CMBB game loading issue, text missing

[sandgroper]

I upgraded my computer to a MSI DKA790GX motherboard, 4MB ram, ATI Radeon HD 4350 with OS XP3SP3 and then loaded my CMBB which I had been playing for years on old system which ran with XP2SP2 OS and ran fine. But aftering loading CMBB on the new system I noted that the version # on the main menu screen was not showing, and the name and description text for the battle / operations listing was missing too. When I selected a name of battle that was showing I found the scenario briefing text was missing too. Finally when the game screen opened the unit, vehicles, landmark names, plus the lower control panel names where all missing.

I then loaded CMBO and CMAK to see it was a bad disk. These loaded fine with scenario text, etc., all present but for the very end when the game screen opened, the unit, vehicle, landmark and control panel text, etc., text was missing also in both of these games? The CDs for each cannot be bad as I have the older system still in operation and when I put the disks in that machine the games all ran fine.

Can someone assist with an explanation of what is wrong, what may be misisng from the system or what I must do to correct this?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

You might want to try turning anti-alliasing off.

Oh, and welcome! Make yourself at home.

[Schrullenhaft]

The initial missing text may be due to an ATI bug that's been around for awhile. The most common solution is to Alt-Tab to minimize the game and then re-maximize the game. The initial 2D screens text should hopefully show up. You may need to do this for each new 2D screen until you get into the 3D portion of the game.

For text in the game you're running into another ATI bug. In the past turning off anti-aliasing (called Smoothvision by ATI) has worked, but it rarely works anymore. For in-game text you'll probably need to replace the text bitmaps with some modified ones. This Knoweldgebase article about 'Radeon_Text_Fix.zip' (the link to the file is a bit hard to see, but it is in there) should restore the missing text.

It basically involves unzipping the 'Radeon_Text_Fix.zip' file and copying the '0.bmp', '1.bmp' and '2.bmp' files from the CMBB folder to the BMP folder of CMBB on your hard drive. This will replace the files that are already there. This workaround is NOT perfect however. The text on screen will be 'yellow on black' and the Save Game dialog box text will appear as thin, vertical, black rectangles. So you will have to remember what you're typing since you will not be able to see it on screen.