Schrullenhaft Posted August 7, 2001 Share Posted August 7, 2001 I have just been experimenting with some of the latest NVidia Beta drivers, v. 14.40 and a GeForce 3. NVidia appears to have fixed the text corruption problems in CM with FSAA turned on. For Windows 2000 there is a work-around for the transparent/corrupt text too. 3D Chipset NVidia Beta downloads (select the 14.40 version and be sure to select your correct OS): http://www.3dchipset.com/beta/nvidia/series1xxx.html I've done some quick testing with the manually forced 4X FSAA mode in Windows 98SE and 2000 (SP2) both using DirectX 8.0a. For Windows 98SE there are no more text corruption problems in CM when FSAA is enabled. My testing was quick and I only used the 4X mode, but I assume the other modes should work just as well (but possibly not). This driver should perform the same for Windows 98 1st Ed and Windows ME. For Windows 2000 the text corruption is also gone. The issue with text corruption/invisibility in the setup/selection/design screens can be solved by ESC'ing out of CM (which minimizes CM) and then coming back into CM (maximizing). When you come back to the 2D screens after finishing a game your text may look screwed up again; just repeat the ESC process again and you're back to normal. This may have worked before in earlier versions, but I'm not sure how consistent it was. With 14.40 it does work consistently (from the little testing I've done). This solution worked with FSAA enabled, but I'm not sure how consistent it may be when FSAA isn't enabled. It's not a perfect solution, but it works and makes CM playable under Win2K. These drivers are beta and they may cause problems with other games or other drivers. They may also not work with every manufacturer's GeForce offering (but that should be a very rare occurance). If you have any video-out options or other special features they may get disabled/become non-functional with these drivers. I'm not sure how well they may work with NVidia-oriented tweaker programs either. Anyway... for those GeForce users that were complaining about all the problems and that "BTS should do sumfink"... Here's NVidia's closest fix yet. Now if only ATI would fix their fog-table problems... [ 08-07-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rune Posted August 7, 2001 Share Posted August 7, 2001 Excellent job as always. Well done! Rune 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted August 7, 2001 Share Posted August 7, 2001 Ok, I have done even more testing and while the graphic corruption in the 3D portion of the game is indeed cleared up I am now seeing some weird corruption in the unit info panel below the 3D window. I will continue to test and see what the root cause of this might be. nVidia is making progress though and these latest beta drivers are the closest yet to a return to the full functionality of the older 6.xx series drivers. Madmatt [ 08-07-2001: Message edited by: Madmatt ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 8, 2001 Author Share Posted August 8, 2001 It appears that I've jumped the gun on this and there are still problems with this latest (14.40) driver. Madmatt and Rune (and others) have run into some problems with these drivers under WinME and WinXP. I've been able to duplicate them under Win98SE also. With FSAA enabled (manual mode, any FSAA setting) when you click on a unit the info boxes at the bottom of the screen will get progressively overwritten with each unit you click on (leaving the initial graphic of the first unit). These can be cleared up by ESC'ing out to the desktop and coming back into CM, but every new unit clicked on will repeat this problem. I have not duplicated this problem under Win2K however. And I believe I may have a Win98SE install that isn't experiencing this problem either, but I will have to check further since most of my testing was under Win2K. So, my apologies to anyone who went through the process of installing the latest driver and then have it still not work for them. For now the best bet for those who are running Win98, 98SE or ME is to get the 7.58 Detonators (or possibly some of the newer 7.xx series Detonators - but you may not get the same results). For those who are running Win2K you may want to experiment with this (14.40) driver, but Rune has duplicated the above problem with it under WinXP, which may happen for other users under Win2K. [ 08-08-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 9, 2001 Author Share Posted August 9, 2001 I've found the disrepancy (I believe) with my later results. It appears that the 14.40 drivers for Win9x/ME will work with a GeForce 3. Anything older than a GeForce 3 will see the problems previously mentioned. So if you have a GeForce 3, then the 14.40 drivers will work fine for you. If you have an earlier Geforce, then you're going to see problems. I'm not sure if this is true of the Win2K drivers also. It may be that the 14.40 drivers are heavily geared towards the GeForce 3's (that's probably what the 14.xx series driver development team is basing all of its work on). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ckoharik Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Excellent! I will test those driver this weekend on my Win2K box. Supah sweet! Thanks for the notice/testing/effort. [EDIT: I have installed 14.40 and so far nothing seems to have improved under CMBO. I will contiue tweaking.] [ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: Panzer Boxb ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redcee Posted August 12, 2001 Share Posted August 12, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: I have just been experimenting with some of the latest NVidia Beta drivers, v. 14.40 and a GeForce 3. NVidia appears to have fixed the text corruption problems in CM with FSAA turned on. For Windows 2000 there is a work-around for the transparent/corrupt text too. 3D Chipset NVidia Beta downloads (select the 14.40 version and be sure to select your correct OS): http://www.3dchipset.com/beta/nvidia/series1xxx.html I've done some quick testing with the manually forced 4X FSAA mode in Windows 98SE and 2000 (SP2) both using DirectX 8.0a. For Windows 98SE there are no more text corruption problems in CM when FSAA is enabled. My testing was quick and I only used the 4X mode, but I assume the other modes should work just as well (but possibly not). This driver should perform the same for Windows 98 1st Ed and Windows ME. For Windows 2000 the text corruption is also gone. The issue with text corruption/invisibility in the setup/selection/design screens can be solved by ESC'ing out of CM (which minimizes CM) and then coming back into CM (maximizing). When you come back to the 2D screens after finishing a game your text may look screwed up again; just repeat the ESC process again and you're back to normal. This may have worked before in earlier versions, but I'm not sure how consistent it was. With 14.40 it does work consistently (from the little testing I've done). This solution worked with FSAA enabled, but I'm not sure how consistent it may be when FSAA isn't enabled. It's not a perfect solution, but it works and makes CM playable under Win2K. These drivers are beta and they may cause problems with other games or other drivers. They may also not work with every manufacturer's GeForce offering (but that should be a very rare occurance). If you have any video-out options or other special features they may get disabled/become non-functional with these drivers. I'm not sure how well they may work with NVidia-oriented tweaker programs either. Anyway... for those GeForce users that were complaining about all the problems and that "BTS should do sumfink"... Here's NVidia's closest fix yet. Now if only ATI would fix their fog-table problems... [ 08-07-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redcee Posted August 12, 2001 Share Posted August 12, 2001 Didn't work for me; I have a Visiontek GeForce3; Athlon 1.4; Asus A7A266 m/b and 512 mb 2100 DDR. Installed 14.40 drivers, turned on Quincunx anti-aliasing and after the splash screen get no text at all--just icons on the right hand side. Any other suggestions? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ckoharik Posted August 12, 2001 Share Posted August 12, 2001 OK, it seems to be working much better now. I reinstalled 14.40 and installed the latest Beta of NVMax. Did a little tweaking and cleaning. Now, I still get problems at first, but an ESC to desktop or two and it seems to fix it right up. Not perfect, but much better than before. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 12, 2001 Author Share Posted August 12, 2001 redcee - are you running Windows 2000 ? If so you'll need to ESC to the desktop and then maximize CM again. You should see the text at that point. When you finish with a battle and come back to a 2D screen it will be corrupt again (including the AAR). ESC'ing to the desktop again and then maximizing again should work. That's one reason why the drivers aren't perfect. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt CDAT Posted August 15, 2001 Share Posted August 15, 2001 I have a Visiontek GeForce 3 and i am running on ME and have used the 14.40 beta drivers with x4 FSAA and it has fixed the text problem. Thanks for letting us Know about this Schrullenhaft! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawatwooper Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 The Nvidia 14.60 drivers are out now. They are for 2k only. I'll try them out tonight and let you all know how they work. :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sitzkrieg Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 14.60 drivers work fine with FSAA (4x and 2x and none). No scrambled text, even when you hit "ESC" to go back to the desktop. I'm using a Geforce 256 with Windows 2000 Pro SP2 and DirectX 8. Things look good for the 20.x series that is supposed to be released this week. I just hope they also work for Windows ME. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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