Bizarre graphics problem

[Darth Wong]

Has anybody ever seen something like this?



I tried reinstalling my OS, and I still get the same problem! No DXDiag problems to report, I tried three different versions of the NVidia drivers, and the game doesn't show this at startup. It always takes a few turns, then it locks up for about 20 seconds, and when it unlocks, the screen looks like this. The crazy thing is that it stays like this even if I quit the game and start it up again, and the only way to make it go away is to reboot the computer.

I suspect there is something odd about my motherboard which it really doesn't like. The motherboard is an Asus P4R800-VM, which uses the not-very-popular ATI chipset. I have two other machines (one with an NVidia chipset mobo and one with an Intel chipset mobo) and neither of them exhibit this weird problem. It also shows up on all versions of RTW, regardless of patch level (and BI too).

[Erasmus]

Have you tried updating your graphics card drivers? And check your AGP settings, certain graphics cards cannot function properly at too high a AGP setting.

[Guderian]

This might sound strange but have you been playing any other games prior to RTW before you start RTW?

I ask because when I used to play Operation flashpoint and then try to play RTW the screen would flicker, especially the ground. This wouldn't happen if I just played RTW without playing OPF. ANd the only way to fix it was to reset.

[d3v]

Does this happen in any other games???

have you tried enabling V-sync?

have you overclocked your card? If so, lower the clock.

Is the fan functioning on your card?

have you updated your ATI chipset drivers?

[DarK_RTW]

That looks like pixel corruption, are you using a nVIDIA Geforce 6600 series card?

[Darth Wong]

I installed the latest drivers, and I also installed several different versions of old drivers. It doesn't seem to affect the problem. And the weirdest thing is the fact that the problem persists if I stop and restart the game, and won't go away until I reset the machine (at which point I typically have about five minutes of play time before it happens again).

The really crazy thing is that I changed out the motherboard from an ATI chipset mobo to an Intel-chipset mobo, and it still happens. I also ran MEMTEST on the RAM, and it all checks out OK, and I even reinstalled Windows. So I am left with the conclusion that the graphics card is the culprit, but it works fine in every other game, and it even worked fine with RTW on an older motherboard with a crappy SIS chipset. I wonder if it has something to do with AGP 8x, but there's no option to drop down to 4x.

Could it be a problem with having DirectX 9.0c installed along with an old FX5600 card? Maybe I should have installed DirectX 9.0b instead.

[seands9]

I was having the same problem. It's actually a matter of your video card overheating, thus causing problems with the Z-buffer. I thought at first that I would have to buy a better fan for my computer, but when I took the case off, I found that there a a TON of dust and hair blocking the fans and causing my over heating problem. Since I cleaned out the computer, it has been running like a charm, and the problem was fixed! My game would run just fine for a few minutes then pause while making a skipping sound then resume, but the image would be distorted just like your's. I also downloaded a program called MotherBoard Monitor that monitors the temperature of my computer. Hope this helps!

I should mention that I also have a nVidia FX5600 256mb 8x graphics card.

[Darth Wong]

Thanks a ton for the tip! I'll check it out at my next opportunity.