Graphics problem

[Chris Garrett]

I'm not getting images in the weather box, the timer, and the area around the unit image. Also, I get variable base colors under destroyed vehicles and mine fields - at least they are different colors when I run the program on my iMac. The machine I'm trying to use is an Inspiron 5100 Laptop with a 32MB ATi Mobility RADEON 7500 graphics card. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Chris

[Schrullenhaft]

What Windows version and what Catalyst driver version are you using on the Inspirion ?

As I recall some of the Catalyst drivers had some problems with the 2D screens of CM. I don't think the latest Catalyst driver would be a good candidate to fix this however. You may want to uninstall your current video driver (completely) and install Catalyst 2.3 or older. Some people have experienced this problem with the Catalyst 3.1 drivers, but reinstalling the driver seemed to help this particular problem. I don't know if that will work for you or not. The 3.x series of Catalysts seem to have FSAA/Smoothvision problems in CM that can cause black/blank screens on the initial 2D screens.

You may also want to download the Rage 3D Tweaker (scroll down for the 'secondary server') and disabling the Z-Mask setting should help with performance. Here's a thread about that.

[Chris Garrett]

I'm using Windows XP Home edition. I use mostly Macs so I'm not familiar with the term "Catalyst Driver". How would I find this out?

CG

[Schrullenhaft]

"Catalyst" is just a brand name for ATI's Radeon Family drivers, much like "Detonator" is NVidia's brand name for their drivers.

The latest Catalyst version is 3.5, however you basically won't see this particular number in any of the control panels that list driver versions. To find your driver version go to Start Menu > Control Panel > System control panel > Hardware tab > Device Manager button > double-click on "Display adapters" in the device listing and then double-click on the video device listed under this > Driver tab > Driver Details button > the driver file you'll need to hightlight most likely ends with a ".sys" extension. With this file highlighted you should get the version number, which most likely will be 6.xx.xx.xxxx.

You can download the latest Catalyst 3.5 driver from ATI (I believe, but I'm not sure, this should support the Radeon Mobility chips). You'll need both the "Driver Suite" and the "ATI Control Panel" downloads. You may also want to try an earlier version of the Catalyst drivers as I mentioned above.

With these newer drivers you may also want to download DirectX 9.0a if you don't have it installed already. The latest video drivers prefer/require this version of DirectX. You'll want to install this before you install the latest Catalyst version.

Just in case the latest Catalyst doesn't directly support your Radeon Mobility 7500, you can download D-Force MobileMod (Videocard drivers > ATI videocard drivers > third item from top). Read the instructions on applying it since it needs to determine from certain files whether your installer supports the Mobile chips or not.

Dell's online support for the Insipirion 5100 doesn't list the appropriate Windows XP driver for the Radeon Mobility 7500 (what's listed is only a patch for a particular program), so it won't be a good resource for this particular problem. There is, however, a BIOS update for your laptop (which won't fix your problem that you're having with CM). There's also a new audio driver (which again won't fix your problem in CM). One caveat about updating your drivers... sometimes things can get worse, often things don't change or get fixed and on occasion you may find a solution with a driver update.