Messed up graphics with Radeon \ VOGONS

Messed up graphics with Radeon

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First post, by beebop

Posted on 2003-04-12, 01:12

beebop Offline

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Hello,
I am trying to run some of the old DOS games under Win98 on my system, Privateer 2 and Fragile Allegiance to name a few, but the graphic is all messed up. It looks like it has been cut into stripes, and duplicated all over the screen. My mouse seems to be responsive though, as I can click on exit button in the menus and exit the game, if I'm able to hit it. Mouse pointer is also messed up and horizontally duplicated. It happens every time when I start the game. I don't know about whether the sound works, as I wasn't able to get to that part of the game at all, but it seems that setups autodetect everything without problems. My sytem is as follows:
Win98SE
AMD Athlon 800MHz
256 MB SDRAM
ATI Radeon 7200 with 64MB RAM
SB Live!
Asus KT7/RAID motherboard with VIA 133 chipset
Mouse in USB port

I guess that I have to do something to my graphic card, but I'm not at all good at tweaking, i.e., I'm clueless about what I can do to correct the problem. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Cheers

Last edited by beebop on 2003-04-12, 01:20. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 7, by Snover

Posted on 2003-04-12, 01:22

Snover Offline

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Start by downloading and installing the latest Catalyst drivers from ATi.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 2 of 7, by beebop

Posted on 2003-04-12, 02:15

beebop Offline

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Ok, I was avoiding the catalysts on purpose, because they cause problems with some other more recent games that I play. I installed them now, but the problem remains the same, the graphic is still messed up.

edit: Managed to fix some things that came up after the instalation of catalysts, but the problem with the DOS games remains. Any thoughts on what to do? Thanks.

Last edited by beebop on 2003-04-12, 03:11. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 7, by Fisu

Posted on 2003-04-12, 11:05

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Yeah, I got the same problem in w98. VESA works only in w2k/wXP or pure DOS. Perhaps an old display driver would fix it. ATI doesn't support DOS or VESA; I mailed a bug report but never got reply.

Reply 4 of 7, by HunterZ

Posted on 2003-04-12, 16:06

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I would be very VERY surprised if Windows video drivers (especially in Win9x) have ANY effect AT ALL on DOS programs. The reason is that the video drivers don't do anything at all in DOS because everything talks directly to the video card.

You might try checking for a BIOS upgrade for your video card from ATI or the board manufacturer (if it's not ATI).

Maybe look around on some web sites to see if you can find anything about VESA support for Radeons?

Reply 5 of 7, by Snover

Posted on 2003-04-12, 21:12

Snover Offline

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The other thing I'm thinking is that the program may be incorrectly detecting which VESA mode to use.

Try this, also: When the game loads, hit Alt+Enter to put it in a suspended DOS window, then press Alt+Enter again to restore it and see if that fixes it. (DOS games under Windows act strangely sometimes.)

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 6 of 7, by beebop

Posted on 2003-04-12, 22:05

beebop Offline

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Thank you for the responses.
Collapsing the DOS prompt window didn't help. The thing is, that some other DOS games, like Daggerfall and Elite 2, work perfectly when started from Windows, so it's not a general phenomenon. This might suggest the improper detection of VESA mode for these particular games (if I may say so with my limited knowledge of the issues), but I still don't know how to solve/get around this. I am still searching the net for possible solutions, but so far I haven't found any. I'll keep searching and trying out (your) suggestions, and hopefully find the solution (especially since I see that I'm not the only one with the problem).
Cheers

Reply 7 of 7, by Snover

Posted on 2003-04-14, 01:12

Snover Offline

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I wonder...
try running Ken Silverman's NOLFB.COM prior to running the game (in the same prompt or it won't work) to see if that does anything.

Yes, it’s my fault.

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