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Help SiS650M Install Problem

Leedsunited40
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baselope Junior Member

baselope

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I can't help, but I can say I am having a very similar problem. I have a SiS K7S41GX AMD chipset with the onboard graphics and what I get is:

The game loads fine, can see the setup, and load a PBEM game, but after I put in the password, I get a blank main screen with the image of the password window still present, with the lower control panel area still visible. Game still seems to run, but not display.

I too have downloaded the very latest driver for the SiS 741 Display version 6.14.10.3631.

I have even tried re-installing Direct X.

Alt-Tab doesn't seem to resolve either - just results in bunch of "static" in the main window.

Any further help for SiS would be much appreciated (and probably result in a CMAK purchase.)

This is especially frustrating since it worked fine on my previous computer!!

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baselope Junior Member

baselope

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Well... like a fool I got it from the SiS site. I just noticed I wasn't supposed to do that.

After MUCH searching microsoft update pages (isn't that site horrendous!!), I find that microsoft refers to DOWNLOAD.COM for the driver.

So, if anyone else needs this help, I would go directly there rather than microsoft.

I am now going to install what I get and see if it works! **Crossing my fingers**

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Schrullenhaft Senior Member

Schrullenhaft

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I tested the SiS 740/650 drivers (with an SiS 740) and found the same problem - a black 3D screen. The drivers from the SiS website do not work as you've found out.

However the drivers from the Windows Update website work. Unfortunately they don't appear for simple downloading. Windows Update has to detect that you have the chipset in a system that you're updating (you should select "Custom Install"). It should offer the drivers under the "Select optional hardware updates" section (the third of the three sections on the left). Unfortunately I haven't seen the drivers available elsewhere and SiS doesn't seem to provide FTP access to their driver archive which would allow the downloading of an earlier version (or at least the WHQL ones that Microsoft seems to be offering).

I haven't checked-out what is on 'downloads.com', but most often drivers will usually be SiS releases rather than specific Microsoft WHQL one.

I'll have to hook up the system that had the SiS 740 to see if I can extract some working drivers.

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Steve_R Member

Steve_R

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In early December I found out that CMAK would not work on a Sony Viao computer as it uses the SIS chipset. Since that time, I have been reading of others on the forum, that they too are experiencing the very same problem. I have ordered a video card eVGA GeForce FX5500, 256-A8-N313-AX since I can not get a SIS driver that will work. The card has not yet arrived so I don't know if my problem will be solved.

The number of comments raises a couple of suggestions.

1. Can Battlefront post drivers known to work on the support page?

2. Will Battlefront contact SIS to get the problem corrected. Alternatively, can the program be patched to work with the SIS chipset.

3. Going to the Windows update page did not work for me. So far none of the other people who have left messages on this forum has reported sucess in this regard.

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baselope Junior Member

baselope

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OK, I hope I can get some help now... I feel I have exhausted my options.

I've tried the drivers from teh SiS site as well as download.com. They did not work.

I can't find the drivers on Windows Update - it does not list them for me on the "hardware update" menu whether I have the latest SiS dirver installed, or the vanilla VGA driver you get when you uninstall the SiS driver.

HELP! I hate running the program on my laptop - was much better on my 22" monitor :)

And I'd really hate up have to downgrade to my old ATI 32mb AGP card just to run CMBB.

If anyone has a SiS 741 driver that works send it over to powmark(at)yahoo.com

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Steve_R Member

Steve_R

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To Leedsunited40: The best I can say is that the WINDOWS update site has been dumbed down to remove the ability of a user to select options. The windows update site did not offer any new video drivers. So I did the "extreme" which was too remove the video drivers from the Sony Viao which had the unfortunate result of an "out of range error" on my LCD monitor. Anyway, I was able, after a while, to get an image on the monitor and I went to the WINDOWS update page, and even with missing drivers, WINDOWS did not detect the need to install the missing video drivers. Rather than deal with this any longer, I have ordered a video card, which should arrive next week.

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Schrullenhaft Senior Member

Schrullenhaft

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I have sent Madmatt some of the drivers that I have downloaded from the Windows Update website that have worked with an SiS 740 chipset, Windows XP SP2 and CMAK 1.03. What I've sent him probably won't support the SiS 741/741GX and 660 series chipsets, but there's a solution to that further down in this post.

The driver is version 6.14.10.3640. It is NEWER than what is posted at SiS's website.

While my testing was with a SiS 740 chipset, I believe that the results should be the same for people running SiS 650 series chips. The video cores for the chipsets are the same and they're supported by the same driver (with some minor file differences).

If you have the time you can also try a larger download of the drivers from this website:

http://download.it168.com/pages/driver59366.shtml (click on the link next to the icon of a floppy disk and red arrow)

These are the 3.64 drivers (SiS is only offering the 3.63a drivers right now). I have not tried these drivers personally. However a file comparison showed that they were the same core drivers as the ones I downloaded from Microsoft. So my assumption is that they should still work.

I would recommend setting your video memory allocation in your CMOS/BIOS setup to the maximum (either 64Mb or 32Mb) your motherboard supports; and hopefully you have more than 128Mb of system memory.

If you have the money, purchasing a dedicated videocard should give you better performance than almost any built-in/integrated video solution that utilizes "shared memory". If you can't afford it (or you have a laptop), then the SiS integrated video should still work fine with these drivers. The texture quality may not be top-notch, but it should do well in supporting the visual effects of the current CM series. Regarding CMx2... you will probably want to upgrade at that point.

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baselope Junior Member

baselope

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FYI, I was having trouble downloading from Schrullenhaft's link and found another that seems to give me better performance.

http://file2.mydrivers.com/display/SiS_uvga3_364.zip

The mydrivers site is also in chinese... hope this comes with some english docs.

I hope I am able to have better luck than Leedsunited40. I'll report back if so.. not too much hope at this point I think.

Buying a new $75 AGP card to support a $30 game is not an option for low-tech gamers like myself. I'll probably be ready to upgrade when CMx2 comes to be.

I had no problems at all running on a 32mb ATI Rage before, was hoping to actually see some improvements on my new smokin' 64mb SiS integrated card :) Shoulda checked the forum before i bought!

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Steve_R Member

Steve_R

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Bad news for me and my Sony Viao. The SIS video

drivers (version 6.14.10.3640) did not work. That does not mean that they may not work with other SIS chipsets. I hope the others are more successful. In the meantime, I await the arrival of the new video card.

Many thanks Schrullenhaft. You have provided excellent support eventhough a compatible driver could not be found.

[ December 11, 2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: srynas ]

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Schrullenhaft Senior Member

Schrullenhaft

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A few more additional things to consider...

Have you updated your motherboard BIOS lately ? The video BIOS will be part of this update and that may affect how the drivers work. However that has a fairly slim chance of being the solution.

The other setting to check is the amount of memory you have allocated to the video. Most of these systems will probably default or max out at 32Mb, which should be sufficient. If your setting is lower, maximize it to the highest allowed (assuming you have 128Mb or more system memory). My testing was done with a motherboard that allowed for 64Mb to be allocated to video. I believe that I tested 32Mb and that worked also.

My testing was done on the SiS 740 which supports AMD Althlon CPUs and DDR or SDR memory. The SiS 650 series supports the Pentium 4 series of CPUs with DDR or SDR memory. Both of their video cores are based on the SiS 315 GPU, but I guess that there may be some other important differences between them that might account for this difference in driver behavior. I know that each chipset has an unique .BIN file within the driver set that most likely accounts for differences in driver behavior seen here.

I guess that there may be no solution for SiS 650 series chipset motherboards/laptops at this point (or in the future, most likely). I had hoped that the SiS 740 was similar enough in all respects to give an accurate indication of the 650's driver compatibility, but that appears to be inaccurate in this case. The recent statements about driver compatibility on this website are attributable to my input, so BFC/BTS should be blameless in this case.

[ December 12, 2004, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

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Schrullenhaft Senior Member

Schrullenhaft

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An user in the past mentioned (we believe) that the 3.61a driver worked for the SiS650 series. The one location I can find this driver is at:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/download/dld/spt_dld_detail.php?UID=479&kind=1

I can't confirm that this driver actually works, but it may be worth a shot. I suggest that you fully uninstall your current drivers (going back to a 'VGASave' safe mode driver) before installing these.

Make sure that you're running DirectX 9.0 (preferably 'c', but it may not make a specific difference here). Again, double check for any motherboard BIOS updates and make sure that your video memory is set for 32Mb or greater in the CMOS/BIOS setup.

For those with SiS integrated video chipsets such as the 740/741/741GX/661FX/760 series you can download the 3.64 drivers from here (click on one of the 'mirror' links):

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4401.html

[ December 13, 2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

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Schrullenhaft Senior Member

Schrullenhaft

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I did some testing last night and found out that the SiS-distributed 3.61a and 3.64 drivers did NOT work for me. I've only had success with the Microsoft ones that are now provided on BFC's Support page (CMAK Troubleshooting Guide > Video Issues (SiS) > sis650_740.zip).

I'm guessing that there are some hooks into the driver that is being provided by SiS that is causing a problem with 3D in CM (hooks that are being used by control panels provided by the SiS install). The hooks are probably there with the Microsoft provided drivers, but they don't include the (near useless for 3D) control panels that SiS does (with additional registry settings to call them up).

For anyone that has had problems with the SiS650 series, I suggest trying the drivers hosted on this site. They may fix the problem with CM. Fully uninstall your previous driver (even if it is 3.64) and reboot. The 'install.txt' instructions cover the install fairly well with a few missing details: when Windows prompts you to find the driver, select "custom" install (the lower of the two and not the default). Next tell it to look for your driver in whatever directory you extracted it from. When you're prompted that the driver isn't signed (ironically it comes directly from Microsoft) go ahead and press "Continue Anyway" or whatever Microsoft labels it. Once the driver is installed you can set the resolution, color depth and refresh to what you want it and you should be able to play CM now.

For those of you with 741/741GX/760/661FX chipsets I'll need to do further work to see what I can get working. I'll be able to test it on the 741 and 741GX chipsets.

Leedsunited40 - Madmatt was told by a customer that the 3.61a drivers had worked for him and his SiS650. This was the full SiS-provided install that worked for him. Why would an earlier driver work better than a later one ? Because sometimes when one thing is fixed in a driver, another thing is broken. These problems may not manifest themselves in all games, so you have to get the attention of the driver developers to look at your specific problem (which is often due to the developer taking 'shortcuts' which everyone of them does for performance reasons). Sometimes a but gets fixed in one driver only to later resurface in a newer driver (or even a new bug in the new driver). It's a hard balancing act for the driver developers who try to squeeze every bit of performance and quality from their drivers.

Accessing the CMOS/BIOS setup requires that you reboot your computer and press the necessary key ("Del" or "F2", etc. - hopefully it is printed on the screen before you start booting into XP) to get into the BIOS setup. In here you will have to browse the menus to find the setting for how much memory to dedicate to your video.

[ December 14, 2004, 07:29 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

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