Inset Map problem

[akpro]

Hi. The inset map is not displaying correctly on my computer for about 2/3rds of the maps. On those maps the inset map shows up entirely black (except for the blue and red dots and the victory location symbols).

If it helps, these are the only maps that show the inset map correctly for me:
Amfreville
Carentan
Causeway
Chef du Pont
Cruelly
Gold Beach
Grandcamp-Maisy
Juno Beach
La Fiere
Lebisey Woods
Les Forges
Omaha - Dog Green
Ouistreham
St. Come du Mont
St. Marcouf
Sword Beach
Tour en Bessin
Utah - Tare Green
Utah - Uncle Red
Vierville

Also the "View Map" option from the command screen seems to show every single map as solid black.

Please advise. Thanks!

[Senior Drill]

The .MMM (mini map) and .OVM (overview map) files may be corrupt. It would probably be best to uninstall and reinstall the game. Your saved games will not be effected.

[akpro]

I uninstalled and reinstalled the game but unfortunately the problem is still there.

[Tejszd]

Do you have the latest direct-x and video card drivers?

[akpro]

Yes, I have the latest drivers. What's puzzling is that some of the mini maps work fine, so I'm wondering if there's some small difference in the format between those that work and those that don't such that a fix might be very easy to make.

[Andrew Williams]

Is the overview map , Zoom out magnifying glass, shown as all black too?


Does it only do this for night battles... have you tried the same maps in Day?

[akpro]

It seems to do it for both day and night battles. Zooming out with the magnifying glass also shows the maps as all black (even the ones that show correctly for the inset map).

[Andrew Williams]

It looks like a sytem specific problem as we have no reports of similar.

Can you please post your system specs here?

[akpro]

I am running Windows XP Professional on a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM and DirectX9.0c (with Shader Model 2 3D graphics). The video card is a SVGA-II graphics adapter (VMware) with 128 MB of vRAM.

[RD Oddball]

It's very strange that it's only happening on certain maps and doing the exact same thing every time. To me that sounds like an installation problem.

Did you install to the default directory or somewhere else?

[Andrew Williams]

Vmware sounds like your problem

Check with VMWare support for appropriate drivers

http://www.vmware.com/support/

[Andrew Williams]

and I have to ask

why are you using VMware?

Intel Mac?

[akpro]

Yes, I installed to the default directory.

[akpro]

Yes, it's a mac Intel Core 2 Duo so the game is very close to being 100% mac compatible via VMware.

[Andrew Williams]

OK

We have no info regarding running in a virtual machine.

We would appreciate any feedback or any progress you make with a fix.


thanks

[RD Oddball]

Steve agrees with you Andrew that it's some sort of machine specific issue. Strange that the symptoms come up the same all the time. You'd think it'd manifest differently each time the machine was booted if it was OS/driver/graphics card specific or at least react the same to every graphic rather than produce the same results every single time.

Looks like a driver / graphics card / DirectX compatibility issue of some
kind. I would suggest he try different screen resolution settings (from the
CC options menu) to see if that makes a difference, as a driver / card issue
might be specific to certain resolutions.

Steve

[akpro]

Yeah, it happens the exact same every time. I tried playing at each screen resolution but it still happened.

[Mafi]

ORIGINAL: akpro

I am running Windows XP Professional on a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM and DirectX9.0c (with Shader Model 2 3D graphics). The video card is a SVGA-II graphics adapter (VMware) with 128 MB of vRAM.

Hello Akpro,

this is Mafi now looking at this thread. Please be a little more specific. Can it be a MacBook Pro? Production 2009 or earlier ?
What kind of OS ? 10.6.1 I guess. What kind of VMware?

I managed to make CC-TLD to run using 10.6.1, MacBook 2.0 (early 2009), but 256 MB VRAM using CrossOverGames 8.0 from CodeWeavers. I have much more (really more) troubles than you, flickering in the lower status bar.

So some additional questions:
- hardware ?
- OS ?
- Paralells / BootCamp / CrossOver ?
- TLD patch / version ?

Ever tried BootCamp ? This should be the sole sulotion which will really work fast. Next best is ParalellsDesktop. I dont have them both. CrossOverGames has it's limits.

Cheers
Mafi

[akpro]

Hi Mafi. It is a MacBook Pro 3.1 (Mid/Late 2007) using OS 10.5.6 and VMware Fusion 2.0.1.
My actual VRAM is 256 MB and my actual graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 8600M, but I think VMware Fusion doesn't directly use it in the virtual machine. I am now using the patched TLD v.5.50.03b but the same problem happened in the original version of the game too.

BootCamp is a great idea to try. I've never looked into setting that up before.

I don't own Parallels and hadn't heard of CrossOverGames.

[Mafi]

Hello Akpro,

okay, I went to VmWare-Fusion homepage - there will be an update "Fusion v3.0" end this month. There exists a VmWare-Fusion support forum, some examples regarding graphics and MacBooks:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/122862
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/89159

and other reports:
http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=158159

So look at the internal settings of MacOS-X firstly:
- Expose, Spaces
- Monitors
From my point of view: no settings that look to be related to your problem. Keep them as they are.

Then look into Fusion's own settings. I don't have it, but perhaps you can de-sophisticate it's own 2D-graphics?

but I think VMware Fusion doesn't directly use it in the virtual machine

I'm not sure, but it makes much more sense not to access the graphics card directly on a Mac for an emulator like Fusion. An the problems you encounter are looking for me like a "double buffering" problem.

Using BootCamp or ParalellsDesktop requires to install WinXP completely fresh (SerialNumber and more, time consuming). BootCamp requires a real WinXP-Installation disk. And a MacOS-X-Installation disk.

CodeWeavers CrossOverGames do not need Windows-OS to run Windows-games, but only few of them will really work (e.g.: HalfLife). Original CC2 will not run in CrossOverGames for example. CC:WaR has a lot of flickering using this emu, and CC:TLD has only few flickering. So from my point of view there is a steady improvement with every new incarnation of CCE.exe, but the main problem on the Mac will be, that if you have MacOS-X running in the background, the MacOS-X typical double-graphics buffering will cause troubles when it comes to high speed VRAM access. Even native Mac-apps might have such graphicals artifacts. So every new MacOS-X (here: your next update to 10.6.1) will require a new version of the emulator. So do not install 10.6 unless you ha the latest Fusion v3.0 with positive user reports (don't change a running system).

You can test CrossOverGames for free for some days, to see if it might work better than Fusion:
http://www.codeweavers.com/

Another point: from my point of view Fusion is not completely bug free. Paralells' concept is older and much more stable. But I think ParallelsDesktop will occupy more HD space (and is probably less flexible).

Final point: the GUI of CC:TLD/WaR works perfectly from intro to battle selection in CrossOverGames and for me it sounds that you have also no problems with the GUI except for battle on the map, isn't it? So a question to Steve: is it possible to give the user the opportunity to switch between the graphic-access-routines used for battle-on-map and those which are implemented for the "less sophisticated task" showing the GUI for battle-on-map?

Akpro: what will happen if you switch in CC:TLD under Fusion from normal battle view to battle-on-OVM-map (= zoom out). Any problems then?

Solution: from my point of view not possible for the user. Solely possible in case Steve will have a Mac running the same emu(s) the users will utilize. The cheapest solution BTW is BootCamp, and in this case the "Mac" will behave nearly completely like an ordinary "PC", but you will not be able to have MacOS-X in the background. Perhaps you can use your already installed Fusion-WinXP-partition as BootCamp partition?

Good luck and any report about success is welcome
Mafi