Unusual Problems

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Truly appreciate the work done here and would much appreciate a little help.

Recently downloaded game and applied all patches on three different machines that meet H/W and DirectX requirements (two Dell desktops running XP and a Dell laptop running 98; all have LCD monitors). Also read this board and tried some of the suggested graphics/sound fixes. Same problems exist on each machine:

1. Shortcut ">" key to toggle victory hex flags doesn't work. (Other shortcuts seem to work okay.)

2. More importantly, I cannot select entry/exit edges for aircraft missions. Arrow buttons won't change and appear not to be properly positioned around jump map (i.e., right side buttons overlap map).

Any thoughts?

[Mobhack]

You don't mention your nationality, and that of the keyboard. Some non-English keyboards will handle letters etc. differently.

However - I can confirm your point #1 - that shortcut seems to have died. (My guess is that the keyboard scroll is interfering with that, will investigate post Xmas). It was working before!

Your other point though, does not happen on my hardware. (2 month old Dell dimension 5150 with Dell 1280x1024 LCD monitor). What screen resolution are you running at, and in full screen or windowed mode?. What exact version number shows on the main page?. Also - just in case - what particular map size?.

The air Entry buttons overlay the map - and are meant to. By "right side buttons overlap map" what do you mean exactly?. They should look like the attached. (I was going to point you to the tutorial section but that does not show air plot - something to add methinks!


Cheers
Andy

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Thanks for your timely response.

Keyboard is English (U.S.). I believe the version number shown is 2.51 (I loaded that mod each time; gotta have your turret facing the right way.) I've been running full screen on all machines, with same problem at both 640x480 and 800x600. Your screenshot shows I made a bad assumption; the right-side buttons are where they should be, the left are "off map." The "default" selections that I can't seem to change are enter right, exit left. BTW, I've used three different downloads of the files to ensure it wasn't just a corruption issue.

SPI&II were two of my favorite games and, through your efforts, I'm hoping to revisit them.

Happy Holidays

Oh, mostly I was just working with the Tutorial scenario, but I did try one other (can't remember which) with same problem.

[Mobhack]

I just tested that again, on the Dell, and also on my IBM laptop. Both work fine, with completely different graphics (the laptop only has an integrated Intel card). Laptop tried with the red IBM mouse button and also with an USB mouse.

I'm afraid I really dont have a clue as to why you would be experiencing this problem, certainly this is the first report of anything like this with those buttons. And we would certainly have heard a lot of such complaints if it were a regular one!

Do the buttons highlight when you hover the mouse over them, or are they completely dead?. If they dont highlight then there is a definate problem. (But why, as they use the same button code as say the "bombard" button that got you to that screen).

I presume you are not just trying an illegal direction pair (in which case no change would occur). I also presume you have tried pressing all the buttons at random to see if anything happens at all?.

Does this happen if you run the game in windowed mode as opposed to full screen?. Also - have you tried windowed mode with GDI graphics instead of DirectX?

As it happens on all your boxes - what is common between them all - as normally a weird like this would only happen on 1 "problem" box, in my experience. Any service task running in the background?.

Definately a weird one, let's see if we can get to the bottom of it!.


Cheers
Andy

[DRG]

I tried the game at 600x800 in full screen and all the buttons for air entry and egress work OK. I'm wondering if 640x480 and 600x800 are fully supported by the LCD monitors? Have you tried the game in 600x800 windowed mode to see if the buttons work?

Don

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Persistence pays. Not elegant, but found a workaround. If I select entrance/egress arrows from the Bombard screen, they work. Then I switch to the Spotter screen to mark the hover point. This seems to take the UAV on and off map generally where I plotted; I assume it's not supposed to be exact.

After getting home from work and looking at your screenshot vs. my view, the difference is my jump map is much smaller and doesn't reach all the buttons. (This has been a long-standing problem, but I digress.) The map is flush top right corner of the button layout, not extending to the lower right-hand or to any of the left-hand arrow buttons. I'd attach a screenshot, but it comes up as sort of a photo-negative with hardly any details.

Really appreciate the efforts of both of you on this.

cheers

[Mobhack]

Screen shots are simple. See the manual, "introduction" section, "tuning your machine" where you will find the following paragraph:

There is no need of any external screen capture mode when using Windowed Mode. The normal Windows ALT-PRINTSCREEN will copy the window to the Windows paste buffer. Simply open up a normal paint programme (such as the supplied Microsoft utility) and select paste

I reccoment Irfanview as it is a useful image editing and viewing programme (and it knows about LBM - will read but not save those) - as it allows saving as JPEG or, better still - PNG. Opem in windowed mode, ALT-PRINT SCRN, open Irfanview select paste, nd save as a JPEG or PNG with your choice of file name. www.irfanview.com as I recall.


Now - you mention spotters. Naturally, I had tested normal air strikes because you stated " I cannot select entry/exit edges for aircraft missions". Spotters are a different sub-screen of the bombard screen, with a different button to get to them !

I'll test again with spotters - that sub screen may be goosed. But that will need to wait till post Xmas.