JDoe

Ok, I managed to get the manufacturer drivers for regular 9000 series and the game seems to work allright, except for the strange checkbox I still see at startup. But that is something I can live with I'll play now for a long while and then start to find out which newer drivers work with it.

Thank you VERY much, your information has been most helpful, though I haven't been able to make it work yet, but as I said before, now I know what to look for and try out. I'll post my results and conclusion if I manage to get it to work. Even though this might be a very rare or even unique problem, someone might run into similar trouble later on. Hakkaa päälle!

About the prefs file; I'm 100% sure there is no prefs file, and 90% sure that it has not opened the resolution selection window after last install. But to the other more important points; by checkbox, I mean a standard Windows checkbox, which you'd see at certain selection windows anywhere, an empty box means 0 and a checked box 1. This particular box does not react until the supposed main menu of the game is opened. By Quickstart-icon I mean a standard shortcut, my apologies but I use Finnish Windows and didn't remember the correct term in English x) My desktop resolution was/is currently 1400x1050, and with CM, I think it's 1152x864. Can't be sure because the selection window problem. Does the bit value of colors have any influence on CM? I've tried to come up with the original drivers many times before, when I ran into trouble with other games and applications, but haven't been able to find them anywhere. There were no ATI drivers in the installation CDs which came with the laptop. I've found some old Catalyst packages from my "archives" and I'm planning to try them out as soon as I get my 6hrs of sleep after 14h of work. You know you have to put up with certain amount of RL to sustain the virtual world, eh? But thanks a lot for your help so far, you've given me some directions already but if you have any more ideas, I'd appriciate the help!

A lot has happened in between, that's why it is hard to pinpoint a certain change to this problem. I have updated the driver several times, can't remember which version I had the last time it worked. Omega Catalyst I currently have installed is version 3.8.231. There was an option in one of the setting windows in ATI Tray Tools to disable ZMask but I'm not quite sure if it did anything, and according to what you're saying (if I understood it right) it certainly did nothing. What I'm seeing is the same as above with annarborhawk, at loading stage a black screen with a small checkbox in the center. The checkbox actually appeares right after I click the quickstart icon on the desktop and disappeares again before the resolution switch. The intro music plays allright, but I only see the checkbox. After that, two checkboxes appear to upper-middle and lower-middle of the screen, the top one has partial text of the version number (parts of the letters are scrambled with some other letters) and the lower box has a title "Main Screen". Thats all. The upper checkbox is responding to mouseclicks, but the lower one does not. Clicking the upper box plays the same sound as selecting the main menu buttons. At this point only Alt-Q helps. After that, I hear the "boom" sound of quitting the program and it jumps back to desktop. The resolution selection window does NOT appear at any stage, nor is there any preferences file in the main folder. This is really frustrating, I'm sure you understand x(

I'm experiencing a similar problem with ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility. I've got the latest drivers (Omega), disabled the Z-thingy mentioned in 1.03 patch troubleshooting and tried to switch of anti-aliasing, but for some reason it doesn't have the option to do so. Only possible "mode" besides the 3 different speed options is called Application Controlled and I've got it on. I even tried to run CM without the latest Omega drivers, and without ANY drivers at all, still no go. This is particulary strange because the game has worked well with this laptop before. I've tried to re-install the game and patches, and tried to start it with each version and with different drivers and settings, without any luck. I'm suffering from serious lack of CMBB and I need to get this game up and running soon before I lose my marbles! x( Thanks!