Thomas Goetz Posted September 7, 2002 Share Posted September 7, 2002 I've been checking the posts on the CMBB demo, and I seem to have a rather unusual problem with it. Everyone else complains about it crashing or the screen blanking. Well, the demo seems to run fine on mine. There's just one teensy little problem... Everything proceeds normally through the various startup screens, until I select the scenario. Then I get a box saying "Loading 3D graphics" with several periods filling in after it. Then, I get the status bar on the bottom of the screen, the sounds, and a box telling me that I can right click on a unit to move it. Only one problem - the main screen is black! I can call up the hotkeys, but then cannot make the box with the list of them leave the screen. I can likewise exit the scenario or game normally, but cannot get it to actually do anything in the game. CMBO ran just fine on my system, but I'm betting that the problem comes from the fact that I do not actually have a graphics card, just a chipset on the mother board - the machine is almost 4 years old. So give it to me straight - without an actual 3D graphics card, I'm doomed to never playing CMBB on this machine, right? The fact that the game itself seems to run fine, in terms of various opening screens, etc., seems to imply that my system can handle the other elements of the game. Any thoughts? Or should I just start saving my pennies for a new computer system? Thanks. Just for completeness: PIII 400 Mhz Win98 128 megs of ram DirectX 8 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobruk Posted September 7, 2002 Share Posted September 7, 2002 Your experience is not unique, Thomas; I have EXACTLY the same problem. I get the control bar at the bottom but the 'loading graphics' sign remains superimposed over a black screen. I have 2 additional issues: the read me file won't open, and the gamma is automatically set to high. To top it off, there appears to be no way to uninstall the demo; it doesn't appear in the add/remove window in the control panel, and it has no uninstall feature of it's own. Can I just delete the CMBB file or are there registry entries? I know the download was good because I did it at work and it worked ok at a lower res on the Gateway at work. (I've tried low res on my machine, too, but still gert the same problems.) I hope BTS or some other good folks will address these problems. :confused: Also, to the other people that I haven't written to in a while, and who are sure to read this (like you, Oli!) please forgive me for not writing: I'll get to it as soon as I have a relaxed minute oh, BTW, my machine: IBM 475 Mhz AMD-K6 3D 128 ram SiS 530 video Ess-Solo 1 sound DirectX 8.1 Win 98 Thanks to all, and cheers, -Tom 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porkbrain Posted September 7, 2002 Share Posted September 7, 2002 To top it off, there appears to be no way to uninstall the demo; it doesn't appear in the add/remove window in the control panel, and it has no uninstall feature of it's own. Can I just delete the CMBB file or are there registry entries? Was mentioned a couple of days ago by MM that there are no registry entries etc. So it's OK just to delete the folder. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedbump Posted September 7, 2002 Share Posted September 7, 2002 Sounds exactly like the problem I am having at home. Works fine at work, but tried at home and get the same issues after "Loading 3d Graphics". I go on to get flashing blue lines if I click anywhere in the screen, as if I were group highlighting. I get several labels, but other than that the black screen. My PC: Dell Dimension XPS T450 PIII, 450 Megahertz 160 Meg Ram 16mb NVidia RIVA TNT (with latest driver, windows checked) Windows 98 (Recent reinstall) High Color (16 Bit) Not sure which DirectX, but downloading 8.1b Speedbump [ September 07, 2002, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: Speedbump ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedbump Posted September 7, 2002 Share Posted September 7, 2002 Arghhh. Hit Edit not reply...doofus. [ September 07, 2002, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Speedbump ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted September 8, 2002 Share Posted September 8, 2002 I've noticed during beta testing that some 'integrated video' chipsets don't work well with CMBB (but they can work with CMBO). The 'Loading 3D Graphics...' page is as far as they get. This happened with an SiS 620 and it has happened for others using the SiS 530 (pretty much almost the same chip, one is used for Slot1/Socket370 and the other is used on Super Socket 7). We don't know exactly why these video cards don't work, since they can access enough RAM to support hardware 3D. The cheapest alternative in this case is to upgrade to a PCI video card(since most of these motherboards will not have an AGP slot). A TNT2 M64, TNT2 or GeForce2 MX200/400 should work fine for most systems. The PCI versions of these cards are ironically more expensive than their AGP versions. The TNT's could probably be purchased for less than US$50. The GeForces can be found under US$70. As for the problem with the TNT 16Mb - which driver are you running ? I've recently found out that the latest Detonators don't support plain TNT's (the NV4). The last driver to do so is the 29.20. I suggest running the DirectX Diagnostic (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DXDIAG). Under the Display tab will be three settings on the left hand side which should be enabled. Run the tests listed on the right hand side (DirectDraw and Direct3D) and see if they pass. If they don't then something is wrong with either your video drivers or possibly DirectX. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Goetz Posted September 8, 2002 Author Share Posted September 8, 2002 I appreciate the advice and suggestions. I know my system has an SiS video chipset, but don't remember which one at the moment. I will check out the cards you suggested, and keep my fingers crossed that the problem can be solved for less expense than a whole new system. I'll let you know how it works out. Thanks again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedbump Posted September 8, 2002 Share Posted September 8, 2002 To close my loop, I decided to buy a new video card. Picked up the TNT2 M64 and we are up and running! Preorder is now in. Thanks, Jeff 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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