Doug Williams Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 I just upgraded to Windows XP Pro and now I'm getting the dreaded "white transparency" problem on my startup and mission briefing screens. My video card is a GeForce 2 GTS 32MB, and I installed the latest nVidia drivers from their web page. :mad: Is there any fix for this annoying problem? I saw some mention of FSAA in other threads. How do I turn it on or off? Any help would be appreciated. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 ESC to the desktop and re-maximize CM. This should clear up the transparency problem until the end-of-game screen (which may come up completely black). ESC'ing at that point (with multiple attempts possibly being required) may work, I've seen it not work and therefore you would have to end CM with a Ctrl-Alt-Del to kill it. Nvidia is supposedly looking into these issues, but it is hard to tell if there will be a solution forthcoming from them in the near future or not. These problems don't occur under Win9x/ME, just Win2K and XP. [ 10-21-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 21, 2001 Author Share Posted October 21, 2001 Yes, I just sent Nvidia an e-mail asking them to fix this problem. I basically told them that if they didn't fix the problem, my next video card purchase would be a Radeon 8500. Anyway, about that FSAA. How do I enable/disable it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 FSAA: Though I'm not absolutely sure of WinXP's menus... Go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Display control panel > Settings tab > Advanced... button > 'GeForce 2 GTS' tab > Additional Properties... button > 3D Antialiasing Settings tab > select the 'Manually select the antialiasing mode' and then one of the three selections to 'force' or turn off antialiasing. I assume that if it is left on 'Allow applications to control the antialiasing mode' will result in FSAA not being enabled in CM. Enabling FSAA in Win2K or WinXP should help with the corruption of the info boxes in the lower portion of the screen. The initial menus and AARs need to be fixed by ESC'ing to the desktop and back in order for them to clear up/become visible. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 21, 2001 Author Share Posted October 21, 2001 Ok, here's an update. FSAA on or off, 2x or 4x, doesn't make any difference with the "white transparency" problem. When I force FSAA on, however, a weird flickering develops at the bottom 1/4 of the screen during actual gameplay. No amount of ESCing back to the desktop fixes it. Solution: leave FSAA off or "allow applications to control FSAA". As for the "white transparency" problem, nothing seems to fix it. No amount of ESCing to the desktop gets rid of it. If, however, I reboot the computer then start CM, the problem is eliminated for the 1st scenario I play. If I abort the scenario, the problem is back. Even if I quit CM and restart, the problem is still there. Only a reboot fixes it and only for the 1st scenario started. I wonder if using an older driver would help? Or, perhaps, using a driver from my video card manufacturer instead of Nvidia? I checked my video card manufacturer's web page (Elsa), and found that they don't have an XP driver for my card, but they do have a W2000 driver for it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 You can go back to a 7.xx series Detonator and that should clear up the problem with the FSAA. The 'white transparency' has been a problem with all Detonator drivers for Win2K/XP. Someone mentioned a 3.xx series driver that didn't have the white transparency problem, but from what I've seen it was originally for WinNT and not Win2K. I'm not sure how well some of the older Win2K/NT drivers may work with XP for that matter. FSAA, on or off, never helped with the white transparency problem. In my experience turning FSAA on has helped with the corruption/transparency of some of the white text and bitmaps in the bottom of the 3D screen. With FSAA off the bottom area had all sorts of corruption (this was with a GeForce 3, which may be different enough to make this an invalid statment for GeForce/GeForce 2 series of cards). What driver version are you using ? The ones that come with WinXP may not be the latest. 21.81 is the latest 'official' version from Nvidia, while you can get a 21.88 beta from Guru 3D (go to Downloads > Videocard drivers > NVidia detonator drivers) and other sites (though I don't think there will be too many differences between 21.81 and 21.88 for CM's purposes). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 22, 2001 Author Share Posted October 22, 2001 I'm using the latest one (21.81). I experimented some more and installed a 7.xx series driver and then Elsa's W2000 driver, neither one of which fixed the transparency problem. I then reinstalled the latest Nvidia driver (21.81). I guess bottom line is to either put up with it until (if?) Nvidia fixes it, or get another video card. I could go back to W98, but I would rather keep XP. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Udrink Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I have tried the 21.88 drivers (using XP with a geforce 2 mx). They do not solve the problem. My suggestion to you would be to use a light coloured wallpaper for you desktop. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhdeerslayer Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Too bad there's not some way a CM patch could deal with this issue but I am sure it would be out if there was. Not a PC expert myself. Sounds like we're at the mercy of the video driver manufacturer and not a good place to be. Seems like Battlefront is at risk of alienating some customers since the product doesn't work as advertised regardless of who's fault it is. Owners of a car don't care that it is another suppliers fault when it fails, they blame the original car maker. This game is so well done otherwise that I think the vast majority will overlook some of the suggested inconveniences though. Is this issue still at the mercy of the drivers? Will CMBB potentially have the same issue? Think of all the new PC's slowly flooding the market and what I hear a good chance they will not work with CMBO without these kluge (sp?) fixes and maybe not even then. I suspect other game companies have more pull with Nvidia and others then Battlefront does based on user volume. Can you imagine Microsoft releasing a game (Age of Empires, Flight Simulator, etc..) and not working right on most new PC's? I don't think we'd be stuck in this waiting mode very long. I would think Battlefront would or should be very concerned about this as I am sure they are. As a constant user of this awesome and incrediblity developed game, is there anything I can do to help? I am just dreading buying my new XP system and what surprises the CM/Nvidia issue will have for me. Ironically, I'm buying this new smoking system so my CM enjoyment will increase substantially. I told my wife another reason... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted October 22, 2001 Author Share Posted October 22, 2001 I suggest e-mailing Derek Perez, dperez@nvidia.com , Nvidia's Public Relations officer, and politely requesting that Nvidia expedite fixing the driver issue that causes the 'white transparency' problem with Combat Mission running under Windows XP or Windows 2000. I did. If enough people write him, something might get done. Incredibly, I could not find an e-mail address for Nvidia's technical department. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhdeerslayer Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Thanks for the info. Sent as below but I wouldn't hold my breath on a reply: Mr. Perez, I am a current owner of Battlefront.Com’s Combat Mission game and I am about to upgrade to a Windows XP system using the Nvidia Ti200 through Dell. This game has acquired quite a following, and though not the volume of many main stream games I’m sure, some attention to the issues experienced by many in my upgrade position would be well appreciated throughout the Combat Mission community. Seems unfortunate that by upgrading to a state of the art system, I will have to sacrifice some functioning (white transparency, garbled screens, etc..) features of this year old, well designed and respected game. The game developers have put the responsibility in the video driver court for many months and have evaluated new drivers as they have been made available but with no success. I am sure this is something a company of your nature deals with on a daily basis but any advise or latest status would be greatly appreciated. I hope to hear from you at your convenience. Thank You and Best Regards, Jeff Hatfield Brighton, MI 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bowman74 Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Hey thanks for the info. I'm glad I checked here. The anit-aliasing helped my flickering and I can always put up with the transparency problem. Oh, and you guessed it, Windows XP; GeForce II MX400. Thanks, Kevin <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: You can go back to a 7.xx series Detonator and that should clear up the problem with the FSAA...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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