Black Screen

[imported_Major_Major]

I'm having display/refresh problems with CMBB.

When I start up CMBB (v1.3) i hear the music, but see no start up movie and the screen is black. No matter how long I wait, the screen remains black until i move the cursor over one of the four buttons. If I start a game and click the down arrow to see the next page of scenarios, the screen doesn't refresh until i click on a scenario. Seems like the refresh rate is delayed by a click.

Once I choose a scenario, i again get a black screen. If i do ctrl+tab, I can see the screen, but this takes some finece. Once i release the keys the screen is black. I can advance through the setup screens only by clicking where the 'continue' buttons are (should be) behind the black screen.

Once in the setup of a game (i.e. unit placement) i sometimes see the units, sometimes not. Usually, the screen is blank and i may see some text. As i move around on the screen the text advances to a new position, but the old text remains on the screen. If I use '+' to advance to a unit and right-click (blindly) on the unit, i can see a menu. if i choose an option, like move, i get the same trail effect with the resulting text, but no graphic. I can see the menu at the bottom of the screen, but advancing a turn does not help.

I've always had problems starting games, but its only been now that i also have problems playing them. I used to have CMBB v1.3. I reinstalled the game but that didn't help. I deleted my pref file with no success.

I'm using a toshiba Satellite laptop with windows XP with 240MB of RAM. I'm using the internal video adapter which is a Trident. My screen refresh is at 60 Hertz (the only option). Screen resolution is at 1024x768 with 32bit color quality.

Any thoughts?

[Doug Beman]

Did you try all the things listed in the CMBB troubleshooting guide?

DjB

[Schrullenhaft]

Unfortunately there seems to be no solution for users of the Trident Cyberblade series of built-in video adapters (that are often 'shared/unified memory' models). None of the drivers I have tried will alleviate the 'black screen' problem, which seems directly tied to the drivers and not the Windows Hotfix that has been mentioned for the NVidia & ATI problems with black screens.

The only 'solution' was to click where a button would be on screen in order to force a refresh to draw the 2D screen properly.

Trident has sold their video chip business to Taiwan's XGI (an SIS graphics spin-off). The Cyberblade drivers may be a bit orphaned with Trident finishing off their support contracts with major OEMs using their graphics chips. I don't believe that XGI is going to be supporting the Cyberblade series. Instead their intent with the acquisition was most likely intellectual property (Trident had some fairly good video deinterlacing logic in their chipsets).

Unfortunately I don't see any fixes coming down the pipeline for this. I'm not aware of any registry hacks or 3rd party utilities you could use that may clear up this problem. You could possibly contact Toshiba's tech support (if you have any warranty left on your laptop) and see what info they can provide on the responsible party for the video drivers. However it may be a long shot to get this particular issue fixed.