Strange Win XP Graphics

[rlc27]

Hi,

I just got a new laptop, a Compaq Presario with a Duron 900mhz chip and Windows XP. Of course, one of the first pieces of software I installed was SPWAW and all three megacampaigns. Well, all that went fine, but when I booted it the graphics looked a bit weird. The text seems somehow blocky, and the graphics too. I've tried running it in different resolutions, incl. 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480, to no avail; I've also tried changing the number of colors from 32 bit to 16 bit to 256 colors. No luck there either. Anyone have any experience with this? It runs fine, it just looks weird. It looked better on my old Toshiba satellite and on my desktop.

Thanks!

[Lars Remmen]

Hi,

I doubt that it is the fault of Win XP. What kind of graphics card is in your new PC? My experiences with Compaq are that they use some of the older ATI based cards. Have you tried to update its drivers? Furthermore, have you set the game to run in compability mode? If not try that. And disable visual themes as well.

Hope you'll get it to run!

Regards,

Lars

[rlc27]

I've disabled visual themes and run in compatibility mode. It seems to run fine, yet the graphics look blotchy. The text is small and ever so slightly malformed. Maybe it is the drivers...

I'll try changing them next.

[Belisarius]

It's likely to be your graphics card driver.

What kind do you use? My experience is that ATI graphics cards and the built-in standard XP driver don't make a good mix.

DL a new XP driver to your graphics card. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[rlc27]

I just downloaded the newest drivers put out by Compaq, which are supposed to be compatible with the S3 Twister graphics card that came with this rig. It didn't help.

I've also tried messing around endlessly with the fonts and DPI, all to no avail. I'm becoming stumped.

[Schrullenhaft]

I'm guessing that this may just be a case of the way your LCD displays 800x600 resolution. I'd guess that your LCD's native resolution is 1024x768. Any other resolution will appear 'blocky' since everything has to be 'scaled' to fit the actual resolution of 1024x768 (the actual number of pixel elements in the LCD).

If you run an external display, it may look a bit better.

[rlc27]

Schrullenhaft,

I think you've got it. I've tinkered with everything related to the software and video card and fonts, and none of them seem to help. I just noticed that when I set the unit to display everything in 800 by 600 it all looks blocky. So you're right on. Now I just have to convince Matrix to make SPWAW so it supports my resolution.

Thanks!