Please help before I uninstall/reinstall!

[tooz]

Hey Guys, I recently switched from an ATI to NVidea GeForce 4 440 Go video card. I then noticed that my Call of Duty games would no longer run (?). I then updated my driver and Direct X. NOW both CMBB and CMAK "stutter' when playing games--especially games with burning fires or falling rain. :confused: :confused:

My Dell (China) techie has told me that I should try uninstalling then reinstalling these games. SHEESH! This guy obviously has no concept of folders heavily laden with new mods and scenarios! So, now I am busy spending valuable playing-time on making a time-consuming back-up disk. Before I uninstall, reinstall, what do YOU guys think is going on? I have learned to rely upon your acumen more than these guys in Xiamen, China.

Thanks--especially to Redwolf and Schrulenhaft for the help with my previous thread.

[tooz]

HELP!!! Just uninstalled CMBB, now I cannot re-install! The install exe is in WINRAR and even after downloading and running WINRAR--nothing. The CD just spins its wheels. OK, what the f**k is going on?

[Redwolf]

A reinstall of CM games is never neccessary to fix technical issues, at most the prefs file has to go.

I don't understand what you mean when you say "The install exe is in WINRAR". Don't you just double-click on it?

[ March 20, 2005, 06:50 AM: Message edited by: Redwolf ]

[DEY]

Hi Tooz,

Cmbb is packaged in a self extracting executable, you should only have too double click it like redwolf states too start the install.

Also going from one videocard manufacture type too another is no small thing, even after running the driver uninstall you will still have a lot of driver remnants hiding around in your registry.

I have seen in many cases that a clean reinstall of windows was the only way too clear up the problem.

I suggest you go here

http://www.drivercleaner.net

and download the program DRIVER CLEANER, uninstall your nvidia drivers, reboot and run cleaner program, reboot and reinstall the nvidia drivers again.

[Redwolf]

The reason for the original technical problem is most likely that there is an ATI *.dll file floating around which now falls back to some software rendering for some 3D features with the NVidia drivers behind it.

Remove all trace of the ATI drivers first, then install NVidia drivers.

[tooz]

Guys, my CMBB disks just spins and spins, nothing opens--no command prompts, nothing.

Now what? Buy another disk?

[Redwolf]

Uh, did you try clicking on the CD icon?

[tooz]

Redwolf--yep. Nothing. Ran tests, used the driver cleaner, reinstalled new driver. All other CDs work--CMAK is still "choppy"(?) though.

Man, is God angry with me. I feel a bit heart-broken, to be honest.

[DEY]

used the driver cleaner, reinstalled new driver

Okay that is the first step, the one you should have done after you first installed the nvidia video.

Now you have too go into the setup of each and every game you have and tell these games now that you have a nvidia videochip instead of ATI.

Different videocard manufactures is just that, they are DIFFERENT from each other, meaning they have unique proprietor functions from each other.

Now in regards to these combat mission games you should only have to delete that perfs file in the main folder of the game.

In regards to the cmbb CD are you saying that when you insert the CD in the drive it won't eventually spin down. Can you read the contents of the CD from windows explorer.

Does this happen with this CD in other CD drives, because you state that other CD's are okay in the cd drive that your trying to access the cmbb CD, so that would tell me that the cd drive is okay.

It sounds like the CD is damaged and the cd drive isn't able to read it, and that is why it's spinning away, because once the CD is recognized and read the cd drive will then spin down until an access attempt is made on the CD.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by DEY:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> used the driver cleaner, reinstalled new driver

Okay that is the first step, the one you should have done after you first installed the nvidia video.

Now you have too go into the setup of each and every game you have and tell these games now that you have a nvidia videochip instead of ATI.

Different videocard manufactures is just that, they are DIFFERENT from each other, meaning they have unique proprietor functions from each other.

</font>

[tooz]

"Did that CD ever work in this drive?"--Redwolf

Yes, since January 2003.

"I've got the feeling the original poster is way too increcise about decribing what exactly he does and did."--Redwolf

OK, let's try this again. ATI video card gets replaced by NVidea card. CMBB and AK still work--but my other games--Call of Duty and Hidden and Dangerous 2 now no longer run. I call Dell China tech support. Following their instructions I download the latest drivers and download the latest Direct X form MSN. I did that. Now CoD works very well, however, now H&D2 will not run, and the two CM games "stutter"--especially large games and when viewed from camera angles 1-3. I again call Dell China. Techie tells me to uninstall my games and reinstalling them. This works perfectly for H&D2. So, I now uninstall CMBB and no matter what I do, the CMBB installer won't extract. The CD just spins and spins. I click run, then browse, then CD CMBB setup. Nothing. I then get a "type the name of the file and folder, and windows will extract it for you". There is a default window: D:CMBB installer. I click OK. Nothing, CD spins and spins. I try again to insert the CD, double click the CMBB installer--nothing but spinning. I try right clicking for Open, run as..., just spinning.

I get this:

D:\CMBB Installer.exe.

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

I persist and see this window:

Combat Mission: Barbarossa to...

Combat Mission Barbarossa to Berlin will be installed to...

I type in C: Program Files CMBB

I click install.

More spinning.

"The original post mentions a mobile NVidia card which indicates he did not switch Video cards, but moved everything to a whole new notebook."

Huh? I don't recall writing that. My video card was replaced inside the SAME laptop.

This kind of inprecision makes it very hard to help debugging it. We need more info, and more importantly, more precise info to help."--Red wolf

What else can I add? Right click on the CMBB installer--nothing

Double click (left) on the CMBB installer--nothing.

Also, note that I successfully installed another PC game since this has happened. The new PC game runs fine. So, it is NOT my CD drive. Is it the disk? The WinRAR file on the disk?

What else can I try?

I keep trying and now I am getting that window: CMBB Barbarossa...

Install to...

I choose C:\Program Files CMBB

Now the game seems to be installing, it shows all of the bmps, wavs etc extracting. However, right near the end...

IT WORKS!!! IT WORKS!!! IT WORKS!!! IT WORKS!!!

Now, it is showing Version 1.0??? on the lower right screen? Huh?

New problem! What do you make of this?

Well, let me ask you guys this now? Should I delete the "prefs" file from both BB and AK folders? Play is STILL too choppy.

What a struggle!

[tooz]

Oh yeah, what I did differently the last attempt WAS TURN OFF MY NORTON ANTI-VIRUS. Now the game is reinstalled and running. Howver, this version 1.0 is real confusing--do I have to download the patches? I double-checked and my menu screen is normal--except for version 1.0. Before I do ANYTHING else I'm waiting for advice from you guys.

Thank you for spending the time to help.

[tooz]

Answered my own question about version 1.0. I now realize I have three patches to download. Then I can recopy my backed up files (and for safety will back up all of my bmps after the patches) which include my precious mods, scenarios and PBEMS.

Now, should I delete the Prefs files for both games? With that answer I can close this thread.

CM has taught me more about computers than any class or manual would.

[ March 22, 2005, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: tooz ]

[Redwolf]

Ah, so it was actually a laptop. Are you the person who recently asked about a laptop update?

Sorry for being pushy but hey it works

BTW, the Call of Duty not working and CM working is what I mentioned earlier: ATI seems to install their OpenGL.dll somewhere where NVidia doesn't overwrite it with their own OpenGL.dll. So you end up using an ATI OpenGL.dll with the NVidia drivers and hence OpenGL games like Quake-engine driven games like Call of Duty don't work, but Direct3D driven games like CM do.

I should mention that NVidia likes OpenGL better and ATI likes Direct3D better, so ATI is probably not too sorry to leave a negative impression on OpenGL this way.

[tooz]

These replies have been of great worth. Now, DEY--another computer savvy gentleman whose opinions I value and judgement I trust, has stated that I should delete my "Pref" files in both CMBB and CMAK. Before I do so, are there any caveats? Have other CMers experienced game operating problems after doing this, or are the results ALWAYS beneficial.

Nowadays I am definitely gun-shy about deleting ANYTHING before I get some more opinions. Yeah, I'm learning, albeit at a glacial pace.

One more oddity: after I downloaded all three patches, I see Version 1.03 listed. I try some games and see "ghost tanks". These are outlines of tanks that are just white silhouettes. I look for their bmps and find them missing(?). Fortunately, thanks to guys like you and Junk2drive, I backed up all of my files before I delted the origianl CMBB program. I have since recopied my saved bmps into the new bmp folder and no longer have the "ghost tanks". So, what happened? Maybe some of the patches are corrupting due to age?

Oh yeah, both of my games still stutter. Maybe my laptop liked ATI better. I guess I will have to live with it.

[Redwolf]

Did you ever really uninstall the ATI drivers and the NVidia drivers and then reinstall the NVidia drivers?

[tooz]

On the unistall for the ATI the folder was deleted, but when I try to uninstall the ATI driver I receive a "Error loading C:\Windows\System32\atiiexx.dll, The specified module could not be found"

So, it still shows up on the add/remove programs folder.

The ATI Control Panel is also still there. When I click "remove", I see the installation window open, load, then disappear. But the ATI Control Panel file does NOT disappear.

OK, how do I remove these recalcitrant files?

My game is still stuttering--even the sound stutters. Maybe I need a Dell techie to return and do this driver thing correctly?

I did a search for any ati.dll programs and deleted those that I could. Some however, could not be removed. I also used the "Driver Cleaner" program before installing the new driver and Direct X.

[tooz]

Bumping my own thread, fishing for some more suggestions.

Should I start tampering with regedit? Will this get rid of those damned ATI dlls still swimming around in my pc?

[Schrullenhaft]

You can try Driver Cleaner Professional to see if it will get rid of the "recalcitrant" files. I'm not sure if it will delete registry entries, but those shouldn't be too hard to find and delete. Typically for ATI I would assume that they would be under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ATI. Deleting that whole key would be a start. With Windows XP any hardware-related registry keys may not be delete-able. I'm not sure if ATI stuffs any other registry settings within other regions of the registry.

[tooz]

Schrullenhaft--thanks. I have already downloaded and used "Driver Cleaner Pro"; installed the latest NVidea Driver; downloaded DirectX 9.0c; deleted all traces of ATI from my registry (but still cannot remove ATI Control Panel--folder deleted, however, and the ATI Driver from my Add/Remove programs list in the Control Panel--strange); defragged the hard drive; I still get the "stutters". Maybe my laptop Pentium-4m was happier with ATI? Again, my shooters--Call of Duty and H&D2 play fine--without any problems, my Direct 3D games--just CM, aren't happy. Sigh.

This ghost in the machine continues to both haunt and taunt me.

[Schrullenhaft]

Where is this "ATI control panel" appearing at, within the Display control panel's tabs or is it appearing in the system tray in the lower right hand portion of your desktop or further still is it a control panel in-and-of itself listed with the other control panels ? What specific features does this control panel control ?

This may come down to manual registry editing and a lot of hunting and pecking for files in the WINDOWS/SYSTEM32 folder and elsewhere.

[tooz]

"Where is this "ATI control panel" appearing at, within the Display control panel's tabs or is it appearing in the system tray in the lower right hand portion of your desktop or further still is it a control panel in-and-of itself listed with the other control panels ? What specific features does this control panel control ?"--Schrullenhaft

The ATI Driver and ATI Control panel now only appear in my "Add/Remove programs" folder of my Control Panel. No matter what I do, I cannot remove these two items--despite the fact that these items do not appear anywhere else. I have already hunted down and deleted all ATI files in the registry. However, I am going to look for this Windows/Systen 32 folder--where is this to be found? In my program files, Windows folder?

I am just wondering if I should just replace this viedo card with a newer, higher end card. Maybe the card is NOT a new card--the tech guy showed up at my house with the card--but there was no box. That has me wondering.

[Schrullenhaft]

What you're seeing is just the remanants of the uninstallers that don't actually link to any files, as witnessed by the error you get when you actually click on them.

To remove these listings you'll need to go into the registry editor (Start Menu > Run > type in regedit). Browse to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

In this key you'll need to scroll down the list until you find the ATI-related uninstall keys and then just highlight them (in the left window pane) and then delete them. When you open the Add or Remove Software control panel again they should be gone.

[tooz]

Well, for some reason the ATI Control Panel remains in the add/remove folder for my control panel.

When I tried to unistall one file, I got an "unable to delete message". However, the ATI folder no longer appears in my "unistall" regedit folder.

Weird. Also, a "search" for this elusive ATI control panel comes up empty. Now what?

Guys, thanks for your patience and help with this dilemma. I have almost quit CM entirely because I can't tolerate watching this choppy, stuttering movement of my units--especially tanks and rain. Frustrating.

[tooz]

New discovery...In my program files/Drivers/Video folder I noticed a folder entitled "BX_05190. Inside are many files labeled ATI and ATR. I have deleted the ATI files, but not the ATR files--whatever they are. So, I'll let you know if this helped any. Does this folder make sense to any of you?