danyzn Posted December 11, 2000 Share Posted December 11, 2000 I haven't been able to get CM running properly on a Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop that has an ATI Rage Mobility-P video card. I can start the game, but the screen freezes up very quickly, usually during the first turn. I've tried a couple of video drivers on the Dell website, but the same thing happens. The game works fine in software mode. Does anyone have any ideas? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted December 11, 2000 Share Posted December 11, 2000 What OS are you running ? You may have tried this driver already. The latest ATI Rage Mobility-P driver I could find from Dell was 4.11.2078 dated 5-02-00 (for Win98 SE): http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=R20662 The latest BIOS for your laptop is A14 (11-28-00), but I'm not sure it will do anything for you (fixes some sort of CMOS flashing problem). What version of DirectX are you running ? I'd suggest upgrading to 7.0a (unless you're running WinME - you'll have v. 7.1 by default). I'm not sure that there would be any benefits to upgrading to DirectX 8 (in regards to the particular problem you're having). If you upgrade to DirectX 8, then I would suggest launching the DirectX Diagnostic > Display tab > DirectX Features section > disable AGP Texture Acceleration and see if this helps with your problem or not. Even if you don't upgrade to DirectX 8, you may want to go into your CMOS/BIOS setup and check out any settings for AGP or Graphics Aperture and reduce it down to the lowest setting possible (usually it is defaulted to 64Mb). If it doesn't go below 32Mb it may not help at all. You may also want to check for IRQ usage in your system. There is a possibility that your video and sound chips share an IRQ. There may not be a whole lot you can do to change this in a laptop however. To check your IRQ usage go to Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > double-click on the Computer icon and a listing of IRQs in use will come up. Check for any devices sharing the same IRQ (ignore "IRQ Holder for PCI Steering"). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyzn Posted December 12, 2000 Author Share Posted December 12, 2000 Thank you for your reply. I am running Win98. I have DirectX and the latest video driver from Dell. I disabled the AGP Texture Acceleration; that didn't help. I also turned off hardware sound acceleration; that didn't help. I can't find an option in the BIOS setup menu for changing the AGP Aperture. It appears that the video card shares an IRQ with a PC card controller, but not with the sound card. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyzn Posted December 12, 2000 Author Share Posted December 12, 2000 Sorry, I meant to say I have DirectX *8* 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted December 12, 2000 Share Posted December 12, 2000 I'm not sure if these would help (or even work, since they may check for the presence of a Compaq BIOS). These are the latest drivers for the Compaq Armada M700 which has the same video chip as your Dell. This particular set of drivers is dated 6-26-00. Keep an installable copy of your Dell version drivers handy in case something doesn't work with these. Compaq Armada M700 (go to display section and download current version): http://www5.compaq.com/support/files/notebooks/us/locate/4_1009.html The AGP/Graphics Aperture doesn't appear in every CMOS/BIOS setup. It's most common in the clone desktops. I'd suggest disabling ANY power saving settings you have - in the CMOS/BIOS setup and within Windows. Turn off the power saving features from the Power Management control panel and any other utilities that may have come with the laptop. I'd also suggest performing a Ctrl-Alt-Del to get the End Program dialog box before you launch CM. Close all programs except Explorer, Systray and any programs that are necessary for your sound and/or video (though some of the ATI apps can be closed down). This should hopefully eliminate interference from any other programs that could be running in the background. Do you have any PCMCIA/Card Bus cards installed in your laptop ? Are you using these peripherals while playing CM (such as a modem or network card) ? If not you may want to "pop" them out and see if this helps or not (most likely not, but it may be worth a try). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chupacabra Posted December 13, 2000 Share Posted December 13, 2000 Odd, I'm running CM on an Inspiron 3700, and while I've had a few problems, CM ran just fine right off the bat. ------------------ Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyzn Posted December 13, 2000 Author Share Posted December 13, 2000 I installed an even newer (8/2000) video driver from Dell, disabled AGP Texture acceleration, disabled hardware sound acceleration, and played at 640x480 resolution. All of this seemed to delay the freeze for a few turns, but it happens anyway. I'm giving up and playing in software mode until there's a new patch or new driver somewhere. I tried a Large scenario in software mode and it is quite reasonable. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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