Maus Posted May 10, 2000 Share Posted May 10, 2000 Is anyone else having wacky graphics problems? I get warped textures, all of the road tiles are turned 90 degrees from the orientation that they are supposed to be (!!?!!?), strange mixtures of colors, etc. It of course looks like a driver problem (what's new?). Any ideas? System specs: AMD K7 500mhz 160 MB Ram Ati Rage 128 32MB SB LIVE! value Windows 98 (4.10 Build 2222) A - Video card drivers are up to date ( ver. 4.12.6269; date: 3-9-200) - Sound card drivers are up to data ( ver. 4.11.01.0711 ; date: 10-7-99) --> (I think they are up to date it is some times hard to tell what you are downloading with all that Live! Ware crap) - have directx 7 (4.07.00.0716) with both DirectDraw and Direct3D enabled Just for kicks I tried ALL display combinations of 640x480, 800x600,1024x768 and 32bit, 16 bit colors. I knew that this wouldn't help and it didn't. I tried disabling hardware acceleration in windows/ This was another very long shot and again I was not disappointed by my pessimism. What a day so far. Went out this morning and my motorcycle wouldn't start. Spend the whole morning trying to fix it and the only results were some backfires that made the local teenagers hit the pavement and the squirrels kiss their furry hides is relief. Then I thought well,I did download the CM demo last night that will alleviate some of my frustration. Wrong. I sit here in dread waiting for all three of my cats to turn on me and my girlfriend to come home and tell me that she is leaving me for my sister! Then and only then would "my failure be complete" Oh cruel Fates! Why hath thou forsaken me?! maus maus: "I need to relax and put things in perspective" brain: "Yeah, try hitting the 4 key for a new view or maybe the 1 + TAB combo" maus: "Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!" brain: "No need to get violent. Just pump me full of alcohol or THC and I'll be good" maus: " OK. For once we agree." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted May 11, 2000 Author Share Posted May 11, 2000 It think this post got lost in the mix so I'm just getting it back up to the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 11, 2000 Share Posted May 11, 2000 It definitely sounds like a video driver problem, but sorry to say, I have an ATI Rage 128 32Mb card here and it seems to be working fine. The diferences between this setup and yours are: Intel LX board w/ PII-233 SB16 Value ISA Software driver-wise the setup is the same as yours. You MAY want to tinker around in your BIOS/CMOS and make sure your "AGP Apeture Size" is 64Mb or larger (probably doesn't have anything to do with this, but you may want to try). You can also experiment with "VGA Frame Buffer USWC" (caching) and/or Video Memory caching (whatever your BIOS may have). The only other things I can think of may be to upgrade your motherboard BIOS (if you can identify it). BIOS upgrades for your motherboard may "patch" CPU microcode (if AMD is using this) or possibly "fix" AGP issues. However, be VERY careful with updating your BIOS if you haven't done it before - it can ruin your whole month if it goes bad. As for software settings, this system is set to the installation defaults. On the "Direct 3D" tab of the Display control panel the settings are "Wait for Vertical Sync" CHECKED, "Enable Anti-Aliasing" CHECKED, "Use Pallete-based Textures" UNCHECKED and "Support Z-buffer bit depths" 16,24,32. If nothing else works for you, then you may need to remove your video driver, clean out your registry of other video drivers, install the "Standard SVGA" driver from Microsoft and then reinstall the latest ATI driver (the current machine I'm working with had this done to it, though CM wasn't the issue with it). [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 05-10-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted May 11, 2000 Author Share Posted May 11, 2000 Schrullenhaft, Thanks for all the info but after many hours of sitting here screwing around I'm giving up. All of my software settings are identical to yours and I'm not quite ready to mess around with my BIOS. I did try this: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If nothing else works for you, then you may need to remove your video driver, clean out your registry of other video drivers, install the "Standard SVGA" driver from Microsoft and then reinstall the latest ATI driver (the current machine I'm working with had this done to it, though CM wasn't the issue with it).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> but still nothing. I am not, however, completely sure that I was able to remove all traces of the ATI drivers. I basically just changed the video adapter to Standard VGA, erased the C:/ati forlder and then reinstalled the latest drivers. I am afraid to do more 'cause in a earlier unsuccessful attempt my monitor would shut down while booting windows (mercifully I was able to boot in safe mode). Does anyone know the proper, safe way to remove drivers and clear them from the registry? Ugh, I'm going to slide my butt back over to my linux box for a while. I just can't make sense of how windows is organized.Character flaw I guess thanks in advance, maus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted May 11, 2000 Share Posted May 11, 2000 I had some strange graphical problems with the cursor. The game would also run for a while and then hang. After reading a bit here yesterday, I upgraded my mouse-drivers and whaddoyaknow - it works like a dream now! Could that be worth trying for you? Good luck! Hawk ------------------ Our's is not to reason "why", our's is but to do and die! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 11, 2000 Share Posted May 11, 2000 To clear previous video drivers from your system you will need to: First check to see if there is an uninstaller for your current driver. Run that first. When it is finished and it has you reboot (or reboots for you) remember to press the F8 key to get the command prompt-based Startup Menu. Then: 1) Boot in SAFE mode (#3). 2) Go to Control panels - System control panel - device manager tab - click on the plus next to Display Adapters. 3) Delete/Remove ALL video drivers listed here. You may notice that there are several drivers listed here, depending on how many different video cards your computer may have had and how many times you may have installed drivers. 4) Once you have deleted the video drivers listed close up the control panels and go to the Start Menu. 5) Go to Run on the Start Menu and type in "regedit" (without the quotes). 6) This brings up the Registry editor. Any changes made here take effect IMMEDIATELY. There is no save function so any mistakes that are made are permanent (to a degree). 7) Go to the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" key (click on the plus sign like the Device Manager) - ENUM - PCI. 8) Once in the PCI key you will want to click on the "VEN...." keys one at a time and then select the "item" below the initial key. Read through the lines in the right frame of the Registry editor. You will find text in there that describes this key. We are looking for keys that have "Display" in them. Looking further down you will see the name of the display adapter as it would appear in the Device Manager. 9) Since we deleted all of the display adapters in the Device Manager we may find nothing here. If we do, then we will want to delete it. Highlight (in the left frame) the "Ven..." key and then click delete (on your keyboard should be fine). Make sure your mouse doesn't wander and you end up deleting the wrong key. 10) Load up Explorer (file manager) and go to Windows/inf/other. In here we are going to look for .inf files that are descriptors for ATI video cards in particular and any other VIDEO cards in general. You may be able to tell what device the .inf is for by its name; other times you will have to open the file up in Notepad and read through it in order to determine what it is for. 11) Once you have deleted the .infs (if you found any) you can reboot your computer. During startup the computer should discover your display adapter. Hopefully it will just use the "Standard SVGA" driver" and not detect it as an "ATI compatible" or something else. Once this driver has loaded up then you can run the latest ATI video driver installer. 12) Unfortunately all this may be in vain, but again I have gotten the same card (an Xpert 2000, which is a Rage 128 32Mb) to work fine with CM. If you have further problems we can discuss BIOS upgrades and tinkering with the CMOS settings (which isn't permanent, but a BIOS upgrade can be). [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 05-11-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted May 11, 2000 Author Share Posted May 11, 2000 Schrullenhaft, Like you said, cleaning out the drivers might not be the answer to my problems. I haven't tried as of yet. Regardless, I want to thank you for the detailed instructions you have given me ( and I imagine others as well ). I have printed them out and will surely use them in the future as well. I know that typing these up took a not insignificant amount of time. My next toast down at the pub will be to the kindness of strangers and specifically to you Schrullenhaft. Hawk, Thanks for the tip. I am using default, generic ps/2 mouse drivers for my Logitec trackball but I will give the 9.0 drivers a chence if all else fails. cheers! maus [This message has been edited by Maus (edited 05-11-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 11, 2000 Share Posted May 11, 2000 A few more points I forgot to mention: Before installing you latest video driver, you may want to install/reinstall DirectX 7.0a. It may or may not detect your video card (usually doesn't if you have it set to a Standard SVGA). If your video card has 4Mb or less of memory, then there is a good chance that the drivers that come with DirectX 7.0a will possibly be the latest that are available (DirectX detects the chipset of your video card, so a Diamond may be detected as an S3 Virge, etc.). These "generic" drivers MAY solve some problems since they are, uh... tested... by Microsoft (or at least "approved" in some way). The point here is that DirectX may have the "compatible" driver for your card, rather than the actual manufacturer. This will be true for cards that are several years old (in general). These generic drivers however don't have all the frills that some of the manufacturer's modified drivers will have (Diamond for example), so you may be giving some things up (occasionally that may mean a little speed improvement being given up also). For those with 8Mb or larger amounts of video memory, then either the "reference drivers" from the OEM chipset manufacturer (i.e. - NVidia, S3, etc.) or the manufacturer's drivers are what you'll need to upgrade to. Sometimes you'll be given the choice between "Beta" and "WHQL certified" drivers. It's a toss up between the two. Beta drivers sometimes fix problems, speed up the card or give you additional features, but they can also be very buggy. WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Lab - if you really wanted to know) certified drivers have supposedly been submitted to Microsoft for approval and have passed some sort of testing. These drivers may not have all the fixes (and are often several revisions behind), but are supposed to work (with Windows at least - not your game !). Better manufacturers will sometimes document the reasons/fixes in their drivers. You obviously won't see CM being listed, but you may find similar issues with other games that may apply to CM. Oh... several of the 3D video cards out there probably want DirectX installed beforehand. DirectX 6.1 usually works with most of them, but you'll see some of them starting to "require" DirectX 7.0a. Unfortunately DirectX 7.0a is SLOWER than 6.1. I think Charles mentioned this before on the board. However some of the feature sets of these drivers may have been written with a specific version of DirectX in mind. For those people having problems with Transparency effects, DirectX 7.0a may be the answer. Maus, thanks for the toast. I hope something helps. That's all for now... the hamster has jumped the wheel and I'm shuttin' down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted May 11, 2000 Author Share Posted May 11, 2000 Just in case anyone who runs into a similar problem, I found the answer. I followed Schrullenhaft's easy step by step instructions and ... same problem - crazy graphics. Just for kicks I went through the algorithm again but this time I installed the next most up to date drivers (ver: 4.11.6216, date: 11-30-99 INSTEAD of ver. 4.12.6269; date: 3-9-2000) and SHAZAAM! there are those beautiful CM textures! Just to be sure I upgraded to the latest drivers and again, they do not work. So it is the latest ATI drivers that caused my problem. Just to recap: for my setup (see previous post in thread) ver: 4.11.6216, date: 11-30-99 WORKS and the latest ver. 4.12.6269; date: 3-9-2000 DOES NOT WORK. (cue bagpipes) Onward digital soldiers! Cheers! maus Thanks to all for the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 11, 2000 Share Posted May 11, 2000 Oh MAN! Thanks for telling us about that one, Maus, because I'm sure others will encounter it. Are the next-to-last drivers (i.e. the ones that work properly) available on the ATI website? If not, where did you get them? I want to know where to direct people who encounter this problem. Thanks. Charles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maus Posted May 11, 2000 Author Share Posted May 11, 2000 Charles, I just happened to have those old drivers laying around ( and just think,as a kid, my Mom always told me to throw my old, useless stuff away . I'm glad I never listened to my Mom! ) I just did a quick check of the ATI website and I was only able to find the latest drivers . I don't know the legal implications of this but I'd be happy to mail them to someone who wants to put them somewhere for download. cheers! maus [This message has been edited by Maus (edited 05-11-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 12, 2000 Share Posted May 12, 2000 Just to revive a near-dead issue: I believe the problem that Maus was having with the latest driver is possibly due to the drivers being incompatible with either 1) AMD Athlon / 3D Now extensions 2) Non-Intel chipset on motherboard (AGP issues) I have two different ATI Rage 128s (and a 128 Pro that uses the same family driver) and both work fine with the latest 4.12.6269 driver. The are both running with Intel CPUs and Intel chipset-based motherboards. Maus may have a motherboard that has the AMD Irongate chipset (other than the newest Athlon boards, this was the only chipset available) and it has several AGP issues that may have been brought out by the latest ATI drivers. If you have a non-Intel based chipset and a Rage 128 / 128 Pro, then you may want to get the earlier drivers (some VIA chipsets may be fine however), which are available at the ATI website (just somewhat hidden): v. 4.11.6216 (which worked for Maus): http://support.atitech.ca/drivers/win98_4116216.html v. 4.11.6263 (newer, but not newest): http://support.atitech.ca/drivers/win98_4116263.html [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 05-12-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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