Doug Williams Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Rats! After contemplating replacing my Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS card (because of it's "white transparency" problems on CM running under Windows XP) with a Radeon I just discovered that the Radeon cards don't support fog table emulation! :mad: My question is what card to buy? I'm running Windows XP, so I want a card that runs CM properly under that OS. It's a crying shame that the two biggest names in PC video cards, Nvidia and Radeon, both have what I would consider major problems with CM. Windows XP is the OS to have. Microsoft finally made an OS that is both stable (unlike W9x) and gaming friendly (unlike W2000) and I do not want to go back to W98. So which card should I buy to get my favorite game (Combat Mission) working properly under my favorite OS (XP)? I would be willing to buy a used Voodoo or something on eBay as a stopgap card until Nvidia gets their driver situation straightened out, if I knew that it would work properly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Radeon I just discovered that the Radeon cards don't support fog table emulation! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Odd thing the Radeon does not support fog in the PC. ATI cards are far and away to most trouble free, compatible cards in the Mac. A cheap Voodoo 5500 will probably do you right. It's still a lot of video card, and sure to serve your gaming needs for a while, and a bargain to boot. If you can find one... Gyrene 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 On the PC just about every video card has a problem or lacks features in regards to CM. I doubt that you'll find a completely perfect video card with perfect drivers. Even the Voodoo series has driver problems and artifacts (and there are no further driver updates coming either). I've even heard that the Voodoo series may have no 3D acceleration properties under WinXP (at least with the drivers that are provided with XP). This is an unconfirmed rumor that I heard NVidia had requested that no Voodoo cards offer 3D acceleration under the new OS (since they now own the 3dfx intellectual property). Why that would be, I don't know. It is something I've yet to confirm myself, including checking to see if the 3dfx-written Win2K driver would work with WinXP. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 22, 2001 Author Share Posted October 22, 2001 Sigh, well I just reinstalled W98. The white transparency problem was intolerable. I couldn't even see to pick my units in a quick battle. My current video card (the GeForce) works fine running CM under W98. It's a shame I can't run CM under XP yet. I suppose I could have done a dual boot, but that seems too much trouble. I'll just hold off on reinstalling XP until Nvidia fixes their drivers. Thanks for the suggestions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bodman Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Hello doug, Please don't give up hope yet. I too suffer the same problems as you. The white transparency problems plague my win xp install also. I chose to dual boot my system with win 98 and XP with a program called system commander 2000. It is a program that makes dual booting pretty painless. I hope this suggestion helps you, but then again you may not want to buy another program just to run CM without graphics problems. Bodman 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomitmeister Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 Just out of curiosity, how do you guys have XP? Here in Chicago, it won't be out until Thursday. Do you recommend the upgrade to XP from 98? I usually wait until a service pack has been released, but Best Buy has a pretty good deal if I buy it now. Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 XP is probably going to be a tad-bit slower than Win98 on the same hardware. There's also the problem of driver issues. While Windows 2000 has been out for awhile now, the drivers for various hardware have just started to get decent when it comes to supporting games properly (performance, features, etc.). Windows XP can usually use these same drivers, but there may be more issues with the Win2K/WinXP drivers than the equivalent ones for Win98. Hard to say just how much of an upgrade WinXP is over Win98. Since it is based on the same kernel as NT/2000 it is more stable, generally speaking (it can recover from an aberrant application better than Win9x/ME). Microsoft has enforced stricter licensing with XP - you have to phone or on-line register your copy within 30 days for it to remain working. After that you can't just simply change/reinstall it on another computer (if that is an issue for you) or change a good number of your hardware devices without re-registering (which you can do a maximum of 4 times a year). Generally any Win2K issues that you've heard about so far (in regards to CM) you'll most likely experience with XP. If you've got the cash and you feel that you're going to upgrade anyway, why not buy it now if you feel the price is good. I consider it an incremental upgrade over Win2K (and I believe that there is a patch that has come out already or is about to be released - I think Microsoft has learned that marketing trick about users 'waiting' for a service pack before upgrading). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 Thx Schrullenhaft ! With this new "license enforcing" policy there's just NO chance I ever move to XP At least as long as MS release such buggy crashprone software ... :mad: :mad: Normally I have to reinstall Win9X once/twice a year, plus an unknown number of patch/drivers installs/reinstalls. So when the whole thing will crash and you have to register/call in the middle of the night BEFORE reinstalling I'd be just mad... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 23, 2001 Author Share Posted October 23, 2001 Pascal, That's not the way it works. IIRC, if you change more than six pieces of hardware at one time, you have to call. You should not have to call just to do a reinstall. As for stability, look for XP to be much more stable than Windows 95/98/ME. No more blue screen of death reboots. It is really nice. Built in zip support. Ability to play DVD movies without 3rd party software. Very stable. Check out the review in the latest (November) issue of Maximum PC. The minute I find out Nvidia has released drivers that eliminates the 'white transparency' problems with CM, I plan to reinstall XP and never look back. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 I probably got misunderstood there about Microsoft's licensing for XP. A reinstall of XP on the same hardware should not require a re-registration. You can change up to 4 or 6 pieces of hardware before a re-registration is required (I'm not sure of the exact number). For many users this won't be an issue. However I believe that there may be certain pieces of hardware that you can't change without re-registering, like the motherboard or the network card (again, I'm not sure of the exact details). Some new computers that are coming out with XP pre-installed have a 'lock' on the BIOS itself, so you can change everything but the motherboard without re-registering (don't know about BIOS upgrades though). I don't know if Microsoft has made reinstallations under WinXP a little less necessary or not. Most likely it will still be 'necessary' for performance reasons since this is often done to clear up and start with a new registry, etc. (which is often clogged by installations of all sorts of software that may not get used, etc.). Again, drivers will probably be an issue (especially for older hardware). The price for stability is performance (and compatibility for certain pieces of software and hardware); though if your hardware is on the fast side already it may not make too much of a difference. Some drivers have been optimized for Win2K already and they'll see a slight decrease in absolute performance under WinXP (but human-perception wise it may not be noticeable). Some hardware is going to perform much better under Win9x/ME than under Win2K/XP and this comes down to driver support by the manufacturers. Since XP is part of the 'home market' now there will be slightly more emphasis on getting the drivers to work with games, etc. compared to Win2K (though drivers for Win2K are now starting to see these optimizations and compatibility issues being addressed). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorH TacOps Developer Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 >As for stability, look for XP to be much more stable than >Windows 95/98/ME. No more blue screen of death reboots. That is what was said about W95, W98, W2K, and WMe. It has not been true yet. I have just about every Microsoft productivity program available and I used to update everything annually. I have not bought or upgraded a single Microsoft product since they begain requiring software activation. As a developer I usually have a catastrophic system crash every month or two and I make major hardware changes every few weeks. I have better things to do than to periodically beg a Microsoft phone rep to reactivate my software. Once software activation becomes the norm the next "advance" from Microsoft will be pay per use. AT&T and IBM used to show this same level of arrogance. It took way too long to happen but they were eventually punished for it. [ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: MajorH ]</p> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 23, 2001 Author Share Posted October 23, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>>As for stability, look for XP to be much more stable than Windows 95/98/ME. No more blue screen of death reboots. That is what was said about W95, W98, W2K, and WMe. It has not been true yet. <hr></blockquote> Until now. Actually, Windows XP is not an upgrade of the W9x/ME operating systems. It is basically a more home user/gamer friendly version of Windows 2000, which is well known for it's stability. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorH TacOps Developer Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 >a more home user/gamer friendly version of Windows 2000, >which is well known for it's stability And for or its viruses . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhdeerslayer Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 I thought I heard somewhere that XP has the capability to fool an application into thinking it is running under 98, ME, etc.. versus XP. Thought they set this up to help any compatibility issues. Just wonder if this would help alleviate some of the graphic problems associated with XP. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I thought I heard somewhere that XP has the capability to fool an application into thinking it is running under 98, ME, etc.. versus XP. Thought they set this up to help any compatibility issues. Just wonder if this would help alleviate some of the graphic problems associated with XP. <hr></blockquote> No. It isn't a matter of the application having a problem with the OS, but the video drivers written for Win2K/XP are different from the drivers for Win9x/ME. The Win2K/XP drivers interact with the hardware and OS in a slightly different manner from Win9x/ME, thus requiring them to be written mostly from scratch. This induces the differences (or at least this is one factor) in features and problems/bugs. So far the most notable problem (in regards to CM) with XP and Win2K has been the video drivers for the NVidia chips. While graphically it is annoying and very noticeable, there is a workaround that works in most situations. Once these drivers are updated to fix this particular problem you may not hear too much about issues with WinXP (again, in regards to CM). Other drivers may may have problems also, but the current video cards may eventually see updates to their drivers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhdeerslayer Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 Thanks Schrullenhaft. Your expertise is well appreciated as always. I get nervous when I'm about to get a new system and hear some guys never getting Nvidia/XP combo to work right with CM even with the work arounds. Seems like this issue has been on the table for awhile. Has BTS communicated anything recently on progress with Nvidia? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 Yes, an NVidia developer rep spoke to BTS about some of the driver problems (most notably about the Mac NVidia drivers). The 'transparency' problem was mentioned to them. However it may take awhile before the issue is fixed (hopefully NVidia will find a solution). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acrashb Posted October 24, 2001 Share Posted October 24, 2001 Anyone tried a Hercules Prophet4000 (kyros chipset, 64MB memory) on XP? They've shown well in benchmarks - comparable in many ways to the geforce II, and they're cheap. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 24, 2001 Share Posted October 24, 2001 I haven't tried out the Kyro-based cards myself. One person mentioned that they were having transparency problems. With the latest drivers (8162a) some people claimed that everything looked OK, while others said that the 'problems' remained (text, etc.). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soddball Posted October 24, 2001 Share Posted October 24, 2001 I'm puzzled about WinME complaints. My copy runs beautifully and I have no problems. I wonder whether it helps having 2 HD's - I have the OS+MSOffice on C, and do everything else on D. *shrug* Perhaps I've found the solution to stability under ME. I use Win2K on my machine at work, and I do find it frustrating that I can't play DOS-based games, but I like 2k's reliability and the bonus that if something crashes the machine you can break out of that. Incidentally, I have a Creative GEForce Annihilator Pro (32MB) video card. It uses standard Nvidia drivers included with ME - and no complaints. [ 10-24-2001: Message edited by: Soddball ]</p> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeWary Posted October 25, 2001 Share Posted October 25, 2001 Soddball, A pretty high percentage (it seems) of ME users have had problems with system stability and things generally working correctly (a friend of mine being one of the high percentage). I'm still using 98SE myself, and I only occasionally have problems, mainly with my TV software (for the ATI TV Wonder) and Roger Wilco (a known issue with AMD/NVidia combos). Sounds like you may have just gotten lucky with your system. As far as WinXP goes, Gamespot (pc.gamespot.com) has a review including benchmarks. It looks like the reviewer liked it, thought they did mention the 'ability' of XP to emulate Win9x was bogus. Didn't do a damned thing to solve problems. Though that might be because of drivers like Schrull said. Personally, I agree with MajorH about Microsoft getting pretty arrogant. I don't plan to upgrade to XP unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. I'll probably migrate to LINUX before I bother with that XP registration crap. BeWary 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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