Graphics problems with SIS 661FX/661MX

[Blue Element]

Hi, I have problems running the game on my laptop with this card. The game loads indefinitely and will not start up a mission. I played around with the card's drivers and found out that after I uninstall the drivers, but before I reboot the computer, the game runs fine. When I install the latest drivers, the problem comes up again. How can I fix this?

Edit: BTW, the game I'm having this problem with is CMAK.

[ September 15, 2007, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: Blue Element ]

[Schrullenhaft]

SiS has somehow screwed up their drivers when it comes to CM. This has been a long standing problem that goes back to some of the earlier 3.xx series drivers. In the past manually installing just the driver (not the SiS control panel that typically gets installed) had worked. However that doesn't seem to work anymore.

Something is getting installed (possibly a registry setting, but that doesn't seem quite like the case). In the past it was some sort of 'hook' involving the SiS control panel that was causing CM to come up with a black 3D screen. When the driver was installed manually (which didn't install the control panel), CM displayed the 3D window properly.

You can possibly try that yourself. Download the 3.82 UVGA driver from SiS's website (assuming that you're running Windows XP) 'Windows XP' as the OS selection > 'IGP Graphics Drivers' as the driver type > 'SiS66x/SiS76x & SiS671/SiS771' as the display type. The 3.82 drivers should be the at the top of the list.

Once you have these downloaded, extract them into their own directory so that you can find them again. After you have the SiS drivers uninstalled and you've rebooted go back to the Device Manager within the System control panel and double-click on the 'Unknown VGA' or however Windows describes your videocard. Go to the Drivers tab and click on the 'Update Driver' button. You can say 'No, not this time' to the Internet search for your driver, 'Next' button > click on 'Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) > Next button > click on 'Include this location in the search' and then click on the Browse button. Go to the directory taht you extracted the SiS 3.82 driver to (you'll need the directory with the Windows XP / 2K 'sisgr.inf' file. This inf file should have the info to install the drivers for the SiS661 integrated video. Hopefully the driver should show up after selecting this INF file.

I'll try this out myself with a motherboard that has the SiS 661GX integrated graphics and see how it does. Unfortunately I've been disappointed by SiS in the past regarding their 3D driver support, so this fix may not really work as it did in the past.

[Schrullenhaft]

I tested with the 3.82 drivers and THEY ACTUALLY WORKED with CMAK ! I even ran the standard installer which installed the SiS control panel too.

The possible difference here with my previous experience may be that the 661GX is based on the Xabre architecture whereas my previous experience with SiS integrated chipsets had the video core based on SiS 315.

One other caveat was that I had installed the SiS driver initially and then later installed a Matrox AGP videocard, without uninstalling the SiS videodriver. The SiS video became disabled with the AGP videocard installed. To run the test I just uninstalled the Matrox video drivers and removed the AGP videocard. When CMAK was installed it came up without problem (1600x1200 @ 85Hz in this case).

I don't know if you'll get the same results, but it would be worth trying. I'd suggest completely uninstalling your current SiS video drivers, rebooting and then installing the 3.82 drivers. If that still doesn't work, then you may need to uninstall the 3.82 drivers completely, reboot and then go through the process I mentioned earlier of installing just the video driver alone with the INF file via the Microsoft driver install method.