Catalyst 3.8 and Battlefield 1942

[The White Werewolf]

Ran into an odd problem with the new Catalyst 3.8 drivers from ATI.

I downloaded them. Uninstalled the catalyst 3.7 drivers using the ATI
uninstall all app located in the install folder. Then installed the
new driver set. This required two restarts. Once when i uninstalled
the first driver set and again when installing the new set.

I went into testng the new driver with various games and all seemed to
work fine with the exception of one. Battlefield 1942. I can run the
game. select a battle, and play just fine. But if i hit escape to go
back to the menu, the menu is corrupted. moving the mouse around will
cause further corruption and will lock the system up after a few
seconds.

I tried evrything i could think of to fix this. disaled all non
essential services. I even tried just about every motherboard bios
setting i have and none of these seem to effect the problem in any
way. Reverting my motherboard to its failsafe defaults only resulted
in slowing my ystem down but the graphic corruption still happens in
BF1942 when going back to the menu from an active map. The map i was
using for this is the Eagles Nest map that comes with the Secret
Weapons of WWII expansion.

Here is a list of my system load out.
Power supply: Antec Truepower 333 watt.
Motherboard: Abit KX333
CPU: AMD Athlon 1600+ running at its default speed
Memory: 512 megs Crucial brand Registered ECC
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (ATI Manufactured)
Hard Drive: Western Digital wd1200JB
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sb Live 5.1
CD: Pioneer 117 model DVD rom.
Nic: 3com 3c905c-tx
Windows 2000 Pro installed 2 months ago from a full format of the hard
drive. All drivers (sound card, motherboard chipset, video card,
ethernet card, etc. .) are the current batch from the hardware
manufacturers website.

All system bios are current.

First off, is anyone else experiencing this problem? And does anyone
have any recommendation on how to fix this or at least what the cause
of the problem may be?

 

[Indestructible]

I have the EXACT same problem with the 3.8s. When I hit escape the
menus are all messed up and I can't see my mouse cursor, then when I
try entering the game again everything is corrupted.

I'm assuming the 3.8 Cats introduced the problem, since it only
started happening after I installed them. I also noticed a severe
performance hit in BF1942 with the 3.8 Cats. Flying around
Mimoceques(Secret Weapons map) really lags, and it never did in 3.7.

I'm none too happy with the 3.8s so far. The saved profiles for
Direct3D and OpenGl do not work properly either. You select them and
apply, but it doesn't actually change the settings.

I'm running,

Gigabyte 7VAX (F10 BIOS)
Athlon XP 2100+
Radeon 9700 Pro
Win2k Pro SP4

A revert back the 3.7s will probably fix the issue in BF1942.
Hopefully their next driver release will fix this.

Indestructible
GamerzAlliance.com

 

[Gatlin]

Ran into an odd problem with the new Catalyst 3.8 drivers from ATI.

I downloaded them. Uninstalled the catalyst 3.7 drivers using the ATI
uninstall all app located in the install folder. Then installed the
new driver set. This required two restarts. Once when i uninstalled
the first driver set and again when installing the new set.

I went into testng the new driver with various games and all seemed to
work fine with the exception of one. Battlefield 1942. I can run the
game. select a battle, and play just fine. But if i hit escape to go
back to the menu, the menu is corrupted. moving the mouse around will
cause further corruption and will lock the system up after a few
seconds.

I tried evrything i could think of to fix this. disaled all non
essential services. I even tried just about every motherboard bios
setting i have and none of these seem to effect the problem in any
way. Reverting my motherboard to its failsafe defaults only resulted
in slowing my ystem down but the graphic corruption still happens in
BF1942 when going back to the menu from an active map. The map i was
using for this is the Eagles Nest map that comes with the Secret
Weapons of WWII expansion.

Here is a list of my system load out.
Power supply: Antec Truepower 333 watt.
Motherboard: Abit KX333
CPU: AMD Athlon 1600+ running at its default speed
Memory: 512 megs Crucial brand Registered ECC
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (ATI Manufactured)
Hard Drive: Western Digital wd1200JB
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sb Live 5.1
CD: Pioneer 117 model DVD rom.
Nic: 3com 3c905c-tx
Windows 2000 Pro installed 2 months ago from a full format of the hard
drive. All drivers (sound card, motherboard chipset, video card,
ethernet card, etc. .) are the current batch from the hardware
manufacturers website.

All system bios are current.

First off, is anyone else experiencing this problem? And does anyone
have any recommendation on how to fix this or at least what the cause
of the problem may be?

I'm having the same problem with a 9800 pro and the new drivers. Must
be a driver issue. Go back to 3.7, and see if that helps.

 

[ginfest]

The White Werewolf <[email protected]> wrote in message

I'm having the same problem with a 9800 pro and the new drivers. Must
be a driver issue. Go back to 3.7, and see if that helps.

No problems of that sort here, running the original BF 1942 patched to 1.4x
Maybe something to do with the expansion packs?
P4 3.2
IC7-G
9800P 3.8 drvs
WinXP
etc

 

[Jason Ash]

Ran into an odd problem with the new Catalyst 3.8 drivers from ATI.

I downloaded them. Uninstalled the catalyst 3.7 drivers using the ATI
uninstall all app located in the install folder. Then installed the
new driver set. This required two restarts. Once when i uninstalled
the first driver set and again when installing the new set.

I went into testng the new driver with various games and all seemed to
work fine with the exception of one. Battlefield 1942. I can run the
game. select a battle, and play just fine. But if i hit escape to go
back to the menu, the menu is corrupted. moving the mouse around will
cause further corruption and will lock the system up after a few
seconds.

I tried evrything i could think of to fix this. disaled all non
essential services. I even tried just about every motherboard bios
setting i have and none of these seem to effect the problem in any
way. Reverting my motherboard to its failsafe defaults only resulted
in slowing my ystem down but the graphic corruption still happens in
BF1942 when going back to the menu from an active map. The map i was
using for this is the Eagles Nest map that comes with the Secret
Weapons of WWII expansion.

Here is a list of my system load out.
Power supply: Antec Truepower 333 watt.
Motherboard: Abit KX333
CPU: AMD Athlon 1600+ running at its default speed
Memory: 512 megs Crucial brand Registered ECC
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (ATI Manufactured)
Hard Drive: Western Digital wd1200JB
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sb Live 5.1
CD: Pioneer 117 model DVD rom.
Nic: 3com 3c905c-tx
Windows 2000 Pro installed 2 months ago from a full format of the hard
drive. All drivers (sound card, motherboard chipset, video card,
ethernet card, etc. .) are the current batch from the hardware
manufacturers website.

All system bios are current.

First off, is anyone else experiencing this problem? And does anyone
have any recommendation on how to fix this or at least what the cause
of the problem may be?

So far I'm running the Cat3.8s' with a Radeon 9700Pro, and have no
problems with BF. However, I do not have the Secret Weapons expansion.
Just played on-line last night. The only problem with BF I run into
occasionaly, is a semi-transparent black box at about 2/3 they way up the
screen, where the "loading" dialog is. However, I have run into this
before, with older Catalyst drivers, so I think it's a BF issue.

System Specs:
Motherboard: Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra Platinum
CPU: AMD Athlon 2600+ running at its default speed
Memory: 768Mb DDR333 generic
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (ATI Manufactured)
Hard Drive: 2x40Gb Maxtor in RAID-0 (system drive)
1x80GB Western Digital (swap and storage)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sb Audigy Platinum
CD: Lite-On 16X DVD-ROM
Memorex 2.4x DVD+RW
Nic: Intel Pro1000/MT
Other: MSI TV@nywhere TV tuner
Win2K Pro SP3, re-loaded less than a month ago.
Motherboards on-board audio is disabled.

Running BF1942 v1.45, with the Road to Rome expansion pack.

Jason A.

 

[Frank Weston]

Yep. Same exact problem with 3.8 driver and 9800 Pro. I also had a similar
problem with Ghost Recon. Reloaded 3.7 drivers and the problem was solved.

 

[SLB]

No problems of that sort here, running the original BF 1942 patched to 1.4x
Maybe something to do with the expansion packs?
P4 3.2
IC7-G
9800P 3.8 drvs
WinXP
etc

Same here just tries original BF 1942 (latest patched version)and it
works fine. I wonder if its a expansion pack issue with the new 3.8
driver?

 

[Indestructible]

I finally got this problem figured out folks.

The whole problem has to do with your monitor refresh rate. You will
get this problem if your refresh rate in BF1942 is different than your
desktop refresh rate.

After I installed Cat 3.8 BF1942 reset my refresh rate in the game to
60hz for some reason. My desktop runs in 85hz.

Seems when you press escape in BF1942 the game flashes to your desktop
and switches to your desktop refresh rate, then goes back into the
game menu still in your desktop refresh rate, when the game is
expecting an altogether different rate. This is what causes all the
visual garbage.

Simply set the refresh rate in BF1942 to the same rate as your desktop
and this problem will go away. Worked great for me.

You'll have to edit /EA GAMES/Battlefield
1942/Mods/bf1942/settings/VideoDefault.con and change
renderer.allowAllRefreshRates 0 to renderer.allowAllRefreshRates 1 to
give you the ability to choose a refresh rate within the game.

Hope this helps everyone with the problem.

 

[James smyth]

I finally got this problem figured out folks.

The whole problem has to do with your monitor refresh rate. You will
get this problem if your refresh rate in BF1942 is different than your
desktop refresh rate.

After I installed Cat 3.8 BF1942 reset my refresh rate in the game to
60hz for some reason. My desktop runs in 85hz.

Thanks for that, I've only just upgraded from a 4200 to a Crucial Radeon 9800Pro
today and haven't been impressed at all. Battlefields is my main game. I tried
changing the refresh rates and it didn't work so I lowered my desktop res to
1024x768 and tried with the same res and refresh and thats cured the problem but
now the desktop looks crap.

On Tiger woods 2004 there is no in-game menu for AA so the only way to do it AFAIK
is through the control panel but with AA switched on the screen blanks when you
take your shot which is really annoying and puts me right off the game, whats the
point of spending £260 on a graphics card if games change their behaviour for the
worse in return for improved picture quality. I had the option of playing in
1600x1200 on the Ti4200 plus switching on Vertical sync in the control panel to
stop the textures tearing, when AFx8 is switched on, makes the mouse unresponsive
so it's impossible to play Tiger Woods with either AA or AF. Overall the graphics
were better with a Ti4200 due to the higher resolution.

Max Payne 2 runs OK, a little dark at first but changing the Gamma in the control
panel helped that. I'm going to test Halo and a few more games tonight but I
wouldn't recommend anyone run out and upgrade if you already have a GF4 Ti4200.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks for that, I've only just upgraded from a 4200 to a Crucial Radeon 9800Pro
today and haven't been impressed at all. Battlefields is my main game. I tried

<snip>.

Go back to the 3.7 drivers, I don't get any of those problems with
BF1942 or the TW2004 demo.

 

[Indestructible]

Sorry to hear about all those problems. Now that I think about it
almost every problem I've had with my 9700 pro comes from an EA
game...I guess that's another thing I can hate EA for.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll be impressed with Halo running on your 9800
over your 4200 Ti. As impressed as can be anyway, Halo isn't the best
performer even on the highest-end PCs. Make sure you have
Anti-Aliasing turned off for Halo, it does absolultely nothing due to
how the engine was coded and just really kills your performance with
no visual gain.