8600GT, Intel P35 boards and Command and Conquer: Generals

Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.

It works fine with the same cards on an Asus P5B though, with the same
forceware drivers. Not sure if it has anything to do with the mobo's
chipset drivers, as the games claims on startup that no Dx8.1 compatible
hardware has been found.

C&C 3 works fine though, as all other games installed or tested on those
motherboards. I don't have other gfx cards brands to test whether it's a
chipset of gfx board related issue.

Well I have a Radeon HD2600XT in another machine, but I guess someone
else has probably something to say about this before I use my
screwdriver again ?

Thanks, Lorenzo

"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.

Seeing as how these are are DX 9.0C and DX10 card respectively, and the
boards you are using are both reasonably functional budget boards the issue
likely lies with chipset drivers and/or video drivers or another issue
entirely like hookups, p/s, or others. Go out and buy an HD2600XT to solve
it without first finding out the real issue, and as was said in The Princess
Bride, "Get used to dissapointment"

Augustus wrote:
"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.

Seeing as how these are are DX 9.0C and DX10 card respectively, and the
boards you are using are both reasonably functional budget boards the issue
likely lies with chipset drivers and/or video drivers or another issue
entirely like hookups, p/s, or others. Go out and buy an HD2600XT to solve
it without first finding out the real issue, and as was said in The Princess
Bride, "Get used to dissapointment"


As mentionned, I have an HD2600XT in another computer, the family's
HTPC. And I'd rather not disembowel that machine just for one game,
that's why I am asking here.

Lorenzo

"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Augustus wrote:
"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.

Seeing as how these are are DX 9.0C and DX10 card respectively, and the
boards you are using are both reasonably functional budget boards the
issue likely lies with chipset drivers and/or video drivers or another
issue entirely like hookups, p/s, or others. Go out and buy an HD2600XT
to solve it without first finding out the real issue, and as was said in
The Princess Bride, "Get used to dissapointment"
As mentionned, I have an HD2600XT in another computer, the family's HTPC.
And I'd rather not disembowel that machine just for one game, that's why I
am asking here.

Lorenzo

What's the problem with the game exactly? Crash? No picture? I don't have a
7800GTX, but I ran the game on an old Nforce-2 board with a Geforce FX5700
and now on an unusual VIA chipset with a Core 2 Duo and a 7800GS. Looking at
your last post, I really think it's a bad idea not to do a clean install
when you've changed the entire chipset and graphics card.

The game and its expansion pack have been fine with my Nvidia cards and I
cannot see the P35 chipset being a problem. Remember, the game was installed
on a totally different computer and uninstalling it will not remove all
traces of the game in the registry - it could be something to do with the
game's copy protection system - perhaps sensing a different MAC address on
the ethernet port - who knows. You need a clean install, you've just been
lucky up to now that your computer works at all.

Dr.White.

Lorenzo Sandini wrote:
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.

It works fine with the same cards on an Asus P5B though, with the same
forceware drivers. Not sure if it has anything to do with the mobo's
chipset drivers, as the games claims on startup that no Dx8.1 compatible
hardware has been found.

C&C 3 works fine though, as all other games installed or tested on those
motherboards. I don't have other gfx cards brands to test whether it's a
chipset of gfx board related issue.

Well I have a Radeon HD2600XT in another machine, but I guess someone
else has probably something to say about this before I use my
screwdriver again ?

Thanks, Lorenzo



Disable DirectDraw or individual DirectDraw elements to get C&C working
with newer (DX10) hardware, known issue, google for more info.

Mr.E Solved! wrote:
Lorenzo Sandini wrote:
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting
in the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or
a 7800GTX.

It works fine with the same cards on an Asus P5B though, with the same
forceware drivers. Not sure if it has anything to do with the mobo's
chipset drivers, as the games claims on startup that no Dx8.1
compatible hardware has been found.

C&C 3 works fine though, as all other games installed or tested on
those motherboards. I don't have other gfx cards brands to test
whether it's a chipset of gfx board related issue.

Well I have a Radeon HD2600XT in another machine, but I guess someone
else has probably something to say about this before I use my
screwdriver again ?

Thanks, Lorenzo



Disable DirectDraw or individual DirectDraw elements to get C&C working
with newer (DX10) hardware, known issue, google for more info.

Running XP, as mentionned in the original post.

Lorenzo

Dr.White wrote:
"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Augustus wrote:
"Lorenzo Sandini" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting in
the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or a
7800GTX.
Seeing as how these are are DX 9.0C and DX10 card respectively, and the
boards you are using are both reasonably functional budget boards the
issue likely lies with chipset drivers and/or video drivers or another
issue entirely like hookups, p/s, or others. Go out and buy an HD2600XT
to solve it without first finding out the real issue, and as was said in
The Princess Bride, "Get used to dissapointment"
As mentionned, I have an HD2600XT in another computer, the family's HTPC.
And I'd rather not disembowel that machine just for one game, that's why I
am asking here.

Lorenzo



What's the problem with the game exactly?

As mentionned in the original post, the upon start, the game claims that
no Dx8.1 compatible hardware has been found. The game closes after I
acknowledge the error message.



Crash? No picture? I don't have a
7800GTX, but I ran the game on an old Nforce-2 board with a Geforce FX5700
and now on an unusual VIA chipset with a Core 2 Duo and a 7800GS. Looking at
your last post, I really think it's a bad idea not to do a clean install
when you've changed the entire chipset and graphics card.

For many reasons I decided to make a clean install of XP and C&C First
decade, and Generals / Zero Hours fail to start with the fatal error of
no Dx compliant hardware being found.


The game and its expansion pack have been fine with my Nvidia cards and I
cannot see the P35 chipset being a problem. Remember, the game was installed
on a totally different computer and uninstalling it will not remove all
traces of the game in the registry - it could be something to do with the
game's copy protection system - perhaps sensing a different MAC address on
the ethernet port - who knows. You need a clean install, you've just been
lucky up to now that your computer works at all.

The game works fine on all my other computers, laptops and desktop
included, but not on P35-based motherboards. Someother people are having
the same issue, read this if you need more info. Someone suggested
deleting the options.ini file, well it doesn't work, and in this clean
install no previous gfx cards of game versions were installed.

http://forums.techguy.org/games/1618...-generals.html

Lorenzo

Lorenzo Sandini wrote:
Mr.E Solved! wrote:
Lorenzo Sandini wrote:
Hello,

I posted a question earlier about this issue and it was like farting
in the Sahara on a windy day.

To my great disappointment, Generals don't seem to work in XP on 2
different motherboards: Intel DP35DP and Abit IP35, with a 8600GT, or
a 7800GTX.

It works fine with the same cards on an Asus P5B though, with the
same forceware drivers. Not sure if it has anything to do with the
mobo's chipset drivers, as the games claims on startup that no Dx8.1
compatible hardware has been found.

C&C 3 works fine though, as all other games installed or tested on
those motherboards. I don't have other gfx cards brands to test
whether it's a chipset of gfx board related issue.

Well I have a Radeon HD2600XT in another machine, but I guess someone
else has probably something to say about this before I use my
screwdriver again ?

Thanks, Lorenzo




Disable DirectDraw or individual DirectDraw elements to get C&C
working with newer (DX10) hardware, known issue, google for more info.

Running XP, as mentionned in the original post.

Sorry I answered too quickly. The 7800GTX is not a DX10 compatible card
though, but disabling some Dx acceleration could make the game work.
However, this will remove some graphical features from other games too.
Disabling the acceleration just for one game is maybe not the right
option after all in my case, but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Lorenzo

Lorenzo Sandini wrote:

Sorry I answered too quickly. The 7800GTX is not a DX10 compatible card
though, but disabling some Dx acceleration could make the game work.
However, this will remove some graphical features from other games too.
Disabling the acceleration just for one game is maybe not the right
option after all in my case, but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Lorenzo

It is not a suggestion it is the ONLY solution to your problem, short of
installing a 2nd, older video card to handle these issues.

I'm right with you in that it SUCKS, Infinity Engine games suffer from
the same problem.

Either turn DirectDraw elements down, ignore the artifacts if possible,
or get an additional PCI card just for C&C.

No replies from nvidia yet on how they are going to fix this.