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CMBB won't run on my Inspiron 8200 laptop


meditek

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Hi,

Game just won't run. Black screen 'cept for two boxes 'version' and 'main screen'. CMBO and any other game I've tried runs fine.

It's set for 1600x1200 60mz, anti-alias disabled, nvidia 40.72's. I tried all the tricks.

I've read a lot here slamming Nvidia but suspect it's the game's 3D 'engine'.

Odd they won't take back the game once they've sold it,

meditek

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Try the 30.82s. The GeForce2 Go is a bit funky anyhow, it might not like the 40.72s.

Have you tried minimizing and coming back ingame? It is actually running--you are seeing the opening screen just not the inactive bitmaps--so it might need a little refresh tweak.

WWB

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Have you tried the Dell 28.35 drivers? The 40.72 drivers (along with the 30.82) are all hacked to work in the Inspirons, and I would blame that long before I blamed the CM engine.

I'm running a GF4 Go 64mb in my i8000 and had nothing but problems until I went back to the 28.35s. If they don't work let me know and we can try a couple of other things.

Harv

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Thanks.

I have now re-installed the Dell 28.35's after cleaning out the old ones in safe mode and zapping the registry entries.

No joy whatever, just the black screen with the version and main screen text.

I have now tried 3 different driver versions, loadsa different settings and resolutions to no effect. I did (once) get into the game after changing screen res but when I exited and tried to return it was the black screen again.

The confusing thing is that CMBO works fine which gives rise to the question 'How does the CMBB 3D engine differ from CMBO's'. I have a sneaky suspicion that it writes some duff info to the prefs file on exit or something.

This is all very frustrating.

meditek

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I suggest removing ALL NVidia drivers from your system, cleaning out the Registry of settings that you can find and then manually deleting any NVidia files and INFs from the system. I'd also suggest deleting/uninstalling any GeForce tweaker programs you may have installed (and also delete their registry settings).

Depending on what OS you're running I would then suggest that you install your video as a PCI SVGA adapter for now (XP may recognize it as a GeForce though). Once that is working reboot your computer to make sure that those settings stick. After another reboot then I would suggest installing/reinstalling DirectX 8.1b, unless you're running XP. Reboot after that and then install the Dell 28.35 drivers.

Delete your Prefs file for CMBB and possibly select a resolution that isn't your LCD's max. You will probably also want to make sure that FSAA is disabled for now.

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Do you have access to an external monitor? If it works on an external we can narrow things down a bit more also.

One other thing to try is to start the game,and then hit the Fn + F8 key combination (or whichever key switches to a CRT on an 8200). This will re-initialize your LCD and has worked for me in the past.

CM will work with just the plain XP drivers on the 2Go and 4Go if you remove them as Schrullenhaft mentioned. After you've removed all drivers and rebooted do Not let XP install any drivers and try running CM.

Harv

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Problem Solved.

Thanks to all you guys for the help and support. The problem was nothing to do with the drivers at all!

A little voice suddenly whispered in my ear after spending all morning with drivers 'Try unloading the virus checker'. I did and it works. I don't have to disable anti-aliasing either.

The virus prog is Trend-Micro PC-cillin.

meditek

Operating System(s)

Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Home Ver 5.01.2600 Service Pack 1

Processor(s)

Model : Intel® Pentium® 4 Mobile CPU 1.70GHz

Speed : 1.70GHz

Performance Rating : PR1865 (estimated)

Type : Mobile

L2 On-board Cache : 512kB ECC synchronous ATC

System Mainboard

Bus(es) : X-Bus AGP PCI PCMCIA CardBus USB FireWire/1394 SMBus/i2c

MP Support : No

System BIOS : Dell Computer Corporation A06

System Mainboard : Dell Computer Corporation Inspiron 8200

System Chipset : Intel Corporation 82845 Brookdale Host-Hub Interface Bridge (B0-step)

Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 100MHz (400MHz data rate)

Installed Memory : 512MB DDR-SDRAM

Memory Bus Speed : 2x 133MHz (266MHz data rate)

Video System

Monitor/Panel : Default Monitor

Monitor/Panel : Default Monitor

Monitor/Panel : Default Monitor

Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go (Dell Mobile)28.35

[ November 23, 2002, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: meditek ]

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