcut> send to desktop to save shortcuts to your desktop),


5) you can create shortcuts for the D3DPopTB.exe and D3DPopTBUW.exe or your favourite shortcuts from the game folder (and pop3 PopTB if they work better for you), or click them manually to start the game from the folder every time but is much esier to make shortcuts on desktop to use
(ive made shortcuts to all of them, sometime D3D works better sometime the normal Pop3 and PopTB work better ... find ones that work best for you, i just make shortcuts for all of them and if one dosnt work for any reason can use the other.

5) just to remind and make sure DONT use the steam "play" green button cause it always crashes or makes the game lag in my experience (can always try of course but it crashes) , always use the shortcuts now made on your desktop or exes directly from the game folder as shown.

this is it to make the game work!

enjoy !



will add more section with more tips on how to make the game work better -
leave a comment if any tips to make the game work better - can leave a rating or award if you want to support this - is greatly appreciated, I gonna keep updating this as i find more mods or fixes to make the game better/ more playable / better running -cheers :)


--Bonus tip for online: If you want to play online in 2024+ just google "Populous reincarnated matchmaker" its a free mod that allows you to play against other players online with this version of the game from steam as well as the original game (this free mod also grant a bunch of upgrades and quality of life fixes (like better game commands, better game resolutions, graphics and more) for the game so you might want to check it out to make the game even better :)