Resolution problem

[DavidS]

Hi guys,

After months of bitching and moaning I have convinced the boss that it was in his and the company's best interest that I be supplied with a laptop, with the sole intention of installing CM onto it.

The problem is the resolution, it won't let me go any higher than 800x600, despite the desktop resololution being 1024x768.

I have deleted the prefs file and repeated ad naseum

I have read the threads and still no clues.

The laptop details are: a GERICOM laptop, with Windows XP, Pentium III, 1200 MHZ, 504 MB RAM, Chipset SiS 630/730 with an 8mb video card.

What gives?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

David

[Schrullenhaft]

It's a possibility that the 3D video functions may limit the resolution of games. This was something that was seen with the Voodoo Add-on 3D cards in the distant past and it may be true of some current video cards and their drivers. The latest revision of the SiS 630/730 video chipset core driver is 2.06 (dated Jan 31, 2002) and can be downloaded from here.

You may want to poke around your Display control panel settings and see if there are any DirectX related tabs for the SiS 630/730 video. Possibly adjusting some of these may help. You may also want to reduce your color depth to 16-bit color to see if your options change (and you'll have to delete the CM Prefs file to reselect your resolution).

Also, double check your CMOS/BIOS setup settings for the amount of memory that is utilized for video. It sounds like you have it set to 8Mb, but maybe you'll want more. Supposedly the 630/730 can use upto 64Mb of UMA/Shared memory (but what you can actually use is dependent on what the BIOS is programmed for).

[ April 05, 2002, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[DavidS]

Thanks for the quick reply Schrullenhaft, will check it out and get back to you, early morning here.

Thanks again.

David

[DavidS]

Schrullenhaft,

If I could buy you a beer I would. Your suggestion to delve into the BIOS worked like a charm. I upped the RAM to 32 MB and presto, I could select the higher resolution.

Thanks.

David

p.s - any suggestions for how one would go hooking up 2 laptops for the live head to head, without going onto the network?

[Schrullenhaft]

Do each of these laptops have network cards or are they lacking ? You can 'direct-cable' two laptops with a 'cross-over' cable (they'll need to have IP addresses in the same subnet; i.e. they would both have an address with the first three 'octets' being the same, like 192.168.1.x).

If you can't make a connection with network cards, then I believe it is possible to hook up via parallel port or serial port and network through those connections, but I'm not sure. Here's some instructions for making a 'direct cable connection' in Windows XP (though it lists a Serial/COM port in the instructions rather than a parallel port). However this seems more geared towards sharing files and resources rather than gaming. It doesn't appear that a network protocol can be attached to this shared connection, which would be necessary for a TCP/IP game. The only thing this would allow you to do would be to PBEM the file back and forth quickly (by just transferring the the PBEM file via the direct connection). There may be some other details somewhere else, but it looks like it may not be possible to perform a head-to-head/TCP/IP game with what Windows has built-in without a network card.

[Joe the Wedge]

Schrullenhaft,

You are in fact a genius. I tried all of the other suggestions posted in the 'Resolution Question' thread to no avail. Then in this thread you recommend reducing the colour to 16 bit and hey presto the game plays in the laptop's native 1400x1050 resolution.

I tip my cap to you.

The Wedge.

[DavidS]

Thanks Schrullenhaft,

I have managed to hook the 2 laptops together with the cross-over cable, my life is complete

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

David