Age of Conan, being a new game, potentially Dx10, is a very demanding game, and as such, most older computers will have alot of trouble running it; so much that most computers cant even get to the options screen to tone down the graphics in question, leaving you stuck at a black screen, or a view of mountians...with flags (like me).
We're gonna fix that by manually selecting graphics options, and turning off shaders.
(1) First, you need to enable hidden folders: (Winxp only, sorry!)
Go to My Computer and click on Tools -> Folder Options -> View and check "Show Hidden Files and Folders." Click apply and close out
(2) Next, you need to Navigate to your C:/Documents and Settings folder. Open up the user folder (the one you are currently logged into), and go to Local Settings -> Application Data -> Funcom -> Conan. You should see an XML file named Prefs. Open it up in notepad.
(3) Now do a search (Ctrl + F) and find ShaderModel.
(4) You should now see
Code:
<Value name="RenderSetting_ShaderModel" value="1" />
Change the Value for "1" to "0" This will disable shaders, one of the most graphic-intensive aspects of Conan.
(5) Open up Conan.
(6) ?????
(7) Profit.