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blinking screen - 5/24/2003 12:14:42 AM

dilvish

Posts: 5
Joined: 5/24/2003
From: Alsace (France) near germany
Status: offline

I've a strange problem. Since I've installed windows 2000 (instead of 98) the screen of spwaw 7.1 H&H is sometimes "blinking" (becomes black) when I move the mouse or when my units shoot on others...

Using Direct X 9 / AMD XP 2000 / 1 meg memory / Radeon 9000 video card.

If anyone could help...

Thanks

Post #: 1

Re: blinking screen - 5/24/2003 1:28:55 PM

sandman20

Posts: 848
Joined: 7/8/2002
From: Finland
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dilvish
[B]I've a strange problem. Since I've installed windows 2000 (instead of 98) the screen of spwaw 7.1 H&H is sometimes "blinking" (becomes black) when I move the mouse or when my units shoot on others...

Using Direct X 9 / AMD XP 2000 / 1 meg memory / Radeon 9000 video card.

If anyone could help...

Thanks [/B][/QUOTE]

Have you tried to update your video card drivers?
I have XP 2000 also with directx 9 and everything works well.Though my card is GeForce4.

If this doesn't help, maybe those Tech -gurus can give some more help. Good luck, I hope you get it work soon, 'cause SPWaW is a wonderful game;)

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Post #: 2

to sandman20 - 5/24/2003 2:40:54 PM

dilvish

Posts: 5
Joined: 5/24/2003
From: Alsace (France) near germany
Status: offline

thanks for your reply but I've already done that. I'm using an ATI video card so I know that's the first thing to do when I experience some problems.

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Post #: 3

- 5/24/2003 3:06:02 PM

sandman20

Posts: 848
Joined: 7/8/2002
From: Finland
Status: offline

Does that "blinking" happen with other programs?
You can try to start your game by mech.exe file in your SPWaW main directory, that may help as well.
That's quite strange problem:rolleyes:

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Post #: 4

blinking - 5/24/2003 5:42:05 PM

dilvish

Posts: 5
Joined: 5/24/2003
From: Alsace (France) near germany
Status: offline

No, it happens only with SPWAW. Tryed with mech.exe. Same...

Thanks for your help!

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Post #: 5

- 5/25/2003 5:42:14 AM

Supervisor

Posts: 5166
Joined: 3/2/2004
Status: offline

Try changing the screen resolution to 800x600 16bit and see if that helps any. Also SPWAW is a CPU hog try disabling background running programs like AV and any DirectCD type programs.

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Post #: 6

Re: blinking screen - 5/27/2003 2:50:25 PM

WanhaPatu

Posts: 33
Joined: 9/22/2000
From: Finland
Status: offline

I've had this same "problem" with all three computers I've played waw with. But is it really that big problem? Just move your mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, forcing the screen to scroll and everything works after that. Problem solved.

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Post #: 7

blinking screen (end) - 5/28/2003 1:04:03 AM

dilvish

Posts: 5
Joined: 5/24/2003
From: Alsace (France) near germany
Status: offline

I'm working on computers all the day so I'm very concerned with my eyes health. Blinking screen give you headaches after one hour of playing (and I'm often playing a lot, lot, more hu! hu!). Also, a game (that I've bought, not downloaded) HAS TO work correctly (SPWAW is W2K compatible) that's 2 good reasons.

Well... I've made one W98 session and one Linux session on my computer.
SP works perfectly on W98 and on linux (mandrake 9.1 using the Wine Windows emulator). It's just a problem with W2k and ATI video drivers it seems.

At last, problem solved!

Thanks to all!

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Post #: 8

- 5/31/2003 11:40:42 PM

Mr.Frag

Posts: 13410
Joined: 12/18/2002
From: Purgatory
Status: offline

From what you are describing, it sounds like your monitor is being kicked into a refresh rate setting that it does not support.

The screen switches off and goes into standby mode to protect itself from damage.

You can manually control the refresh rate within 3D applications in a few ways. One is ensure that you have a proper monitor selected so the abilities of the monitor are communicated back to the OS.

The other is more drastic, but works 100% of the time.

Run DXDIAG, go to the last tab (More Help). Select the Override button and key in the refresh rate you want to force DirectX applications to run at. This override is global. Start with 60 (Hertz) which every monitor on the planet is going to be able to handle and VERY CAREFULLY work your way up through the modes that your monitor is supposed to work at until you get the setting of comfort (72/75 generally). Only much higher end Monitors are going to run into the 120 Hertz range for 1024x768 resolutions.

Remember, there are actually 3 settings you care about with monitors:

X resolution by Y resolution by refresh rate

Just because a monitor supports 1280 x 1024 at 60 Hz doesn't mean it supports it at 72 Hz.

Be VERY aware that overdriving (running a monitor beyond it's design goal) will dramatically shorten the lifespan of the monitor. If you look at the detailed specs, you'll find two numbers for these settings, a design goal (regular use) and a maximum (shorten the lifespan) setting.

Without a proper inf file for your exact monitor, the operating system has no way of knowing what these values are so it uses generic values. The INF file stuff like this:

HKR,"MODES\1920,1440",Mode1,,"30.0-110.0,48.0-170.0,+,+"

So the machine knows what the maximums are.

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Post #: 9

monitor - 6/1/2003 12:27:36 AM

dilvish

Posts: 5
Joined: 5/24/2003
From: Alsace (France) near germany
Status: offline

I've got a viewsonic PF95f ans it's working fine with all the stuff I've got on my hard disks. Only SPWAW under W2K has this problem. And it's not all the screen who is blinking, only smal portions of it! Silly no ? At last, it's working fine under W98 and Linux so it's not a problem anymore.

Comes certainly from the W2K driver of my ATI video card.

Thanks for your concern.

D

(in reply to dilvish)

Post #: 10