PaulMG Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 and poor graphics overall. I installed the 1.30 demo to see how SF would work before BN is out. I have multi coloured text that is barely readable. I went into the options screen and set everything to fastest, AA off. I have a Biostar mb with integrated ATI HD 4200 video, set at 256mb of 2g DDR shared RAM with an AMD Sempron 140 2.7 cpu. I checked the CCC and it is set for AA and AF as app controlled. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Which Catalyst driver are you running ? Is the issue solely with the intro text screens or are you speaking of all text within the game and the 3D graphics ? What are your '3D Texture Quality', '3D Model Quality' and 'High Priority Process' settings set to normally ? With 'fastest' settings you're going to get the lowest quality textures and models possible, which will definitely affect the appearance of the game. These settings typically won't make a difference to text, but they may make a difference to the appearance (and performance) of the game. CMSF will control AA, but not AF. So if you want to improve the textures, then setting AF to 'on' at whatever setting may improve some of the appearance of the textures at least. You may want to upgrade your Catalyst drivers to something newer (avoiding Catalyst 9.4 - 9.9 and 10.2); that MAY affect some of the issues that you're seeing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 In the CCC info panel it shows Catalyst Version 11.2 The text is bad in game as well. After posting above I went in and changed the options to middle (balanced) setting but it didn't change. Also the LOD cut in and out is bad with horizontal lines where I assume the tiles come together or that is the effect. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 I tried setting everything on high and turning off the ATI compatiblity setting. The horizontal lines are gone and the 3d models look good but the text is bad and so are the floating icons. The grass in the training mission takes a bit to load on screen and the LOD is a semicircle at some angles. I also set the AF in CCC to 16. I was hoping it was a Radeon text fix like CMx1. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I'm not sure what the solution to this is. Do screen captures show the quality of the text accurately ? Are you running on an LCD ? What resolution do you run CMSF at and what is the resolution of your monitor ('native' if an LCD) and desktop ? The initial briefing screens are 1024x768, if I remember correctly, which if stretched for some reason could make them look bad. I wouldn't think in game text would be so bad though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 I am on a CRT at 1024x768 The splash screens are fine 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Using a built-in Radeon HD 3200 and the Catalyst 10.7 drivers, I'm not reproducing the text problem. This particular setup is using the 'Desktop' resolution of 1280x1024 (native for the LCD display). In the CCC's 3D settings: Standard Settings: 'Balanced' AA: 'Use application settings' AAA: 'Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing' is UNCHECKED ('disabled') AF: 'Use application settings' (which is 'disabled' for CMSF) AI: 'Disable Catalyst AI' is UNCHECKED and set to 'Standard' Mipmap: 'High Quality' If you're running the game at a non-native resolution for your monitor/LCD panel, then it may cause some distortion of the text. However a CRT shouldn't have this issue since they typically don't have much of a 'native' resolution. Do you know what the 'standard/max' resolution of your CRT is ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 If I use the Windows XP Display Properties\Settings tab, the slider goes to 1600x1200 My desktop is at 1024x768 as is the game. I'll try your CCC settings. I recently updated the drivers through Windows Update, before installing the demo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 Changing to you settings didn't change things. Not related to the game, I have had two blue screen crashes since installing this driver. I never get blue screen with XP. Both were because of something ati. I didn't pay close attention to what it said on the blue screen. Today my system was slow and I opened task manager to see what's up. ati2evxx.exe is at 500mb of memory usage. I think I'll install an older driver this weekend and see what happens. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 Almost as a rule I never install video drivers off of the Windows Update. For some reason almost every video driver I have gotten from Windows Update has done something horrible to the system, which seemed especially true of Windows XP. I suggest downloading a new driver directly from AMD: Windows XP 32-bit 10.7 driver Windows XP 32-bit 11.3 driver Next download 'Driver Sweeper' and install it. Then uninstall your current video driver (from the Control Panel 'Add/Remove Programs') and reboot. When Windows comes up DO NOT install the driver yet (it will attempt to install the last driver it was using). Now run Driver Sweeper. Make sure to uninstall ONLY the video drivers. Since your chipset is an AMD it could cause problems if you uninstall it too. Once this is done, now install either of the two above drivers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 Thanks I'll give it a try. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 I hate dealing with drivers, it never goes well. I had a copy of 10.8 so I didn't grab your link to 10.7. I downloaded 11.3 since 11.2 was the problem. There was no uninstall for the driver in Control Panel so I opened the Display Properties window and uninstalled from there. Reboot and run Driver Cleaner. When it finished it asked if I wanted to reboot. I couldn't remember what you said and I tried to open my browser to review this thread. I got a blue screen about ati2dvag.dll and at the bottom it did a physical memory dump that took half an hour. Finally got restarted but couldn't get to safe mode. I have a multimedia keyboard and F keys are off by default so trying to get to F8 isn't easy. I installed 11.3 and got an error, checked properties and it did not install. Rebooted into safe mode and installed the 10.8 driver. The game looks fine now but I don't have CCC. I'll go to ATI and see what is the latest for my 4200. At least now you know that 11.2 is a problem for SF. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 In the hardware selection the Integrated video is way down the list. Maybe your link is to a desktop driver? I found the 11.3 for my intergrated HD 4200 and installed. All is well and no text problems. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Actually the links ARE for integrated drivers, which are one in the same - there is no actual different download for the integrated drivers to my knowledge. Nevertheless the link is to the integrated drivers. I'm not sure how the Windows Update drivers installed. It's possible that they didn't leave an uninstaller routine behind (like the official drivers usually do). I'll have to check the 11.2 drivers, but I haven't been aware of any problems with them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMG Posted April 3, 2011 Author Share Posted April 3, 2011 10.8 didn't make an uninstaller in the Control Panel either. I does get installed, just not easy to find. When I did the dropdown for Desktop Graphics it showed PCIe or AGP so I thought maybe they have different drivers for different setups. I have had good luck in the past with using Windows Update to install drivers. They are usually late with offering them but I figure they passed muster. If no one else has a problem with 11.2 then it must have been something with my install. 11.3 is dated 3/29 Thanks for the help. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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