CMAK with an ATI5750 on Windows 7 64 ... or not

[Scheer]

Hi,

I upgraded my fine working ATI 4200 on board graphic, to a kinda working ATI 5750 graphic.

Now I have four black boxes with lotsa ..... and ,,,,,,,,,,, .

Have tried with and without the radeon fix, but no go.

Should I try the Vista patch/fix ?

[Schrullenhaft]

Where do you see this "black boxes" at ? The Radeon Text fix will address certain in-game text (not perfect, but it should be legible). I have heard that some dialog boxes for saving games may have "thin black rectangles" in the place of legible text. This might have a higher chance of occurring with non-English versions of Windows or CMAK.

What I find really strange is that there is a difference between the Radeon 4200 series built-in video and the Radeon 5750 PCIE video card. Within CMAK I would have assumed the text problems would have been the same. Have you changed anything in the Catalyst Control Center that isn't a default setting ?

The 'Vista patch' (version 1.04) will not change this text issue to my knowledge. It addresses a certain DirectX 10 issue that occurs with DirectX 10 compatible hardware. The most common ailment was a 'constantly repeating' image on the 3D screen when you would move around (the game became unplayable at that point). If you're not seeing that problem, then the 1.04 patch will most likely do nothing for you.

[Scheer]

Thanks for your reply,

The text is fine.

The black boxes just contain those .... and ,,,,,, . The boxes self, are two in the middle of the 3D, and two to the right upper corner. I can play around them, but those are annoying.

Well the 4200 is a DirectX 10.1 part, the 5750 is DirectX 11.

[Schrullenhaft]

If you're not seeing the "multiple, repeating images" in the 3D screen (where it possibly looks like a bunch of 'angles'), the 'Vista patch' will not address the problem. This was seen with new DirectX 10 video hardware and video drivers under Windows Vista (which actually had DirectX 10). DirectX 11 and Windows 7 shouldn't be anything NEW in the regard of compatibility for CMx1 titles such as CMAK.

I'm trying to picture where it is on the screen that you're seeing "...." and ',,,,,' characters. Are these occurring in the control panel at the bottom of the 3D screen (not actually a part or within the 3D screen itself). Would such info areas in the control panel as "Turn x of xx" and the 'month/year and time of day' under neath the 'turn count' be these "...." and ",,,," characters ? Or are these occurring in some info panel that appears within the 3D area ?

[Major E. D. Ott]

I seem to be having the same problem. I recently got a new computor too. Here are some of the problems:

1.) In the scenario desription box some of my "saves" battles are blank (no typing)

2.) Scenario Briefing box is blank. the "page" and "of" boxes are black

3.) Game options (next screen) are blank

4.) Game type choices ar blank, though pictures of the "generals" do appear

5.) Command briefing box is blank.

6.) Battle field descriptors are typed light blue with a white background

7.) The "movement" panel boxes are all blank: moral/victory, turns, turn time

8.) Hotkey panel - typing is whited out

9.) End of game - all scoring is blANK

My new computor is a Dell Optiplex 960

What can be done?

[Major E. D. Ott]

I just saw Ted's post, I will go there and try the zip file.

[Scheer]

I´ve attached a screenshot of the effect.

Any hints ?

[Schrullenhaft]

What I can see in the picture are "black spots" in the 3D portion of the screen, approximately '4 groupings' of them. Do these "black spots" remain in the EXACT same position, regardless of where you move the camera or do they seem to stick to an 'area' of the 3D screen ?

I guessing that some of these 'black spots' are in-game text in the 3D area that are "landmark text" - text inserted by a scenario creator to mark certain locations for reference. I'm not absolutely sure of the two groupings near the top of the 3D screen however. In certain level 1 and 2 views there is a 'rose compass' to indicate North, but I don't think you would be viewing it with the view you have in your screenshot.

Since the Radeon Text Fix does put the text on a black background, this may just be the text, though I don't know if it would behave in this specific manner. The text does get scaled a bit, so it's possible getting closer or further to these 'landmark text' instances may result in legible and unlegible text in these 'black spots'.

This is something I'll have to examine myself a bit later.

[Scheer]

>> Do these "black spots" remain in the EXACT same position, regardless of where you move the camera or >>do they seem to stick to an 'area' of the 3D screen ?

If I move the camera, the spots move with the camera.

It may very well be a driver issue, cause the 5750 is new and the driver hasnt got time to mature.

[Scheer]

One small update :

The position of the black boxes is dependant on the screen resolution. The boxes in 1600x1200 are in another place then the 1280x1024 boxes.

[Panama Red]

I have been reading about a lot of ATI 9-11 driver issues and are cured by stepping back to 9-10 drivers. You might want to try that or the new 9-12's when they come out.

[mikesla]

I'm having the same problems here. I just recieved a new motherboard with an ati3200hd onboard, and unfortunately it does not allow me to disable AA. It only defaults to the lowest setting of 2x.

I also have tried the bmp fix, and also have tried having Cmak in game video default to a lower resolution (800x600 refresh rate of 160) from my desktop res of 1280x1024 refresh rate of 100, hoping that this in itself would rid me of having to alt-tab out which I have found causes problems (my troops disappear).

Anyway, I forgot to mention the game has been patched to 1.03.

All that is left is, can AA be disabled in Directx9?

I'm running Windows XP with SP3.

[Schrullenhaft]

The 'black boxes' that are appearing in the 3D window are some sort of defect in the ATI drivers and it IS NOT the standard text issue that the ATI Radeons have with the CMx1 series. As suggested by Panama Red you may want to try out the 9.10 Catalysts. I don't know if the 9.12's have the same issue or not, but it is a possibility.

As for disabling AA, that is strictly a function of the video driver and the controls provided for it and not a function of DirectX. However some games do have controls to turn AA on or off within them and these may be implemented with some DirectX calls. For the CMx1 series you would have to turn it off in the Catalyst Control Center. Typically anything that is "application controlled" will mean OFF for CMx1 games, though I can't remember what terminology ATI/AMD's uses for such a setting.

[alexbaxter]

Ic have the same issue, but i use a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT with the actual drivers.

CBM 1 Works, 2/3 not.

Is there a new patch aviable ?

Thanks,

Alex

[Sgt Joch]

I seem to be having the same problem. I recently got a new computor too. Here are some of the problems:

1.) In the scenario desription box some of my "saves" battles are blank (no typing)

2.) Scenario Briefing box is blank. the "page" and "of" boxes are black

3.) Game options (next screen) are blank

4.) Game type choices ar blank, though pictures of the "generals" do appear

5.) Command briefing box is blank.

6.) Battle field descriptors are typed light blue with a white background

7.) The "movement" panel boxes are all blank: moral/victory, turns, turn time

8.) Hotkey panel - typing is whited out

9.) End of game - all scoring is blANK

My new computor is a Dell Optiplex 960

What can be done?

Here is something which should work in XP. I have a 4890 w CAT 9.12 & XP SP3. The in-game text sometimes disappears as you describe.

A workaround is to hit ctrl+alt+del and bring up the task manager which will minimize CMBB/CMAK. You then close task manager and bring back CMxx to full screen and all the text should now appear.

I don't know if this works with VISTA or 7.

[Sgt Joch]

Scheer, re: the black boxes. I do not get this effect in XP.

I presume you have the Radeon text fix installed since text usually appears in those black boxes.

Have you tried turning off "landmarks" or "objectives" to see if the boxes disappear?

you might also try the workaround I posted above to see if it has any effect.

[alexbaxter]

I`m not pretty sure if this is 100 percent the same problem.

After the start i can choose a szenario, but on the battelfield map it starts to flicker and then the boxes are "empty" and the flickering continues.

[Panama Red]

I have this flickering problem if my ATI Crossfires are enabled, when I disable my Crossfires (only using a single ATI video card), the flickering problem disappears.

[Schrullenhaft]

alexbaxter - What Windows version are you running and what video driver do you have installed for your GeForce 9600GT ?

You say the 'boxes are empty', are you seeing black boxes in the 3D area like the original poster (who has a Radeon, not a GeForce) ?

The latest patch for CMBB and CMAK is 1.04, but it is not free. A 3rd party did some minor fixes for DirectX compatibility for Windows Vista (and Windows 7, by extension). Improved video drivers from ATI/AMD and Nvidia fixed the particular issue that was addressed in the patch (but the patches provide a level of security if the drivers get "broken" again, which does happen). The issue that Windows Vista users saw was an endlessly repeating image that covered up the 3D screen - making the game unplayable.

The flickering you're seeing may be due to a particular driver or a setting you have in the Nvidia Control Panel's 'Manage 3D Settings'.

[ARCHANGEL]

Greetings Gentlemen:

I have just set up my new computer. It has double video cards (total of 1 meg), a 3 meg AMD chip and 8 gigs of RAM. I am running in the evil Windows 7 but not in Vista...(Thunderbird & Open Office).

When I loaded CMAK and CMBB they both loaded more-or-less noramlly...but they won't open...all I get is the video rez box(es) and the very lowest bar on the opening screen...

(that says battlefront.com)...

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who might have a way to un-screw this situation as I still play both games regularly.

Many Thanks,

Archangel

[GDog]

I´ve attached a screenshot of the effect.

Any hints ?

***Cross Post, but important for frustrated ATI HD 5xxx users***

I am one of the new ATI HD 5850 owners with the "floating black box" problem, as seen below.

My relevant specs are;

Win XP Pro 32bit

ATI HD 5850 gpu using the Catalyst 10.3 drivers.

Just downloaded and installed the CMAK 1.04 DEMO, loaded it up and the black boxes are gone!

Also, the "missing in-game text" problem is gone that I was experiencing with my old ATI HD 4870, which was easily solved using the (slightly ugly) "Radeon Text fix".

The only problem I still have with the demo is the "scenario names / text" missing from the scenario list, which is easily fixed with a quick ALT + TAB.

So, for those of you with HD 5xxx cards suffering from the floating black boxes I suggest downloading the demo to see if it helps. I am off to (VERY happily) pay my $5.00 for the 1.04 CMAK Vista Patch, even though I am not using VISTA.

Will report back to confirm that I get the same results with the Vista patch when using XP.

[GDog]

Well, I applied the 1.04 Vista patch to my CMAK installation (running XP not Vista, but who cares it fixed it) and the floating boxes are gone, game is running fine.

Only thing left to check out, is if the 1.04 Vista patch somehow fixed the Radeon No Text issue. Would be nice not to have the ugly black background behind all my in-game text.

I doubt it will but who knows, it seems to be a miracle solution!

[GDog]

Update, while the artifacts are gone, then new Catalyst drivers stop working after a couple minutes with all CM1 titles. Ugh.

[Chops]

Is there a workaround for the Radeon "No Text" issue?

[alexbaxter]

I tried out the following steps :

Install XP / Win 98 into VM-Lite/MS Virtual PC / VMWare ( because it has an 3d display driver)

Nothing was successfull.

The pictures of the errors are different from flickering to black screens.

I have got the actual Nvidia Driver and the Patches for CM.

I guess the only solution would be the installation of XP on an seperat partition.

Really strange, so far i was able to run every old game in a virtual machine or in the Dosbox.