help! annoying "black outs"! (Full Version)

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Whahahah -> help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 1:11:25 AM)

i'm having a problem here... while playing the game,most of the time,my whole screen kinda turn black,and i have to scroll the map to remove the "black screen".But because i cant scroll when it's the opponent's turn,i cant see a thing...

any solutions??? (i'll try to get a screenshot if needed)

oh yea,one more thing... is there any way to reduce the scrolling speed? it kind of scroll too much.



KG Erwin -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 1:25:30 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whahahah

i'm having a problem here... while playing the game,most of the time,my whole screen kinda turn black,and i have to scroll the map to remove the "black screen".But because i cant scroll when it's the opponent's turn,i cant see a thing...

any solutions??? (i'll try to get a screenshot if needed)

oh yea,one more thing... is there any way to reduce the scrolling speed? it kind of scroll too much.



First -- this all depends on your video card -- if it's an NVidia driver, you may have to rollback to an earlier version to get SPWaW to work properly. This game was designed to operate optimally on Win95 or 98.

Scroll delay -- there IS an option in your "Preferences" screen to adjust this -- for my Dell 2400, I set it at 3, and it works fine. You'll have to experiment with this value for your PC.

High-end PCs and the old SPWaW don't always work well together -- this is just a truism that can't be fixed by altering the game engine -- the player is forced into making compromises on his/her system setup.

SOME players have even bought an older Win98 PC simply for playing this game -- as system specs increase, this may eventually be the only option.



Whahahah -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 1:46:43 AM)

i see,i'll probably try one of the solutions stated,thank you so much for your help.[:)]

oh yea, i've received the message, so here's my system info:

Computer :

Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
512MB of RAM


System:

Microsoft Windows XP
Professional Version 2002
Service Pack 2


The video card I'm using is WinFast A340.


Did i left out any info?



KG Erwin -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 2:03:26 AM)

Thanks, man. I don't know anything about the video card you mentioned, but I would suspect that is where your problems lie. Please keep in mind that you should shut down ALL background programs, including Virus Scanners. The game isn't web-based, so you have no need for these to be running in the background. SPWaW is a notorious memory hog -- it sucks up every resource your PC has available.

Set your video card to 16-bit high color -- see if this helps.



Alby -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 3:33:27 AM)

I had same problem when I updated a video driver
I rolled back to previous driver and problem went away...[:)]
It seems the newer things get the more probblems it causes with the game!!
[:(]



FlashfyreSP -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 7:12:26 AM)

True, the video card seems to be the most common culprit for these types of problems, but this one sounds more like a "background" program issue. I've had it happen to me, usually when I've just completed one program and am a bit too fast strating up SPWAW; as Windows tries to reset the screen graphics settings, it "hoses" the SPWAW screen to black, which can be cleared by moving the mouse (kinda like erasing the blackboard, only in reverse).

I would say it has something to do with the screen settings you have for Windows; since the game only runs in 800x600 mode, if your desktop is different you might see this problem anytime Windows tries to reset the screen size.



Whahahah -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 5:45:15 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: FlashfyreSP
as Windows tries to reset the screen graphics settings, it "hoses" the SPWAW screen to black, which can be cleared by moving the mouse (kinda like erasing the blackboard, only in reverse).


oh yea that's what i meant, the whole screen turn black,and then when you move the mouse,it looks like as if you are erasing the blackboard.

Do you mean that changing my desktop size to 800x600 will solve the problem?? oh yea,i'll aso try the 16-bit high color.


EDIT: oh yea! using 16-bit high color solved the problem!! thanks!!!!!!



minefield -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/24/2005 11:53:52 PM)

The way the old DOS engine displays the graphics causes a couple of problems. The first common problem is when the graphics go "on acid" which I presume to be caused when the 256-color palette is dropped from the video card memory (caused by switching away from the game).

The second common problem is the one you mention. The game doesn't constantly refresh its display like your used to. Being DOS, it assumes nothing would interrupt it. So it only redraws the screen (or portions) when it needs to. When another application tells windows to update the screen (system tray program displays balloon or pop up message, non-minimized program displays something new, etc.) the SPWAW image is lost and the screen goes black. As you move your cursor it redraws its path (the only portion of the assumed image that would've changed) and when you click on a button or scroll the map it redraws all of the current image.

The solution to the black screen is to close all applications and system tray programs that are not essential and minimize everything else. Email, instant messaging, program update notifications, etc. can cause black screens.

For the scrolling issue there are really two issues. The first is normal game scrolling. SPWAW was programmed for old CPUs so it depends on them to be slow for the scroll to be slow. Setting the scroll delay in preferences will help.

The second scroll issue is during artillery plotting. The scroll delay does not work here. You can either get a slower computer or use a program to slow your computer down when you play. Some programs run a constant loop to tie up the CPU resources to slow down old games. The program I like uses a different method; it revs down the CPU using a motherboard feature that was intended to save power. This has a second benefit of cooling your CPU down (since SPWAW itself is a constant loop that will use 100% cpu). It can be found at:
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle
I am not associated with that program. I take no responsibility for using it.



bud -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/25/2005 10:06:22 PM)

i have been trying many things for over a year now for the sreen blank and the 1960`s colors it goes to sometimes -- but i still get it -- with all programs off too -- but as for the fast mouse -- am running a 3.2hz -- so my mouse shot from one end to the other -- with it set at its lowest -- and what they call mouse wheel set to the lowest -- didnt help at ALL --- its in the program speed -- someone about a year ago told me of a program called --- Mo' Slo --- DID THE JOB FOR ME -- you just keep testing the different speed program till you get the right one -- hope it helps you -- a.k.a. -- ICED -- [;)]



John Galt -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (11/28/2005 12:10:38 AM)

When this happens to my computer, I just right click the mouse and it pops back up.



cadmus -> RE: help! annoying "black outs"! (12/2/2005 3:37:06 PM)

I have a similar problem. The screen goes black and if I move the cursor around, it's like an inverse eraser. It begins to "repaint" the screen. If I sit and wait a minute or two, things come back on their own. This only began to happen after I installed a new version of Norton Anti-virus. I suspect background issues in my case.



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