Slow/jerky playback

[Ace Pilot]

I’m having a problem getting a smooth playback of turns in CMBB. I was playing a small (500 point) QB and the playback was fine until the enemy started showing up. Then, the playback got jumpy, going from 0:00 to 0:37, then 0:48, etc. The battle sounds continued, but the video only showed the action at the times that it randomly jumped to. I rebooted once and that helped for a couple of turns, but the second reboot didn’t seem to improve anything at all.

I didn’t have this problem with either scenario in the demo (except when playing TCP).

I’ve got an HP 8555C

Celeron 500Mhz

64 MB RAM

Windows 98SE

Here’s the part where I really show my ignorance. I don’t know how much video RAM it has nor what kind of video card. How can I find that out?

If this is a lack of video RAM problem, is that easy to upgrade?

Thanks for the help in advance,

Ace

[Schrullenhaft]

To find out info on your video card you can go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Display control panel > Settings tab > Advanced.. button > Adapter tab > in here it should tell you the video card/chip and how much video memory is recognized.

From the info that HP has online about your particular Pavilion it appears that you have an Intel 810 northbridge/video chipset. Often there is no dedicated memory for these video chips, but instead they take from your main memory to run their video. Some CMOS/BIOS setups allow you to allocate the amount of memory to use for video. I believe the Intel 81x series has the driver go out and grab the memory depending on what is running. So you won't be able to simply upgrade the video memory (though more memory period may be helpful for your computer).

Here's the latest driver from HP for the Intel 810. Here's the latest driver from Intel for the i810. The Intel driver is much newer (v. 6.7), but I don't know if it will help or hurt. You can also try some of the earlier drivers from the Intel site.

I'd suggest uninstalling your video driver before installing the updated driver. I also suggest downloading and installing DirectX 8.1b before you install the newest video driver.

Despite upgrading video drivers some graphics options won't be available (fog and possibly some transparencies). It may also not solve the particular problem that you're running into.

If you want to get all of CM's affects, then you may want to consider purchasing a PCI video card. I'm not absolutely sure what your Pavilion can handle graphics-wise. You may want to consider a GeForce2 MX400 32/64Mb PCI card or a TNT2 M64 32Mb PCI card. The GeForce4 MX PCI video cards may be a bit overkill for your current CPU (i.e. - you won't get much of a difference for the price since your CPU isn't powerful enough to utilize the GeForce4 MX's full power).

Other options are to upgrade your main memory (purchase a high quality 128Mb DIMM from Crucial) or possibly upgrade the CPU. Unfortunately I can't find the exact CPUs your motherboard may support. I'd guess that you could upgrade to any 100MHz Front Side Bus speed CPU, which is primarily the Celeron line at the moment. You my be able to go up to a 1GHz Celeron (FCPGA, but not FCPGA2 form factor). As long as there are no CPU voltage or other strange BIOS anomalies your computer may support these faster Celerons without explicitly mentioning that they do.

[ September 24, 2002, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Ace Pilot]

Thanks, Schrullenhaft. I'll give your suggestions a try.

[Ace Pilot]

An update for those with the same or similar problem, or for anyone that is just curious.

I updated DirectX to 8.1 and tested it with CMBO. Initially, there was some random video noise (intermittent streaks appearing briefly during playback). This problem didn’t last long because the whole computer froze after a couple of turns. :eek: Now I’m thinking I won’t be able to play CMBB or CMBO. However, I figured it couldn’t hurt at this point to try an updated video driver. I downloaded the latest ones from HP and from Intel. In accordance with the instructions, I deleted my old driver and then installed the new one, starting with HP. It went through the whole process of extracting and installing files and seemed to get all the way through but ended with a “Boink” and a message saying the graphics device was incompatible with this driver. :eek: :eek: The same thing happened with the Intel driver. Thinking the driver might have installed anyway, I restarted my computer and the only driver it could locate was a basic VGA driver, resulting in a very ugly looking screen. I tried various combinations of deleting, installing, and rebooting the computer, including one combination where I apparently declined to install even the VGA driver, resulting in a blank screen and a few moments of panic on my part. :eek: :eek: :eek: I eventually went back to Intel’s page, grabbed an earlier driver and successfully installed it. CMBO was playing like normal again and I haven’t experienced any jerky playback with CMBB, although I’ve limited myself to QBs under 500 points. So I guess it really is all about the drivers.

Thanks again to Schrullenhaft for all his help.