Help Please?

[Annette]

Hi All,

This question has been raised in customer support. Am I right in thinking the problem lies in the screen resolution? Any suggestions are most greatly appreciated.

"I have a :
Gateway PC
Intel Pentium IV 1.4ghz
Windows ME
nVidia GeForce2 Ultra w/32 mb ram
SB Live Value
twin IBM 75 GB HD's
CD Burner
DVD
Sound and video drivers are new within the Last 30 days.

I install Star Fury with no issues.
I patch to Version 1.5
I click the SF icon and bring up the Menu
I go to SetUp
Set Video to 1024x768
Video to "Safe" mode
Video Card set to Direct #D via hardware
I have DirectX 9.0b
Click start and screen goes black and does not change.
After 5 minutes I reboot computer
Desktop now at a resolution of 1280 or so and I cannot change it back to the 1024 that I use. My video software will not function in trying to change the resolution.
Have to use "Go-Back" software to revert my drives to before I installed Star Fury to enable my video utilities to function again."

[Hok]

You could tell him to set the game to windowed mode, I hear that in w/m you can sometimes see errors into a message box.

If this does not work to find the error type you can tell him to do the usual things:

1) Download from the Video and Sound card vendor the latest drivers (having a "new" card often means you have a less stress-tested driver, so any patch could help)

2) Try other supported 3D devices (my card for example has a "null device" or "RGB emulation")

And most important of all, tell him to try this things one at a time (so he can tell what works from what does'nt work)

[akochan]

Also there's a possibility that it's the nafarious Nvidia refresh rate bug if the screen is going blank from hitting too high a refresh rate. A tool fix for that can be downloaded at: http://www.nvrt.org

[Annette]

Thanks! I'll pass these along and let you know what he says. I appreciate your help.

[Annette]

Me again...thanks for the ideas. They don't seem to have worked. Any other thoughts? The customer writes,

"I have over 200+ games many of which a play quite frequently. From Battlefront titles, Squad Assault, all HP titles, Dominions II, Star Empires IV, IL Sturmovik, etc.

All driver updates were listed for ME.

Nothing in Background like "Instant Messanger".

He also tried the tool fix.

[Instar]

Forward as much of this to aaron as possible... I think this might be a bug of some kind. I'm stumped though.

[Hok]

What is the present resolution and color depth of his desktop?

If this is some kind of hard-coded bug I would tell him to try and switch his desktop resolution to 1024x768 with 16-bit color depth.

Then he should choose the same resolution for the game and *NO* Safe Mode (choose *Auto* instead).

Of course, he should close *any* other program running (most of all IE) and turn off any built-in Video CARD functionality (auch as multi-desktop handling and such) in its control panel.

Good luck.

[David E. Gervais]

FYI: I have a GForce2 and a SBLive Value and when I installed the new nVidia drivers v53.03 they gave me all kinds of problems. SF wouldn't run, DVD couldn't play movies, etc.

I reverted to the previous drivers v52.16 and now all is running smoothly.

If it's the sound card it usually kicks you out just after generating the maps when it initialzes the sound stuff. If during play it kicks you to the desktop without warning, this is also a symptom of the sound card having problems. Unfortunately It appears the the most current ME drivers for SBLive are dated 11/10/2000 which If I recall correctly only supports DirectX 6.0 (DirectSound 6.0)

I chose the greater of two evils and upgraded to Win XP about a year ago, but the less expensive solution is to get a new sound card. I believe the SBLive! 5.1 goes for around $49 cdn. (and the SB5.1 drivers are dated April 2, 2002 so the should be at least DX8.0 compatible.)

I hope this info helps.

Have a Great Day, Cheers!

[Annette]

Thanks! You guys are the best