Display with games

[Neil]

Maybe I am missing something complicated, but what's wrong with using the buttons on the monitor to resize the display?

[Believil]

Hi,
Starting from number one:- Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2

Number (2) :- I Brought it from a shop on EBay That Refurbishes computers.   The brand name is Fujitsu-Siemens.
    
Tryed another game called :-   Civilization Call To Power  And this works normal

Hope this lot helps  ->          

Field                        Value
Computer      
Operating System,      Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack,      Service Pack 2
DirectX,                        4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name,      USER-3548AD6571 (Carl's Computer)
User Name      user,
      
Motherboard,      
CPU Type,                       AMD Athlon XP, 1917 MHz (11.5 x 167) 2600+
Motherboard Name,      Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394  (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset,      VIA VT8377 Apollo KT600
System Memory,      512 MB  (PC2100 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type      Award Modular (09/24/03)
Communication Port,      Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port,      Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port,      Printer Port (LPT1)
      
Display      
Video Adapter,      NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200  (128 MB)
3D Accelerator,      nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Monitor,                     Dell P790  [17" CRT]  (8757RH3FACC9)
      
Multimedia      
Audio Adapter,      VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller
      
Storage      
IDE Controller,               VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller      ,        D347PRT SCSI Controller
Floppy Drive,               Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive      ST380012A,       (80 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive,              CyberDrv CW058D CD-R/RW  (32x/12x/48x CD-RW)
Optical Drive,              Generic DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device
Optical Drive,              IDE DVD-ROM 16X  (16x DVD-ROM)
SMART Hard Disks Status,      OK
      
Partitions      
C: (NTFS)                               76308 MB (59019 MB free)
      
Input      
Keyboard                              Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse                              PS/2 Compatible Mouse
      
Network      
Network Adapter              Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
Network Adapter              WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface  (86.136.63.185)
      
Peripherals      
USB1 Controller      VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller      VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller      VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller      VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB2 Controller      VIA USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Device      BT Voyager ADSL Modem

[Skreap]

Hmm...  Well, there's nothing about your computer that really jumps out at me as being the culprit, but I have a few ideas.


1gb of RAM has become the standard for PC games; some of the really intense games have started to recommend 2gb.  You only have 512mb.  Civilization is a much simpler game in terms of required computing power than the other two you are trying to play.  I would check the boxes that the games came in to make sure they don't require at least 1gb RAM to play.

If they do - we've found the problem.  Here's what I would recommend:
Start a new post in the appropriate forum and ask if any of the hardware junkies could help you find the best RAM your motherboard can handle.  Be sure to post the full name of your motherboard (like you did in this thread), let them know what RAM you already have in there (once again, like you did here), and make it clear that you need exactly 1gig.
If it turns out your MoBo supports a faster RAM (you have PC-2100, standard is PC-3200), you will be advised to buy two sticks of 512mb RAM and throw away what's currently in there.  This is because RAM will only run as fast as the slowest stick, and twin sticks run much faster than one.
(I'm still new to these forums, so I don't know if there's a good place to start a thread like that @ CH.com, so mods, please don't think I'm using your forums to advertise and delete this post.  If you can't find a good place to post the question, or you aren't getting good answers quickly, goto www.motherboards.org/forums and post in their "Recommendations" forum.  There are about 12 people who stalk that area all day & *live* to help people build PC's)


If the other two games do not require a gig of RAM, then I don't know what's causing it.  All I can recommend at that point is doing a little spring cleaning on your PC.  Run a deep virus scan.  Run Ad-ware removers.  Run Spy-ware removers.  (make sure you update all the virus/adware/spyware programs you have first)
Go through every piece of hardware on your computer and make sure you've got the latest drivers for *everything* (video, audio, internet, motherboard, cd drive, keyboard, mouse, joysticks, monitor, etc.)
Go through your add/remove programs list and uninstall everything you aren't using.  Look through your personal files and delete everything not worth holding onto (old pics, movies, music, etc).  After all that, defragment your hard drive.
All that will probably take you a good 2 or 3 days to complete, but when your done you should notice dramatic impovements with performance.  That extra "edge" could be all your computer needed to get the game to run properly.




Let us know what you find, and good luck!

[Neil]

Apart from making sure your drivers are updated, I highly doubt anything else will make any difference.

Again, from what I can tell the game runs it is just to big for the screen.

And again, unless I'm missing something, just use the monitor buttons to resize the screen :-? :-? :-? :-? :-? :-? :-? :-? :-? :-?

WHAT AM I MISSING!??>!>!!?!?!?

[Skreap]

 
woah, dude - calm down


I'll explain:

The buttons on your monitor will only change where the picture is pointing, & how it's projected.  At the very most, a standard 19" CRT monitor will let you move/stretch the image 2 or 3 inches in either direction.  This is only useful if the monitor is pointing the image too far off to one side, too large, or too small.

His problem is not the result of his monitor displaying the image too large.  If that was the case, *EVERY* application he ran, including windows, would be suffering from this problem.  The issue that he is having is that his video card is only holding ¼-½ of what's actually supposed to go on screen.
He COULD use the buttons to scale the image down and move it to the correct location, but 3/4 of his monitor will be blank, and he'll still see exactly what he saw before...only smaller.


If it helps you to visualize, draw something on a sheet of grid paper.  Make sure to take up a lot of the paper so you don't have too many white spots.  Let's pretend that sheet of grid paper is what the game is telling the video card to display on the monitor.
Now, take another sheet of grid paper the exact same size.  Copy what is drawn on the first sheet over to the new sheet, but with one new guideline:  For every 1x1 block on the original drawing, copy it into a 2x2 space on the new sheet.  You will quickly run out of room, and only be able to copy ¼ of the image over.  This sheet represents what the video card is sending to the monitor.

Do you understand why the buttons on the monitor wont help now?  The rest of the image isn't even being sent to the screen; there's nothing more to see by resizing the image.

[Neil]

Try running the game in Windowed mode.

Try the Direct X tests.. start > run > dxdiag

[Believil]

Hi, Yes Skeap is right, did that Nail and it's still same picture my monitor is a 17in screen, it worked on my old computer then i brought a new graphics card and computer and the problem happened.  
   I've tryed defragin it and spyware adware  and i've checked directX no problems where found.  
  whats this widowed mode and how do i do it ?.

[Neil]

So the Direct X tests with the spinning cube do not take up the whole of the screen? It is important you answer that question correctly so we can determine if it is a problem with just one game, or your whole computer.

And the name's Neil

[Skreap]

I've never done directx tests before, so I can't help you there - you'll have to wait for Neil to sign back on and explain that.


Windowed mode is only available for some games.
When you first start up the game and are in the options menu, one of the graphics/gameplay/display sub-menus will let you run the game in a window rather than the whole screen.
Some games have a dialog box that directly asks "Run in Window?" and you just check the "YES" box.
Other games have it hidden within the resolution settings.  When cycling through your resolution settings you might find one called "window".  Either that or your choices will look like:
1600x1200
1280x1024
1024x768
800x600
640x480
1280x1024 Windowed
1024x768 Windowed
800x600 Windowed
640x480 Windowed



It's different for all games, so you're just going to have to dig through the options menus and see what you find.  If it only works in windowed mode, I'll be completely out of ideas as to what's causing the problem.  If it still only shows a part of the screen, then the problem lies with your video card or RAM.
Speaking of which, did you ever check the system requirements for the game like I suggested?  I'm almost positive Rome requires more than 512MB RAM...

[Neil]

RTW needs 256MB minimum. I have yet to see any computer game that has more than 512MB minimum RAM. And besides it can't be a problem with RAM because the game runs, just half of the image has disappeared.

[Believil]

Tried DirectX the big box just turns around in the middle of the screen, the little white box just bounces round the middle part of the screen.   I've tried uninstalling and installing the game with nothing else running.  Same problem.

[Skreap]

RTW needs 256MB minimum. I have yet to see any computer game that has more than 512MB minimum RAM. And besides it can't be a problem with RAM because the game runs, just half of the image has disappeared.

If I'm not mistaken, the RAM on your video card caches onto your motherboard RAM, does it not?  If the game required more than 512, his video card might have run out of room to create indexes, thus it couldn't display the full image.

[Neil]

[highlight]RTW needs 256MB minimum.[/highlight]

How to run in a window: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-21517.html

[Believil]

I've just Brought two games one called -Medieval Lords- which flickers at the start but plays normal and my second game is -Dungeons and Dragons- which Needs 512mb ram as minimal and 2Ghz Speed which i can't play 'cos i have 1.92Ghz,  got'em from ebay but there new.   so i think it's just the two rome games thats given me problems.

[Neil]

You could at least try it and see if it works. I don't think 0.08Ghz will make any difference.