Schrullenhaft

If you delete your CM prefs file (in the C:\PROGRAM FILES\CMBO directory) what do you see on the screen when you first attempt to run CM ? It should be a black screen with white/white-blue text on it describing your resolution and what display adapter you're using. Does it say anything about "primary display" ? I'm not sure what the Voodoo-based accelerator cards are supposed to see below the resolution when they initialize CM. Somebody who is using a Voodoo2-based card could hopefully answer this one. What version of DirectX are you running ? Since you are playing some other games I can assume that you are running v. 6.1 or later. You may want to consider updating your DirectX version if it isn't 7.0a (though it's no guarantee that this is what is stopping the 3D graphics from initializing): Microsoft DirectX 7.0a: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=16819 Looking at ATI's website if you have a card based on any of the mach64 series Windows98 has the latest drivers included. So you are up to date in that sense (if your 2D card made a difference here). BTW you are using a passthrough card, your Orchid Righteous is using an external cable to map the display onto its video signal. The combo board is the Banshee-based products where the Voodoo2 features where combined with 2D display features for a single video card. You may want to load up your DirectX diagnostic (C:\Program Files\DirectX\Setup\DxDiag.exe) and check out the Display tab. I'm not sure what options you'll have here, because apparently they can be modified by your video card's DirectX driver. Some of the functions you will have here include DirectDraw, Direct3D and AGP support (which you probably aren't using to my knowledge). If these features are enabled then the disabled button will be raised, while the enabled button will appear as plain text with no button border. You may want to experiment with these settings to see if CM will load with any of them disabled. You may also have some options in the Display control panel regarding your Voodoo2. I'm not sure what they'll look like, but you may want to experiment with some of the settings (possibly turn off Glide support if it is an option).

I've heard some monitors make a "screeching" sound when they are being run at a resolution that they "dislike" for some reason or another. In the case of a monitor here at work it will screech at a low resolution/refresh rate, but the higher ones seem OK and noise free. It may just be a case of running a certain resolution that is causing the Horizontal Output Transistor/Flyback assembly or possibly the power supply to screech. Since CM is cycling through resolutions (until you pick one) this may be the case. Otherwise it is probably indicative that one of your components is heating up abnormally and emitting noise, which may eventually lead to a failed component (which is unknown at this point). Probably not much you can do other than to make sure that the ventilation grille on top of the monitor isn't blocked. You may want to direct some air (with a fan) into the vents to see if the screeching stops too. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-12-2000).]

You're going to need to find out exactly which model of Gigabyte motherboard you have (i.e. - GA-5AA, GA-5AX, etc.). Also check out the revision/PCB of the board too (it will usually be silk-screened on the motherboard, quite often near the model number or near any of the edges). This is important since you have to use a particular version of the BIOS upgrade or you may not be able to use it if your board is an older revision/PCB. On your initial BIOS startup screen (where the memory is counted) you should usually get an indication of which BIOS version you have. Gigabyte's English website: http://www.giga-byte.com/gigabyte-web/newindex.htm Most of the BIOS updates probably won't address your problems. If you do decide to update your BIOS be very careful. I'd suggest disabling your internal & external cache in your CMOS before updating your BIOS (you can re-enable it afterwards). The other issue, which may actually factor into your problem is updating the VXDs for your ALI chipset. ALI's website: http://www.ali.com.tw/eng/support/driver.shtml Pay close attention to the numbers on your chipset (I believe you'll have the 1541/42 Alladin V chipset). Download the AGP v. 1.68 driver and the AGP Utility (to be applied after the AGP driver). Hopefully this patch may help with your problem. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-12-2000).]

Blackwood - I believe the low-end/older Matrox cards (old Millenium series and G200) have some transparency problems with their drivers/hardware. I believe the same thing goes for the Voodoo 2 series (I can't recall exactly if any newer drivers addressed these issues or not). The TNT2 on the other hand should have worked fine. One of the better sites to get drivers from (including ones that aren't officially released yet) is Reactor Critical. http://www.reactorcritical.com

Yep, you're going to have a problem running CM on NT (unless it's Windows 2000 - and even then...). NT 4.0 max's out on DirectX 3.0. I've seen some hacked "patches" out there that supposedly allow you to fool a game as to what version of DirectX is on NT, but I have no idea how well they will work. My guess is that it will not work as CM will use newer DirectX calls than are supported by DirectX 3 (even if it is patched to tell an application that it is v. 6.1): Reactor Critical - setdx6.zip (near bottom): http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml If you really want to play this game then you're going to need a Win98/95 partition on your machine. I have no idea if this will be possible for you or not.

Do you know what version of DirectX you have ? One easy way to find out is to go to C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIRECTX\SETUP\DXDIAG.EXE. The first tab should usually tell you what version you have (some earlier versions of DirectX may have a different executable instead of DXDIAG.EXE it may be SETUP.EXE). You need DirectX 6.1 or later to play CM. Microsoft DirectX 7.0a: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=16819 You may also need to check your video driver to see if it is the latest version. Some older cards may be supported by the DirectX install (these will usually be the 4Mb of video memory and less cards). It is possible that your current video driver doesn't support DirectX very well. Hopefully you will find a driver between DirectX and the card/chipset manufacturer.

Delete your CM prefs file in the c:\program files\cmbo directory. When you launch CM again it should ask you the resolution to run at (it will usually display your current running resolution first and then go down from there). Do you only have one video card in your system ? The "resolution selection" screen should say "primary display" or something to that effect along with the listed resolution. I'm not sure if these screens will mention "software" on them or not if they are set for software-based rendering. I assume you have at least DirectX 6.1 installed (if you have Windows98 2nd Edition, it is installed with that OS, the first edition of Windows98 has DirectX 5.0). If you don't have that version or want to upgrade (?) to the latest: DirectX 7.0a: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=16819 If you already have a sufficient version of DirectX (which you proabably already do) then launch the DirectX Diagnostic from C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIRECTX\SETUP\DXDIAG.EXE. Go to the Display tab and make sure that DirectDraw, Direct 3D and AGP Support are all enabled (the Disabled selection will be a raised button when these settings are enabled). You can run the tests and see if these settings are in effect or not. You may want to do this before launching CM after deleting the prefs file. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-11-2000).]

Excuse me if any of this sounds insulting, but I want to make sure that you are updating CM correctly: When you extracted the v. 1.01 update you got a directory named: "cm v1.01 update". In this directory there was the new CM executable, a replacement .wav file, the readme file and a "New BMP" directory. (from the Readme.txt file): 1. Note the following files contained in this update: - Combat Mission.exe (application file, v1.01) - "New BMP" directory, contains 1720.BMP through 1729.BMP (10 graphics files) - 00002080.WAV (sound file) 2. Replace the old "Combat Mission.exe" application file with the new one. 3. Move the CONTENTS of the "New BMP" directory into the "BMP" directory. Make sure you move the ten files INSIDE "New BMP" into the BMP directory - do not copy the "New BMP" directory itself. In other words copy/move all the files from "New BMP" to the BMP subdirectory of CMBO. DO NOT copy/move the directory and its contents to the BMP directory. If you do then the v. 1.01 CM can't reference the graphic files properly and hence the "white squares". 4. Move 00002080.WAV into the "WAV" directory. Assuming you've done all this correctly, then you may be having a problem with your graphics drivers. Generally a problem with the new explosion graphics would usually indicate a problem with other transparencies.

Do you have any details on your motherboard, i.e. - what model and manufacturer is it ? You may need a patch for AGP (depending on the chipset of your motherboard). Super Socket 7 motherboards quite often have problems with AGP video cards, so a BIOS update may also be in order. If you had the Diamond drivers installed at one point and you are now using the NVidia drivers, then I suggest that you make sure that the InControl Tools/Diamond Viper V550 driver have been uninstalled. The latest NVidia Detonator drivers are v. 5.32 which you can get from: Reactor Critial: http://www.reactorcritical.com There is also a BIOS update to the Viper V550, but it probably doesn't apply to you (fixes a particular mouse cursor problem): Diamond Viper V550 v. 1.95C BIOS update: http://209.10.182.5/customer_caretechnical_supportupdatesfirmwareGraphicsViper_V550.htm If you have the Creative Labs SoundBlaster PCI128, then here is the latest update for the drivers: http://www.creative.com/support/files/download.asp?reg=0&OS=Win98∏=sbpci128&select=Get+Files Also, do you know if your soundcard is sharing an IRQ with any other devices ? You can go to Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > with "Computer" highlighted click on the Properties button. You will now see a listing of the IRQs assigned to devices; look for your SoundBlaster and see what IRQs it is using. If another device is using the same IRQ (other than "IRQ Holder for PCI Steering"), then you may need to change some settings and/or physically move your soundcard to another PCI slot to get it to use a different and hopefully unused IRQ. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-11-2000).]

I'm afraid you're both stuck with this problem. The ATI Rage Mobility chipsets seem to be lacking in features, one of which is transparencies. This is probably a hardware issue and can't be solved with drivers. If you're willing to experiment however, there are some unofficial drivers that have been modified by a third party. RageLTMan's Rage Pro drivers: http://www.rage3d.com/files/drivers/rageltdriver.shtml There's no guarantee that these will work. In fact ATI doesn't post drivers for the Rage Mobility's because they claim that they are heavily modified for each laptop vendor. So using these drivers may be a bit risky (make sure you have a working driver that you can reinstall before attempting to use these modified drivers). For Windows 2000 I think you are stuck with what comes on the 2000 CD or is available from Dell (which you may already have): Dell Inspirion 7500: http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/system.asp?sid=INS_PNT_P03_7500&m=l&p=6

You've "correctly" applied the v. 1.01 patch right ? You may want to extract the files again and copy the BMPs into the BMP folder again and see if there is any difference. Make sure none of the numbers are changed for the BMPs or they won't be called up correctly for the explosion graphics.

Most video card manufacturers should be putting on the correct sized heatsink and fan assembly (for those cards that need a fan) needed to operate their video cards at the clock-rates they are sold at (i.e. - if you overclock your video card, then the manufacturer's cooling solution may not be adequate). Usually most heat related errors will show up within a certain amount of time of operation. It usually shouldn't matter what program you're running when it locks up. The resolution itself really should not be an issue when it comes to heat generated by your video chip (although higher frequency output by the RAMDAC could warm it up a bit more). The main reason to run at a lower resolution is for performance reasons. The video cooling solutions you've seen are mainly geared towards crowded systems or video card overclockers. Sometimes carefully blowing out the dust from your fans may help with the cooling. The dust should only be a worry if it is clogging up the CPU cooling vanes or slowing down/freezing up the CPU fan. Most of the dust build-up in a computer is fairly innocuous unless it is very thick. Maybe it's possible that running at a high resolution and performing 3D operations at that resolution may be taxing your video card. The 3D operations are probably executed by a portion of the video chip designed specifically for this function. So it may be possible that running in 2D (standard desktop/application screen drawing) is fine, but 3D rendering starts to choke at certain resolutions or bandwidth demand. I wouldn't exactly guess that as being the cause, but reducing your resolution may be the answer for you. Once you install your new fans you may want to try a higher resolution to see if heat was the culprit or not.

I assume that by "explosions" you mean the little fireballs and smoke that show up when say a tank is shelling some infantry. This may be a video driver issue. You may have to select "compatible" smoke & explosions (Shift-I), I'm not sure. Check your video card model and driver revision. Then check your manufacturer's site for any updates. There is a possibility that updating your drivers may fix this.

(Took a little too long to post this and it shows) I believe that the ABM treaty allows for an anti-missle defense around Moscow and Washington. The US never put one up, but the Russians have left theirs in place (though it probably isn't all that effective against ICBMs). Unfortunately I think that the ABM system currently under testing is a BAD idea. There is so much opposition from friend and foe alike that it would do more harm politically to field such a weapon system than it would to just leave the leftovers of MAD policy in place. American politics has gotten to the point that politicians are pandering to the American public to eliminate any vestiges of the Cold War and it's MAD offspring. "We're doing everything technologically feasible to protect you from ANY threat". This is true isolationism, replacing diplomacy with technology. The answer is not a weapon system that would have limited employment and could probably be overwhelmed with a well designed decoy system. When it comes to nuclear weapons POLITICS is the true countermeasure of choice. It has been since the US faced nuclear capable enemies in the Cold War. By developing an ABM system the US risks putting the rest of the nuclear capable states on an expensive and wasteful path of developing countermeasures to such a system. Whether it be an increased stockpile of warheads and delivery systems or developing decoy countermeasures. What would America do in response ? Why build a larger shield of course; increase the number of interceptor missles and develop better radar/detection systems. In effect the arms race starts all over again in order to maintain the idea of limited invincibility. A defensive capability multiplies your offensive capability and possibly (especially from the Russian & Chinese view) the willingness to use that offensive capability. I agree that the CNN reporter is guilty of taking US Intelligence estimates for face value (which have been wrong in the past) or those of other countries for that matter. But beyond that I believe his points are valid. While conservatives like to point out the lack of prepardness our defense spending engenders and effectively point out historical mistakes made in this area. I think that they also have too much confidence in the idea that a technological solution is a feasible alternative to diplomacy. As someone else already pointed out - "rogue" states are very concerned and adept at their own survival. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-10-2000).]

Which unit was involved in the live fire accident at the Big Island's Training Area (Poku- / Moku- something or other) ? I remember it being a night-time live fire exercise where a mortar platoon accidentally dropped mortar rounds on the grunts in their foxholes. A mix up in the coordinates as I recall. One or two Marines died and 3 or 4 others were wounded.

Though I don't own either board, I'd recommend the GeForce, especially at that price. The Voodoo 5's drivers aren't completely up to par when it comes to using both video chips (last I heard). They'll probably get this fixed at some point. Both cards support FSAA, though I hear that the Voodoos may do it better (though the v. 5.32 drivers for the GeForce helps things out a bit in that department). I guess the big question is whether the GeForce card is a DDR. Comparing the prices against the 3dfx cards I would assume that it isn't. If it is a SDR card then it comes down to how much do you want to spend (the DDR cards could cost a lot closer to the V5 5500). The Nvidia drivers are usually very good and there have been very few problems with them when it comes to CM. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-10-2000).]

When you're in Device Manager what does it say under Display adapters ? You may get something generic. If you have a Super VGA adapter there, then you're running a driver that is too generic and won't give you the number of colors that you'll need (assuming that is your problem). If Device Manager doesn't give you the information we need, then rebooting the computer and VERY QUICKLY looking at the very top of the screen when it comes up (before the BIOS screen that shows the memory count). Sometimes, if this info even displays, you can get an idea what video card you have. Otherwise, if you have no documentation or drivers then you'll need to open up the computer and take a physical look at the card and chip.

It sounds strange that you can sometimes get in by clicking real fast. The only suggestion I have off-hand is to check your video driver. I'd suggest some NVidia reference drivers instead of the ones from STB: nVidia's Reference driver 3.37 for AGP: http://www.nvidia.com/Products/Drivers.nsf nVidia Reference driver 3.41: http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml Try either one of these and see if it helps.

Cardinal Fang - Actually the Yamaha chip that you're seeing on the Soundblaster ISA card is the standard OPL3 sound chip that is an industry standard for FM synthesis sound. Your AOpen 724 is based on a Yamaha DSP sound chip, a competely different chip. So the SoundBlaster ISA should have worked for you if the problems you are having were related to your PCI soundcard. Have you performed an uninstall on your AOpen/Yamaha drivers ? You may also want to check for any conflicts in the resource allocation (IRQs, I/O addresses, DMA, etc.). The Vibra 16 should be plug-n-play, but there is always the possibility that something is conflicting.

If your sound card and your video card share the same IRQ you may need to do something else in order to fix your problem. Is your Voodoo 3 3000 an AGP card ? If it is then I'm not sure what modifying the PCI latency may do for you. Though AGP is a superset of the PCI bus, I believe it isn't managed in the same way. What you may need to do is physically change the PCI slot that your soundcard is in. If your Voodoo is an AGP card then quite often the PCI slot closest to the AGP slot will use the same IRQ. You will need to move the soundcard to another PCI slot. Often the last PCI slot will also share an IRQ with USB , while the first PCI slot will also often share an IRQ with on-board audio chip (an option that only so many motherboards offer). What you may need to do is check to see if there are any free IRQs in your system. Sometimes you can free some up by disabling serial/parallel/USB ports (if you don't need them) and allowing the PCI bus to use them. I believe doing this might help your problem. If your Voodoo 3 3000 is actually a PCI card then I would also suggest changing PCI slots around to see if you can get the soundcard and the video card on different IRQs (even if they have to share an IRQ, preferably a device that isn't used too often). Sometimes, if you're lucky, your motherboard will support assigning an IRQ to a specific PCI slot, but most boards don't have this feature in their CMOS/BIOS. If you like further help on this just let me know and I will see what I can offer. As for the latency value to use, this seems to be highly dependent on experimentation. I'm completely unfamiliar with what the values are for latency. Again a multiple of 8 is what the value has to be. As for swearing... When it comes to computers I've given into the dark side sometime ago... [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-09-2000).]

Nice job on the maps Col. Klotz. I was assuming that such a conversion would be easy... ignorant me. Maybe some intrepid programmer can discover (or BTS can do it in a patch) a way to extract the map data and then import it into an in-progress scenario/op. Of course placement tools would be necessary in order to use a pre-done component map like the SL/ASL ones. Culex Pipiens - I'd like to take a look at your "Scotland..." scenario. I can't claim to have a very good critical/detailed eye, but I would enjoy looking it over. ian_straw@hotmail.com

I have no answer here unfortunately. I've seen a similar situation with a scenario/op, but it won't duplicate easily. At some point the LOS tool becomes very "jerky" and slow, though there is nothing else on the screen that would account for such a hit in the fps. I wonder if there is some sort of resource that is being max'd out (which may depend on the system & driver configuration) for CM. Possibly some non-display oriented code that is "hiccupping" the machine, especially once the calc-intensive LOS tool is pulled out.

Haven't heard of this particular problem. The intro video will be disabled if you hold the Shift key down while loading it up. Further startups of CM will now go straight to the main screen, skipping the intro video. My only guess, if you have Quicktime already installed and working, is to delete your CM prefs file (and you will have to select your CM resolution over again) and see if the intro movie plays or not.

Cardinal Fang - One last desparate attempt to work on your problem. I plagarized the following from PowerStrip's FAQ page. You will need to download Powerstrip to try this out (though I don't know if the unregistered version will support the following or not): Powerstrip: http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> My graphics card and PCI audio card don't seem to get along. Can the PowerStrip help? Maybe. Graphics cards can sometimes be too aggressive in holding the bus,causing problems for other bus-master PCI devices, most notably PCI sound cards. Although most PCI BIOSes have an option where you can specify a default PCI latency, many cards ignore or override this setting. The PowerStrip has an undocumented feature that allows you to specify the latency for each device on the PCI bus, individually. There aren't any hard and fast rules on appropriate values (a multiple of 8), but as a general guideline higher values yield better performance at the expense of other devices, while lower values are more appropriate to systems with multiple PCI cards. If you want to experiment with this feature, you'll need to manually edit your pstrip.ini file as there are no visual controls available. An example follows: [Latency] Enable=1 001812D2=80 In this example, 001812D2 is the PCI device (0018) and vendor (12D2) ID for a Riva128, which normally has a very high latency of 248, and which the PS reduces to 80. If you don't know the PCI device and vendor ID for a particular card, you can find out by checking the PS's hardware details screen, which is opened by clicking the [...] button on the Windows page of the PS Graphics System Information dialog box.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> By adjusting the PCI latency of your Voodoo card, it may allow the AOpen 724 card to work (with the larger 44kHz sounds). It may be worth a try before getting another sound card. Also, as far as I know, I believe CM won't work without an audio card. One hearing impaired player mentioned such a problem when they tried to play the demo (I believe it was the Gold Demo). Couldn't get CM to run with the sound card missing.

Your welcome. I'm glad I could offer some assistance that actually helped. Cheers