Campaign won't start...

[vonNichts]

Technical problem:

When I try to start a campaign game (or campaign tutorial), the loading screen apears, the red bar fills up, and then I'm returned to the menu where I came from Sometimes, the game shuts down altogether after a second.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

I suspect that the problem is related to graphics, somehow. The battle and campaign screens use quite different kinds of graphics engines, don't they? Could it be that my PC isn't properly configured for whatever the campaign graphics mode requires?

During the loading screen, a white line flickers at the bottom of the screen. And when returned to the menu, the bottom 15% of the screen flickers and the mouse pointer can't get down there.

I have a Dell inspiron 8000 laptop and am running WinXP. Windows doesn't find a specific driver for the display, but it installs 4() standard drivers... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif Howver, this has worked well thus far. (I'm still searching for a proper driver, but has been fishing in the dark thus far).

[vonNichts]

Btw, I have MTW v 1.1

[Gregoshi]

vonNichts, what kind of graphics card does your laptop have?

[vonNichts]

Thanks for answering Me and my more competent friends are puzzled, so any help would be very welcomed

I have ATI rage Mobility 128 AGP 4x, AGP version 2.00

Graphics card type: intel i752, chipset i815EM (i for inspiron I guess since the i doesn't show up on Intels site).

DirectX propereties (as I see it in aida32):
-directdraw driver: ati2dvai.dll
-directdraw driver description: primitive display driver (doesn't sound impressive?)
And then there is a list of 40 or so direct3d unit functions which each is supported or not. I cannot copy annd paste this list. Is there any such function in particular which might need support in order for mtw to work?

Screen driver: Dell 1503FP (M4 mobility) which I've downloaded from dells site where it is explicitly recommended for my Inspiron 8000. However, winXP also uses three (3) more standard drivers for the screen everytime I restart the computer

It's funny (well, I'm not laughing) that the demanding polygone graphics of the battlefield works perfectly, while the (bitmap type?) graphics of the strategic map doesn't work... Civilization 3 works well, and I suppose it uses the same kind of non-polygon graphics as the mtw strategic map.

I've upgraded all drivers Ican find on Dells and Intels sites, but to no effect wrt this problem.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif

[vonNichts]

I found a new view of directx unit functions in the aida-software, which could be copied.

The language is Swedish, so my trannslations might not be 100% correct...

Interesting is the following line:

Problems and suggeestions:
Hardware transformation and light setting are not supported. Modern 3D games might demand this

Seems like bad news... Is this upgradable in any way???


In the following list, stöds means supported annd inget stöd means not supported:

--------[ DirectX video ]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------

[ Primär bildskärmsdrivrutin ]

DirectDraw enhetsegenskaper:
DirectDraw drivrutinsnamn display
DirectDraw drivrutinsbeskrivning Primär bildskärmsdrivrutin
Hårdvarudrivrutin ati2dvai.dll
Hårdvarubeskrivning Mobility M4

Direct3D enhetsegenskaper:
Tillgängligt lokalt videominne 26821 kB
Tillgängligt icke-lokalt videominne (AGP) 32252 kB
Renderingsbitdjup 16, 32
Z-buffer Bitdjup 16, 24, 32
Min texturstorlek 1 x 1
Max texturstorlek 1024 x 1024
Vertex Shader version Inget Stöd
Pixel shader version Inget Stöd

Direct3D enhetsfunktioner:
Additive Texture Blending Stöds
AGP Texturing Stöds
Anisotropic Filtering Inget Stöd
Bilinear Filtering Stöds
Cubic Environment Mapping Inget Stöd
Cubic Filtering Inget Stöd
Decal-Alpha Texture Blending Stöds
Decal Texture Blending Stöds
Directional Lights Inget Stöd
DirectX Texture Compression Inget Stöd
DirectX Volumetric Texture Compression Inget Stöd
Dithering Stöds
Dot3 Texture Blending Inget Stöd
Dynamic Textures Inget Stöd
Edge Antialiasing Inget Stöd
Environmental Bump Mapping Inget Stöd
Environmental Bump Mapping + Luminance Inget Stöd
Factor Alpha Blending Stöds
Geometric Hidden-Surface Removal Inget Stöd
Guard Band Inget Stöd
Hardware Scene Rasterization Inget Stöd
Hardware Transform & Lighting Inget Stöd
Legacy Depth Bias Inget Stöd
Mipmap LOD Bias Adjustments Inget Stöd
Mipmapped Cube Textures Inget Stöd
Mipmapped Volume Textures Inget Stöd
Modulate-Alpha Texture Blending Stöds
Modulate Texture Blending Stöds
Non-Square Textures Stöds
N-Patches Inget Stöd
Perspective Texture Correction Stöds
Point Lights Inget Stöd
Point Sampling Stöds
Projective Textures Inget Stöd
Quintic Bezier Curves & B-Splines Inget Stöd
Range-Based Fog Stöds
Rectangular & Triangular Patches Inget Stöd
Rendering In Windowed Mode Stöds
Scissor Test Inget Stöd
Slope-Scale Based Depth Bias Inget Stöd
Specular Flat Shading Stöds
Specular Gouraud Shading Stöds
Specular Phong Shading Inget Stöd
Spherical Mapping Inget Stöd
Spot Lights Inget Stöd
Stencil Buffers Stöds
Sub-Pixel Accuracy Stöds
Table Fog Stöds
Texture Alpha Blending Stöds
Texture Clamping Stöds
Texture Mirroring Stöds
Texture Transparency Stöds
Texture Wrapping Stöds
Triangle Culling Inget Stöd
Trilinear Filtering Stöds
Two-Sided Stencil Test Inget Stöd
Vertex Alpha Blending Stöds
Vertex Fog Stöds
Vertex Tweening Inget Stöd
Volume Textures Inget Stöd
W-Based Fog Inget Stöd
W-Buffering Inget Stöd
Z-Based Fog Stöds
Z-Bias Inget Stöd
Z-Test Stöds

Problem och förslag:
Problem Hårdvaruomvandling och ljussättning stöds ej. Moderna 3D-spel kan kräva detta.

PS
of course it is not primitive as I posted before, but primary, duh

[Gregoshi]

vonNichts, I'm moving this to the Apothecary forum. You will be able to reply to any questions the tech wizards there might ask you.