resolution problem

[bruno]

Have installed CM in Win2K on a Dell Laptop and DirectX8a. laptop resolution is 1024*768.

Videocard : ATI Rage Mobility 1.

Monitor settings : Generic TV, Digital Flat Panel, Std Monitor.

DirectX resolution : same as laptop

Problem : the game starts only with 640*480. No other choice and if I skip to next says fails to initialize DirectX 3d graphics.

What can I do (have reinstalled-rebooted many times)

[Maximus]

Sounds like CM is having a problem detecting your video card. That happens from time to time.

Or, try deleting the Prefs file in the Cmbo folder and restart the game. Then select the first option you see. Hopefully it will be 1024x768.

Either that or Schrullenhaft will be along soon to spew his great technical knowledge.

[Schrullenhaft]

What Maximus said appears to be correct. For some reason CM isn't recognizing any Direct 3D capabilities in your Rage Mobility. Which specific Dell laptop do you have and how much video memory does it have ? Have you played CM on it at all before or is this the first time ? Was DirectX 8.0a a recent install for you ? Have you updated the video drivers lately (which, generally, you can only get from Dell) ?

Have you made any changes in the DirectX Diagnostic control applet ? You can launch it from C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIRECTX\SETUP\DXDIAG > Display tab > in here you'll find a number of settings for DirectX and you're display. You may want to check that nothing is disabled or grayed out.

Are you driving more than the internal LCD display when you're attempting to play CM ? I'm not familiar with ATI's Mobility series, but driving more than one display could eat up some of the video memory and prevent the Mobility from using it for 3D and textures. If you are using more than one display you may want to check your options for disabling the LCD display while you use the external display or reboot the computer with the external monitor disconnected (so it won't initialize as the second display, etc.).

[bruno]

I had CM run previously in Win98 on this laptop (Dell Latitude CPxJ). I have Win2000 now.

FYI, have also a crash at game launch with SPWaW (mech.exe) though it used to work previously in Win2000. Do not know what is corrupted in my system ; everything looks fine, and no registry errors are reported after running RegClean.

DierctX : the Direct3D and DirectDraw and the AGP Texture acceleration are greyed out. Could that be the cause of the problem ?

I am going to reinstall the Videodriver with the latest driver. We will see.

[Schrullenhaft]

If those three settings in the DirectX control applet are greyed out that would be the cause of CM not recognizing your ATI Rage Mobility for being 3D capable. Since they're greyed out they are disabled and unadjustable. Hopefully a reinstall of your video drivers (for Windows 2000) will fix this and all three settings should be enabled (to my knowledge) and adjustable.

The DirectDraw (2D) component would be needed by SPWAW, so that is probably why that program isn't running.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[bruno]

Have checked w/Dell. They say that the video chipset has limited 3D capabilities.

Have reinstalled the latest videodriver and right after DirectX8a (the acceleration buttons are still greyed out). And still get only 600*480 resolution in CM.

Again, when I was in Win98 with the same hardware (Dell CPxJ), CM was working fine. I had DirectX7 at that time but had not checked the diagnosis since CM was working.

Maybe you have a patch for the combination Win2K / DirectX8a / ATI rage M1 on a Dell (daydream ...). Or what should I do ??

[Schrullenhaft]

The ATI Rage Mobility series should have enough 3D capability to work for CM (as it did in Win98). It's possible that the Win2K driver doesn't support as much as the Win9x driver. Have you tried any of the older Win2K drivers for the Rage Mobility 1 ?

Dell Latitude CPxJ Rage Mobility 1 Win2K drivers:

http://support.us.dell.com/us/en/filelib/versions.asp?sid=LAT_PNT_P03_CPx_J〈=EN&lib=6&os=WNT5&searchtype=filter&devid=417&type=DRVR

Typically installing the video drivers after DirectX should be the correct order of installation. Do you have any AGP settings in your CMOS/BIOS setup that you've changed (such as AGP Aperture) ?

I have no idea if the following drivers actually work for the Rage Mobility series. They're somewhat hacked (the combination of .DLLs & .VXDs) to provide better performance:

http://www.geocities.com/ziyadhosein/rprow2k.htm

The Dell provided Rage Mobility drivers appear to be among the latest available. I've seen previous versions offered by other vendors and the .106 version seems to be the most current. According to the readme's some changes were made for 3D games, so this driver should work.

If worse comes to worse - how attached are you to your current Win2K installation ? You may want to wipeout the hard drive and install Win2K fresh. I'm thinking that something has gone wrong in your installation or the DirectX installation. Win2K will have DirectX 7.0, which should be enough. The Rage Mobility M1 should be recognized by Win2K and provide some drivers (which are not good performers). Check to see if that combination works. If it does, then upgrade to the latest Dell-supplied Rage Mobility M1 drivers, but skip installing DirectX 8.0a for now. If that works, then install DirectX 8.0a (if you care to) and then possibly reinstall the latest Dell-provided driver.