DEB8 Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Seasons greetings ! I have all 3 of the CM1 series of games installed on a Vista O/S Desktop PC. I would like to install them all on a Windows 7 O/S Laptop. My understanding is that they should all work on a Windows 7 O/S ; but I have a problem, in that my Laptop is currently limited to an 8 MB Dedicated Video memory ! Can you please advise the Dedicated Video Memory required for each of the 3 CM1 series of games. Many thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 I don't know what the 'dedicated video memory' requirement would be for the CM1 series, however 8MB is REALLY LOW for most 3D games. I would assume you would need about 64MB minimum. In fact 8MB for the Windows 7 desktop/OS sounds very low. What is the video chip in your laptop ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 I went back to look at the 'minimum' specs that are listed for CMBB and the sales page mentions '16MB video card capable of running 800 x 600 or higher'. I believe the same spec would be true of CMAK and CMBO would possibly be even smaller (though you may have to run at 640 x 480). The sales page for CMBO mentions a configuration as low as 4MB for the video card. Are you certain that your laptop only has 8MB of dedicated memory ? That seems awfully low for most computers nowadays, especially one that can run Windows 7. Many 'low power' laptops often run with video that is either integrated into the chipset or integrated within the CPU. Most of these use a 'shared memory' scheme' where the main memory is used for the video display and often these may have a minimum of 32MB upwards to a maximum of 512MB or possibly even 1GB. Some of these systems may have a small amount of 'dedicated memory' that is actually set aside for the video, while also being capable of 'sharing' the main system memory. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEB8 Posted December 27, 2017 Author Share Posted December 27, 2017 Thanks for those comments. Re certainty re 8 MB dedicated memory - no... See below :- I have installed a game onto my Laptop. It operates ( according to specifications ), on a minimum of 4 MB dedicated video memory, but 16MB is recommended. An early error at the install stage caused a error report, which listed the dedicated video memory applicable as 8 MB. After the addition of a Flash "video player""(!), the game started up correctly. However, the game's graphics have a minor problem with about 30% of the tree coverage and 80% + re dead bodies. As I understand it, this was a known problem re the games graphics, if the dedicated video memory available was less than the recommended figure ! My video card is an Intel integrated HD graphics card, which when combined with the O/S 's 4 GB of RAM, operates in much the same manner as you describe. However, it reads a games dedicated video memory requirement as input ( sometimes incorrectly ), by the games manufacturer. Some manufacturers apparently input the Initial video memory, rather than the actual video memory requirement that Intel now use with their integrated video cards... I presume from the error report that 8 MB was set for the game now on my laptop. It is possible, that if the actual video memory of the CM1 series was set higher than 8 MB, that my graphics card would note that higher figure and work correctly. It would also appear that any that are 8 MB ( or less ) may work correctly too ; hence my query. I am fairly hopeful re CMBO, but not so much re CMBB / CMAK. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 With Intel integrated video you MIGHT have a setting in the BIOS that mentions the amount of memory that is 'dedicated' to the video. This 'pre-allocated' video is actually not seen by the OS and is strictly used by the video chip within the CPU (in this case, much older Intel video is integrated into the chipset). However within Windows Intel utilizes their DVMT system that allocates memory on-demand. So memory could be pulled from the OS and used for the video system and when that program no longer needs it the memory can be returned to the OS to be used as 'main' memory for other programs, etc. CM should operate in this manner and be able to request the video memory that is needed. You can check your laptop's BIOS settings and see if there is anything that allocates more memory to the video system. This could be anything from 512K to 512MB (the lower amount would seem unlikely with the Intel HD Graphics). It's possible that the BIOS may have no setting what-so-ever for allocating dedicated memory for the video system or possibly it may need to have a setting to enable DVMT (not too likely with the HD Graphics). I currently have a system at work utilizing the Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Intel 3570K CPU). You can see how much memory the system may allocate to the video by going to Start Menu > Control Panel > 'Display' control panel > 'Adjust resolution' selection in the left text-based menu > 'Advanced settings' text selection towards the lower right of the 'Change the appearance of your display' panel > the 'Adapter' tab (default) should list several amounts for your video memory: Total available graphics memory (1760MB in my case) Dedicated video memory (256MB in my case - POSSIBLY set via a BIOS setting) System video memory (0MB in my case - this may also be a BIOS setting) Shared system memory (1504MB in my case - the amount of memory that the OS can utilize for either video or programs) If you have a low 'dedicated video memory', then you may want to check around your BIOS settings to see if you could possibly allocate more memory (if that is even an option). With more 'dedicated video memory' the games may work better (assuming that DVMT is not allocating enough video memory for them). Something else to try is to modify the programs' 'compatibility' settings to see it that may make any difference. Right click on your CMBO/CMBB/CMAK game icon and select 'Properties' from the popup menu. In here go to the 'Compatibility' tab. Toward the top of the tab in the 'Compatibility mode' section check-mark the box next to the text that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" from the drop down list (usually the default selection). Further down in the 'Settings' section you can also experiment with the settings of "Disable visual themes" (not sure if this would be effective in any manner), "Disable desktop composition" (this disables the 'Aero' interface to Windows 7 temporarily, can potentially provide a mild performance boost), "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" (its really helpful for scaling text that utilizes Windows fonts - something that the CM programs do NOT utilize). You could also check-mark the box in the 'Privilege level' section' for "Run this program as an administrator". Looking through the Intel HD Graphics control panel I couldn't find anything that I would affect the behavior of CM to my knowledge, but you could experiment with some of those settings too. I'm not certain what your driver may provide for this control panel. Some options may be very bare depending on the driver. Do you know what exact CPU you have (since this will determine the exact video chip your system has) ? Have you updated your driver to the latest that is available ? Many laptops may require you to use the driver that is supplied by the laptop manufacturer, but some may allow you to use the Intel-provided driver, which is often quite a bit newer than what most laptop manufacturers will have on their websites. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEB8 Posted December 30, 2017 Author Share Posted December 30, 2017 Unfortunately, I am unable to adjust any settings via the BIOS, as this function has been left off on my laptop... I have also not been able to trace ( to date ), how this may ( or may not ), be able to be done via the Video card settings themselves. I will review this though with the information you have provided. Thanks for that. I have previously tried adjustments via the compatibility settings, but only re the game ( not a CM1 series one ), that is currently on my laptop. They did not work with that game, but it is possible they may work re a CM1 series one. If I have any problems with any CM1 series one I will re-look at that. It is still quite possible that I will not have a problem at all with the CM1 series. It all depends on what figure was actually input at the games manufacture re Video Memory ( initial or actual )... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoMac Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 (edited) 41 minutes ago, DEB8 said: Unfortunately, I am unable to adjust any settings via the BIOS, as this function has been left off on my laptop... I have also not been able to trace ( to date ), how this may ( or may not ), be able to be done via the Video card settings themselves. I will review this though with the information you have provided. Thanks for that. I have previously tried adjustments via the compatibility settings, but only re the game ( not a CM1 series one ), that is currently on my laptop. They did not work with that game, but it is possible they may work re a CM1 series one. If I have any problems with any CM1 series one I will re-look at that. It is still quite possible that I will not have a problem at all with the CM1 series. It all depends on what figure was actually input at the games manufacture re Video Memory ( initial or actual )... Hey, Deb does Dallas...I think a better option is just get a Good Used Laptop (ex; I have used Dell D810 & D830 Laptops w/o issues with CMx1) that's between 5-10 yrs old) w/Dedicated ATI-Nvidia Video Card in the 128-512mb range. Edited December 30, 2017 by JoMc67 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEB8 Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 On 12/30/2017 at 6:17 PM, JoMc67 said: Hey, Deb does Dallas...I think a better option is just get a Good Used Laptop (ex; I have used Dell D810 & D830 Laptops w/o issues with CMx1) that's between 5-10 yrs old) w/Dedicated ATI-Nvidia Video Card in the 128-512mb range. Whilst it is indeed an option, it is not one I am likely to take up. [ What's with the " Deb does Dallas" moniker ? If I were a girl ( DEB = my initials ), I might well find that offensive... ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEB8 Posted July 26, 2018 Author Share Posted July 26, 2018 On 12/30/2017 at 5:38 PM, DEB8 said: It is still quite possible that I will not have a problem at all with the CM1 series. It all depends on what figure was actually input at the games manufacture re Video Memory ( initial or actual )... Well, I finally got around to installing CMBO on my laptop and it appears to work fine ! [ My video card's dedicated memory is apparently 128MB, but the game I had installed first ( Shogun Total War ) only read 8MB... ] NB : Tests ( via a USB ) also show that CMBB and CMAK work OK too. I will be installing them soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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