Assistance with Video capability issue: TOW

[sandgroper]

I attempted to spec out my latest home system as a gaming platform and unfortunately it has not turned out very well. I purchased an MSI AMD DKA790GX motherboard the uses ATi Crossfire technology that lead me purchase a Radeon Video card, a Sapphire Radeon HD 4350 and immediately I had conflicts with my older CMBO and CMBB games due ito an incompatibility with ATi / Radeon video driver(s) or something that lead to missing text. So I purchased TOW and discovered it too has a conflict with Radeon video, shaping, shading problems. Then I read the ‘small print’, i.e., the system requirements to TOW on battlefront home site. It states “ATi Radeon 9200 or earlier not supported,” but then it recommends an ATi Radeon X850 or GeForce 6800.

Anyway, online reviews of the X850 sounds like a better solution but it a bit dated, reviews of it are dated mid 2000’s yet it seems to be still available in the $60.00 to 80.00 range(?) I biggest problem I don’t know how to rate a card by is name, which are newer and which are older, less capable, etc. For instance, when I go to AMD Home site and look up their ATi Radeon cards there no reference to anything other than, 500O, 4000, 3000 and 2000 series cards, no “9200 or earlier” or X series yet when I go to Tiger Direct they list ATi Radeon X1000 series for sale, WTF am I supported figure out?

Anyway, I like to hear anybodies suggestions / assistance in correct spec-ing this out. I note the next TOW games, TOW2, Africa 1943, Kursk 1943, states AMD Radeon HD 3850 and 4850? Question: If I get the X850 will be as capable as these, the HD 3850 or 4850, for TOW2? Or is there another incompatibility surprise awainting me?:confused::confused:

Confused, Kevin.

[Sneaksie]

I don't know about CM series, but ToW has problems with Ati drivers because its engine was written for OpenGL and it requires full driver support for it. I know that Ati Catalyst drivers that run ToW fine are 6.12, 8.9 and 9.2 (last one with shadows disabled). Later ones caused the game to crash, but of course i didn't try them all and 'your mileage may vary'.

However, latest Catalyst 10.5 drivers contain compatibilty improvements for IL-2, so ToW may benefit from it as well.

On the other hand, ToW2 games use DirectX instead of OpenGL (the main reason for rewriting engine were the aforementioned problems with Ati/AMD cards), so they should run fine on any supported AMD or nVidia card excluding low-end ones; i'd recommend a card with at least 256Mb onboard RAM for ToW2 series. Keeping this in mind, i wouldn't go for a really old card. For example, nVidia 9800GT or 260GTX run both the ToW1 and ToW2 without problems.

[Schrullenhaft]

Video card model numbers can be a pretty confusing business for consumers. Some older video cards have 'larger numbers' than some new ones and some older cards are faster than some newer video cards. The specs to compare between cards have also changed quite a bit as the architectures for them have changed significantly in the last several years.

As Sneaksie has pointed out, it is often the drivers that are one of the main culprits for the problems you see. The hardware capabilities of the Radeon HD 4350 should have been fine for TOW 1 and the CMBO & CMBB games. But the ATI/AMD drivers unfortunately provide problems.

For CMBO & CMBB there is a workaround when using ATI/AMD video cards. Download the Radeon_Text_Fix.zip file and extract it to a separate, known directory. This file will extract into a few folders, one for each CMx1 game (CMB0, CMBB & CMAK). Inside each folder will be replacement bitmaps that are the text in each game. Copy the three files to the appropriate 'BMP' folder for each game. You should get warnings about overwriting the files. This should be fine. With these files replaced you should now be able to see text in-game. However this workaround makes the text appear as yellow on a black background (that was typically transparent before). So it doesn't look elegant, but it does work. The other text issue for CMx1 games involves the initial 2D menus and scenario/op listings. In that case you will have to 'Alt-Tab' to minimize the game and then re-maximize it. This should force a 'refresh' of the screen and draw the text. When you change screens you will need to do the 'Alt-Tab' process again to refresh the screen.

As for TOW1, try the 10.5 driver as Sneaksie suggested and see if it makes any sort of difference. ATI/AMD has not been as good as Nvidia when it comes to OpenGL driver support. However neither company has been perfect.

If you're interested in replacing the video card with something else, then you may want to consider an Nvidia-based video card for fewer headaches when it comes to the specific games you're playing. The GeForce 9600GT is a fairly inexpensive model. Up a bit from that would be the GeForce 9800GT or the GeForce GTS 250. With some newer video cards you may need to double-check their power requirements and see how well your power supply matches up (typically wattage and amperage requirements on the +12V rail).