YEAAAA!! FOG!

[Canuckgd]

Well, got my new Matrox G550 installed today, and then fired up CMBB. I now have "official" fog! :eek: The 2D stuff looks even better than before as well, so it looks like a win-win situation for me. Early next year I'll likely get a second machine that I can use as a back up and games-only unit, and will go NVidia at that point. Till then though, this is great.

Thanks to those that offered advice and suggestions. Worked out just great :cool:

Glenn

[Larry Thorne]

Man that is great ...I got all fired up seeing the name of the topic...thought someone had figured out how to get fog to ATI cards...strike out :mad:

Dissapointed ATI user

[junk2drive]

Me too Larry, me too

[Redwolf]

What card did you have before?

[Canuckgd]

Hehehe, sorry guys. Not only did my Radeon 9800 Pro 256 not give me fog, but I think it was responsible for a bug that has intermittantly caused serious graphics corruption (to the point where I'd have to reboot because I basically couldn't make anything out on the screen). Probably CMX2 will fix the ATI fog issue, but as I said, my next machine will have an NVidia card in it. Too many issues too many times with ATI I'm afraid, at least for me.

Glenn

[tooz]

Just got a new ATI Radeon Geforce 560 (or is it a 650?) and for the first time in four years--I GOT FOG!!! And dust, without which makes "Khamsin" less fun. So, ATI users--you CAN get fog. Woo-hoo! I am loving it!

[alexoscar]

Originally posted by tooz:

Just got a new ATI Radeon Geforce 560 (or is it a 650?) and for the first time in four years--I GOT FOG!!! And dust, without which makes "Khamsin" less fun. So, ATI users--you CAN get fog. Woo-hoo! I am loving it!

How did you get fog? I dont know that graphic card: ATI Geforce???? Are you sure? I thought the problem with ATI cards were the drivers, not the card. (In mac, ATI cards work perfectly).

Well, im looking for fog in ATI Radeon. If anyone can help this CM mate, please, DO IT!!!!!

) Thanks in advance.

[Canuckgd]

Radeon/ATI & GeForce are a contradiction in terms. GeForce is an NVidia based card, and yes, it will show fog very well (along with all the other effects). Are you sure you aren't talking about the 6500? That's an NVidia designation. There is no way (that anyone here I'm familiar with know about) that ATI cards will show fog in any CM game. Sorry .

Glenn

[alexoscar]

I think so. This guy hasnt done his homework.

[Redwolf]

Not to mention that even Radeons display dust.

[Canuckgd]

Not to mention that even Radeons display dust.

Mine sure did when I pulled it out in favour of the Matrox

Glenn

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by Canuckgd:

Hehehe, sorry guys. Not only did my Radeon 9800 Pro 256 not give me fog, but I think it was responsible for a bug that has intermittantly caused serious graphics corruption (to the point where I'd have to reboot because I basically couldn't make anything out on the screen). Probably CMX2 will fix the ATI fog issue, but as I said, my next machine will have an NVidia card in it. Too many issues too many times with ATI I'm afraid, at least for me.

Glenn

I have the same problem. No fog, and things start corrupting after a few turns of play - or immediately when starting the scenario editor, blanking everything out bit by bit (no pun intended).

No cure for the ATI fog, I know, but I didn't realise that these corruptions would set in. Makes the game totally unplayable.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Schrullenhaft]

Dandelion - I believe you have something wrong with your setup (hardware or software) since this normally shouldn't be happening in CM, even with an ATI card.

If you want further help (though I couldn't positively say that there may be a solution for you) we'll need more specs on your setup (OS, video driver version, motherboard/chipset, etc.).

We would also need further descriptions of the 'corruption' you're seeing. Does this 'blanking' happen while scrolling around the map, etc. ?

[Dandelion]

Well, I used the workaround for ATI cards as provided here. That solved the text disappearing. Had a look at my Antialiasing settings but couldn't figure it out. Anyway, I use the Tab-Alt buttons to refresh frequently, which takes care a of the problem endurably.

The corruption manifests itself in many ways. For example, like this:

This suddenly happends in mid game and unless this is not a new Kiwi fashion, or my enemies are turning into giant so many praying mantis, it is part of the problem.

Other strange phenonema occur. It can turn black, partially or wholly, this can happen slowly as I watch. Refreshing the screen solves the blackening out bit. I also get weird effects like the one above. I get a yellow frame. Around the screen I mean, the screen displaying the 3D setting. I get strange lines appearing in the game. Fields of white are not uncommon. Certain 3D object lose their bmp sort of.

Smoke can disappear. When I press Shift-I a couple of times, it comes back (it being set to appear to begin with).

I use a pretty standard system. AMD 64 3000+, PCI motherboard with NVIDIA nForce 3 chip, Radeon 9800 Pro from ATI. S-ATA HD. NTFS system. Not sure what else to include here. I have the Catalyst.

System works marvellously with other games. Powerful little thing.

Thanx

Dandelion

[Schrullenhaft]

Strange... which particular motherboard do you have ? Is this an nForce 3 150 or 250 chipset (I assume the former) ?

Do you have the NVidia chipset drivers installed ? The latest version is 5.10 of the Unified Drivers. I don't know the compatibility of these drivers with other drivers (video, audio, etc.), but they're the latest and they've been out since September 2004.

Which Catalyst driver do you have installed ? 4.12 is the latest one available, but I don't know what kind of issues it may have compared to earlier ones; of course the idea is that there are bug fixes with the newer drivers. There may also be no improvement over what you're currently running if you're running something older (it could potentially make things worse...).

Is anything overclocked regarding your CPU or videocard ? What does your SmartGART Display control panel tab say about your settings (AGP transfer rate and fast write support) ?

This whole issue may boil down to video drivers and your particular setup (NVidia nForce 3 chipset with the Radeon 9800 AGP card).

[Dandelion]

Schrullenhaft

It's the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, ATX, with nForce3 Ultra (250).

I do not have separate drivers for the nForce chip, I use the drivers supplied by MSI (they've got this live update function).

AGP Transfer rate is 8x. Fast write is totally blank, text and box greyed out. I seem to recall that I disabled it in the BIOS, or that it was disabled in the latest motherboard BIOS. I had some problems with that one, when initially my RAM turned out to be of a totally non-compatible type (Corsair - I now own Crucial, which work with the motherboard).

I had 4.03, have now downloaded 4.12, version of the Catalyst. Made a quick start of the game and notet no problem, but it does not always appear immediately.

Nothing overclocked, I never do that. I like ultra silent computers and can't stand the extra fans needed for overclocking.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Canuckgd]

Jeez, that sounds/looks ugly Dandelion. My graphics corruption was only on bootup of the system. As soon as the video drivers were "engaged", I'd get these weird lines all over my screen - horizontal as I recall. You could barely see anything through them, and if you tried to run any applications with it like that, you'd corrupt your icons semi-permanently (running dxdiag would fix the icons after the reboot). Yeah, I know what you are thinking, but honestly, I've never done drugs in my life . In any event, it would necessitate a reboot to fix, and sometimes 2 or 3 were required. However, once it came up with no graphics corruption, I never experienced any oddities after that for that session. CM ran fine, except of course you couldn't see fog, which really bugged me. I now run a Matrox G550 after asking a few questions here and at the Adobe Photoshop forum, and am extremely pleased with it, but it is NOT a gaming card by any stretch. I do notice a slight performance decrease in CM when I'm moving around the map, but nothing I'm going to worry about. At some point soon I'll add a second machine that will have an NVidia based card (probably 6800), and all my games (which aren't that many) will go on it, and this one will be reserved for photo-editing only. That will bring back full performance of CM for me, but again, it's quite acceptable the way it is now for that.

I'm afraid I'm not of much help for you here. Hopefully you can get this one figured out quickly. I do recall having numerous problems with ATI drivers, and in fact, switched to Omega drivers for Radeons almost as soon as I got my new (then) system home because the ATI drivers were terrible at running Flight Simulator, and they didn't seem in any rush to fix them. When I upgraded the ATI drivers to try them out again, I found even more problems, so went back to the Omega's. It's been a common issue with ATI I'm afraid. That's not to say NVidia doesn't have their share of issues, but lately they seem to be doing a better job of fixing things than ATI, I'm afraid. FIW.

Glenn

[Redwolf]

Download new drivers for the AGP slot on the mainboard and/or a new BIOS.

Fast write should work, if it doesn't then that's a mainboard problem.

At the very least look into the release notes of newer BIOSes to see whether they fiddle with AGP.

But before that download new software drivers for AGP (not the BIOS, that's the next step). You generally can't rely on the stuff they put on the CDs.

[tooz]

1: "Just got a new ATI Radeon Geforce 560 (or is it a 650?) and for the first time in four years--I GOT FOG!!! And dust, without which makes "Khamsin" less fun. So, ATI users--you CAN get fog. Woo-hoo! I am loving it!"

2: "Radeon/ATI & GeForce are a contradiction in terms. GeForce is an NVidia based card, and yes, it will show fog very well (along with all the other effects). Are you sure you aren't talking about the 6500? That's an NVidia designation. There is no way (that anyone here I'm familiar with know about) that ATI cards will show fog in any CM game. Sorry . Glenn"

3: "I think so. This guy hasnt done his homework. Alexocar"

Guys:

1) OOPS! Just checked, and my computer has an nVidia® Geforce FX Go5200 AGP.

Turns out that I originally had an ATI graphics card which went into the tank. Since I still have an extended warranty from Dell, they replaced it with a BRAND NEW video card (talk about great customer service--even here in China).

Oh. THAT'S WHY I NOW HAVE FOG AND DUST. So, my apologies and a suggestion: GET RID OF THE ATI CARD!!! CM life with fog and dust is so much better--it is keeping this aging game fresh for me. I did notice that ATI has a new "Pro" graphics card, being offered by Dell. Maybe that'll work. Regardless, I'm glad as hell DEll switched from ATI to nVidia.

Sorry for the hasty, erroneous post (must have been all of the celebratory beer I was drinking at the time--"burp").

2: Glenn, yep, you were right--it is a 5200 and not the 6500,however (I play CM on a laptop).

3: Alexocar: Yep, I lept before I looked. BTW, have you unearthed any other missing/lost CMBB/CMBO mods that were lost in the great CMMODS crash? You definitely did us modsluts a great service.

So, maybe this ATI Pro card will show fog and dust, if not, I think it's time for CMers to dump their old ATI cards.

I still shake my head in disbelief and joy when playing "Khamsin" in a dust storm and the many foggy battles in BB and AK.

[junk2drive]

Sorry to butt in Tooz

Astro Cat is the one who reloaded lost mods.

Alexoscar does his own excellent mods.

Snowy ones too.

[tooz]

"Sorry to butt in Tooz"--J2D

Hey, no apologies ever needed for your input J2D--it is always welcomed.

"Astro Cat is the one who reloaded lost mods.

Alexoscar does his own excellent mods.Snowy ones too."

Thanks for the heads up about Astro Cat and Alexocar. So...any new snowy mods in the works guys? Oops, straying off the thread here--sorry...

[Bannon DC]

Count my among the happy non-ATI card users!!

Fog!!

I had an old 7200 series with only about 32 video RAM. I have a new BFG GeForce/Nvidia with 256 MB on-the-card RAM.

Even better than Fog... I can now use TREES! Lovely trees on "extreme" setting... and dense wheat fields, endless fields of wheat... and roofs, buildings with actual roofs on them! I had to turn all that stuff off just to avoid graphics lag. I can now play my own scenarios without scaling the graphics down. Real gun graphics and wire that does not disappear!

I love designing larger scenarios... so look out! You may see a few new ones from me.

Now... back to the lab!! Muhahahahahah

[Canuckgd]

Sounds good Tooz! I think you'll be happier in the long run with NVidia. The "atmosphere" in CM games is fantastic, so if you can't crank it or even use it, it really takes a lot of the fun (and "fog" - literally) out of things.

Now that I just got CMAK (still waiting on CMBO), I'll start looking at mods and scenarios. I'll definitely keep an eye out for scenarios from Bannon . Me-thinks he's "rejuvenated", and that's a good thing for the rest of us .

Glenn

[teotwawki1]

FWIW, I have a Radeon 9800 Pro on an nVidia chipset mobo, and have had no video problems like the ones described above. I have had error that I traced to instant messaging and the use of CM Mod, but no graphics errors like the ones in the pic. I'm sure I'm not using the latest drivers, either.