[Goku]

I think you have finally got it Sean. The game is not able to stretch itself in full screen at such a high resolution and therefore it restarts immediately. For this I recommend you to lower your resolution to 1024 x 768 and run the games. Now I understand that the resolution plays an important role too in the functioning of the games. Thanks for the information.

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

1280X800 screen size?
I still think its a driver issue - are you 100% they are for the right OS, I know it seems daft but we have to check everything

Out of curiosity what is the game - Is an MMORPG - that updates itself?

[DragonSpawn]

The natural resolution of my 19° widescreen is 1440x900. But since no game has that res I changed the desktop res to 1280x800 the same res I put the game to, so the system wouldn't have to convert from 1440x900 to 1280x800 but could stay at the same resolution. Obviously didn't bring anything....


Which drivers for which OS? I use Windows XP home edition service pack 2.


The game is a steam game called Red Orchestra which hasn't had an update in months.

[DragonSpawn]

Should I try putting my desktop resolution to 1024x768, then try to launch the game at 1024x768? Or is that pointless?

[Goku]

Originally Posted by DragonSpawn

Should I try putting my desktop resolution to 1024x768, then try to launch the game at 1024x768? Or is that pointless?

No it will surely not be pointless. Please try that and report back what happens.

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

Have a look on a site called widescreengaming.com and search for that game it will tell you how to set the game to any resolution - try that and see if it helps.

And the drivers I meant are the nvidia ones - are you sure you have the xp ones and not the vista ones from the website

[DragonSpawn]

I did what you said. I turned the desktop resolution to 1024x768. I then proceeded to launch the game in windowed mode, however I forgot that I last time put in the command "setres 1280x800" when testing the windowed mode. This led to this peculiar result where quite a bit of the window was offscreen:




Since I couldn't reach the exit option in the game menu which was offscreen, I got rid of the windowed game per ctrl-alt-del and task manager, by killing the process.


I then decided to launch the game in fullscreen. In the launch options I put in " -autoconfig" for the game to best adapt to my system. It launched clean. I then went to check the configurations, in the ingame configurations it said the " -autoconfig" apparently made it launch at 800x600 resolution. I then to test it, in the display tab in the ingame menu attempt to change it from 800x600 to my current desktop resolution of 1024x768....and it crashes.

So does this mean it can play windowed games with resolutions making the window bigger than my actual screen, but it cannot play fullscreen at equal screen resolution?






PS: Also I attempted to go on that website, all I got was a referral website with loads of links to ebay and the likes. You sure the site still exists?

[DragonSpawn]

Also since the site of the monitor said the natural resolution of the monitor is 1440x900, I returned to that one. Since apparently using the same resolution at desktop as is demanded in the game doesn't bring one anything as we saw.

Or should I change it to other resolutions for other tests?

[DragonSpawn]

Anyway just in case it interests you guys, this is how my temporary solution looks like. Have the monitor res on 1440x900 and play the games in a 1280x800 window mode:










Just sharing this so you guys don't break your backs trying to find an answer, since I am lucky enough that my issue is merely that the games play super, just not in fullscreen. But even then my windowed mode is probably a larger window than 75% of the PC users out there. So meh.

It's a shame but meh. If there is no solution to it, I theoretically can survive trying to live around the issue. With my specs I can even play Crysis in windowed mode without too much of a performance loss, so the general anti-window thesis is thankfully not applyable for me.

Although on the bright side of things windowed mode does have it's advantages in that I can multitask and simply chat message people at the same time as playing. >_>

Another thing. Theoretically all games can be window moded right? Or does one need to go .ini messing with them to window mode them to an appropriate size?

[Goku]

Sean, all games can run in Windowed mode so do not edit their .ini files unless absolutely necessary.

As I said before, you are trying to run the game at a very high resolution. Just try to play it in Windowed mode because as you rightly said, your Windowed mode is larger than most PC users' Full Screen mode. Thanks for posting the useful information as it may be very useful should there be some similar issues in the future. Also, glad you got it fixed.

Please ask any more questions or doubts you may have.

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

I didn't fix it buddy. I could always launch games in windowed mode, thing is I still can't launch games in fullscreen mode :/

Anyway here is what I tried in the meantime:

I did that f8 and "ATKOSDMini.DLL" rename thing and renamed it to "ATKOSDMini.bak."

The results of the experiment were.....interesting to say the least. I also made screenshots as usual:

After I renamed the file to .bak and rebooted, my display was completely borked, it was running on 4bit depth, and also as you'll notice the NVIDIA settings control center was missing at the bottom right taskbar. Also it wasn't present in the list above properties, when I rightclicked to get to properties. But here, a picture says a thousand words:









The next picture is of the actual DLL file. I tried to make a screenshot of it in the safemode, but apparently saving a picture there doesn't bring it over to normal mode at reboot. So I looked in the normal mode system32 folder, and since it looked 100% the same as it did in safe mode, I decided to screenshot that. Is it normal for the file to have .DLL instead of .dll, since I noticed the contrast of that with the other files in the folder. Just thought it was curious and didn't see the harm in showing it:


























PS: Perhaps errenous. But when I tried to launch a game this morning it launched cleanly in fullscreen mode, I noticed something peculiar though with the res of the menu of the game, I checked in the display settings the game launched at 800x600, the lowest res that the game can launch at. Even though I know that I put it at 1280x800 in normal and in windowed mode on previous occassion....So when I then tried to change it to 1280x800 in the ingame display menu, it crashed and BSOD'd again. But I find it odd that I could launch the game in the first place, even odder as to how the resolution it launched at changed....Meh. Maybe this tells you something, since it's a bit of an anamoly.

[Goku]

Hello Sean. Firstly, a very important suggestion to you.

Never rename any system files or their extensions unless absolutely necessary. Renaming a system file might make your computer act awry or even make it unbootable.

Now, whenever you start in Safe Mode, most of the drivers are not loaded. This is done so that you may identify driver conflicts if there are any. Its not unusual to see a Safe Mode boot with low colour depth but it is not usual too. As I said above, restore the file you modified. Its alright as long as the extension is same as capitalization generally doesn't matter. Just restore it and try again in Safe Mode to see if you have a higher colour depth. Also, it is not unusual to experience problems with such high resolutions and unfortunately, there is no patch to correct this as the games weren't probably made for such high resolutions. For this, I recommend that you lower your resolution if you want to play the game in full screen mode or live with the Windowed mode. I know I am being a little unhelpful but it is all for your own good. Please try and understand that it is not important to play it in such high resolutions with full screen mode. Besides, you may find the Windowed mode convenient in some form. That is all I have to say. Good Luck.

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

If it becomes unbootable I suppose I can always reinstall windows.


Also that screenshot was not of safe mode buddy. It was a screenshot of when I restarted it in normal mode, meaning after renaming the extension it seems my display went insane. So I went back and changed it, and everything is normal now again.

So my next guess is to:

1) Boot safe mode
2) Rename the file to .bak again
3) Start in normal again
4) Uninstall the NVIDIA drivers (if I see the ****ty thing like I did above again)
5) Reinstall them
6) Reboot


And see where that leaves me. Good or bad idea?


Also does anyone know if CSS boots in windowed mode?

[DragonSpawn]

Nvm. Got the CSS to boot in windowed mode.


PS: DO I win most annoying/hardest problem of the month though? >_>

You probably do Dragon but joking apart please bear with us as several of our tech guys are from different countries and therefore the time factor is an issue.

What I might view as 8:30 PM here in England will be 8 hours behind in say L.A.

[Dalo Harkin]

Dragon with the games you are trying what is their refresh rate set at - if it's at 60 try changing it to 59 (options allowing)

[DragonSpawn]

Hey. So the past weeks I've been playing in windowed mode. However out of a mood I try to launch a game fullscreen again. It worked. Several times it worked, even after several reboots.

The only thing I've really done is stress the card a bit in the past weeks. Otherwise nothing. Playing Crysis in windowed mode at high settings for hours and stuff like that. Wonder if getting the card heated up and working hard somehow knocked the few bugs out of it?

[Goku]

I don't think overheating or stressing the card can have fixed the problem. On the contrary, most people start experiencing problems when their graphics card becomes overheated. Did you make any software or hardware changes recently?

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

Hardware:

None



Software:

Age of Empires II
Audiosurf
Open Office
Yahoo messenger
American instant messenger
Hamachi
Mumble
Irfanview
nLite
VLC mediaplayer


And I updated my Service Pack II to Service pack III.

[Goku]

Hmmm.. I wonder if this is Service Pack 3? Anyways, thank you for letting us know the status of the problem.

-- Goku