Blinking text with Detonator drivers

[brunov]

Have read similar sections in the forum first about vidoe problems with Detonator.

But did not find any satisfactory piece of info.

One time out of two, gets text blinking in the home screen and scenario texts and always in some texts at the bottom of the screen in any game.

Also, get always a blackout in the save window of a PBEM game where you enter the file name of your turn. After saving a file for PBEM and getting the black box instead of the file name, this screws up all CM texts ! I have to re-boot after to get CM corret again.

what can I do ?

have Win2000 Pro + SP 2

have Maxi Cougar Gamer VE (aka NVidia) with latest Detonator drivers for Win2K.

[Schrullenhaft]

Your card is based on the NVidia TNT2 series and unfortunately that is a weak spot for the 'work arounds' with the Windows 2000/XP problems. Basically FSAA helps with most of the problems in CMBO (along with ESC or ALT-TAB to clear up the 'transparent white' issue). Since the TNT2 family isn't capable of FSAA, it remains a problem, even with the latest drivers.

I haven't checked it out myself, but the PBEM/Save File screen apparently gets 'blacked out' under Win2K/XP and the work arounds won't clear it up... I don't have an answer for that one other than to backspace and type a name without seeing it.

These issues don't exist with Win9x/ME, just Win2K and XP with the NVidia drivers.

One type of workaround is to use an interface mod like Deanco's (which you can find a link to at CMHQ), but I don't know how much that will help with the PBEM/Save File screen, but it should help a bit with the 'blinking text' since it has less white in it

[Porajkl]

Thanks, Schrullenhaft for your excellent work here on this forum (BTS should employ you, you know! ). I had installed W2000 just yesterday and have experienced exactly the same problems as Brunov. I have GeForce mx400 and newest detonator drivers (it's v23.11 out of my head) and it worked great with W98, but now... Well, we'll have to live with that until CMBB in which I believe there will be no such issues. Denco's interface doesn't help, you still have blackouted PBEM save dialog and text graphics are still unreadable. ESC key solves these text problems in the start menus only, not during the gameplay. I'll try FSAA enabled as you suggested (I don't like that, because of slowdowns) if it'll help when I come home.

Thanks for help (you saved me a lot of time for not needing to do a search).

[bruno]

Schrullenhaft,

thanks a lot for this reply. at least I know not much can be done with this HW.

Also, another problem I have noticed by playing a few games : CM locks up randomly after 10 or 15 turns in large to huge games, for example while you are setting up the orders for units. the PC is totally locked and I can't even activate Win2K Task Manager to kill the task. I have to re-boot and need to re-start a new version of the game because the file is corrupted and does not load.

Any clue ?

Note : I have 256 DDR RAM and a 1.2 GIG Thunderbird : should be enough for CM !!

[Schrullenhaft]

bruno - what is the FSB speed on your CPU/motherboard, is it 133/266 or 100/200 ? Which motherboard do you have and do you have the latest BIOS installed ? Do you have the latest applicable chipset driver installed ? Do you have Service Pack 2 installed along with any other Windows 2000 patches ?

Do you have problems with any other DirectX 3D games (if you run any others) ? What are your power saving control panel settings set to ?

Some CMOS/BIOS settings can make a difference too. What other PCI devices do you have installed in your computer and do any of them share an IRQ with your video card or sound card ?

[Porajkl]

Just wanted to share some experience... In my previous post I had installed W2000, but now I'm back to 98. Why? Well, I thought W2000 would be more stable, but it wasn't. W2000 has serious problem with assigning IRQs. I have had my Geforce, modem and sound card sharing the same IRQ. That caused freezes way too often and the only solution was reset button on the computer (keyboard was also frozen, like in your case, Bruno). For instance: surfing the net and listening winamp (IRQ sharing for modem and sound card at the same time!). It was not possible to manual assign different IRQs for these cards so there was no way around (I also tried with changing ACPI to standard PC, but somehow one startup file has corrupted and then I lost my patience and reinstalled W98). Now I have stable W98 and I don't even think about W2000 anymore. Also you will not have any graphical problems with your Geforce and CM in W98.

[brunov]

I have an MSI 6380 *266* Pro 2. Upgraded the BIOS 2 weeks ago from the MSI site, have installed Win2K - SP2 right after, have installed DirectX 8.1.

Do not have any other 3D application.

[Schrullenhaft]

Since your motherboard is based on a VIA KT266, I would highly recommend not using the 23.11 and 23.10 drivers. Use the 14.70's instead. A number of people (though not necessarily all) with some of the newer VIA chipsets have had problems with the latest NVidia Detonators. I'm not sure if the forthcoming 23.12's fix this problem or not (ASUS Germany has them, but you have to link through a third party such as MaxReboot to get to them).

[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p>