FoG crashing almost every game since gfx card update OR 1.03

[Retreat_in_shambles]

I can't work out what is causing it, the gfx card update or the patch since they both happened around the same time.

Anyway, I had a gfx card die on me, so I replaced it with a Radeon 5770. I installed the latest ATI drivers, but this hasn't helped. I am running Vista 32.

What happens is the screen goes entirely faded purple when I click on a unit after playing for a while. I can't alt-tab, I can't ctr-alt-del, I have to do a reset button restart. Then when I go back in and start up FoG again, the Vista "circle" spins for a while and nothing happens until I go to Task Manager. Then a dialogue pops up telling me that the game appears to have crashed, and do I want to go to the autosave.

Any ideas? AFAIK, my gfx settings are vanilla.

Oh yeah, one other thing (don't know if this is relevant: when I click on the "Open Book" icon to get up the documentation, it's blank except for the close button. It used to be there in previous versions.

Thanks in advance.

[bassani2009]

Hi Retreat_in_shambles

Did the game work before you installed the new drivers? If the game did work then the first course of action is to roll back the graphics drivers to the previous drivers because in some cases the graphics card manufactures will update the drivers but in doing so can cause problems to the game. To roll back the drivers perform the following:

- From the desktop go to the windows symbol in the bottom left corner.
- Right click on "Computer".
- Click on "Manage" which will take you to the "Computer Management" window.
- In this window select "Device Manager".
- Select "Display adapters".
- Right click on the graphics card that is listed and select "Properties".
- Once the properties window for the graphics card is displayed select the "Driver" tab at the top of this window.
- Click on the "Roll Back Driver" button.

If reverting back to the previous graphics card drivers still doesn't work then we advise you to re-install the game.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Did the game work before you installed the new drivers?

No it didn't. I installed the new drivers to try to make it work.

It DID work fine before v1.03, though.

I'll try reinstalling the game.

[pipfromslitherine]

Was the old, dead gfx card an ATI too?

All the issues we are seeing seem to be on ATI cards. It might be that their support for OpenGL is less than stellar.

As much info as you can give us will help trying to track it down.

Cheers

Pip

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Was the old, dead gfx card an ATI too?

Nope. Old and dead was NVIDIA. I honestly can't remember if I fired up 1.03 with it or not though.

I've done the reinstall. Seems OK so far - but I haven't done enough testing to be sure. There still is nothing showing when I hit the button for the Help file though - just a big blank brown screen with 'Close' up the top.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

No joy - just crashed again.

I don't think FoG is happy with this new vid card.

[IainMcNeil]

Just to clarify - does version 1.02 work on the new card? I woudl assume not but just wanted to check.

[batesmotel]

Was the old, dead gfx card an ATI too?

All the issues we are seeing seem to be on ATI cards. It might be that their support for OpenGL is less than stellar.

As much info as you can give us will help trying to track it down.

Cheers

Pip

It might be worth asking what driver versions work if other people are running successfully with ATI cards. (My laptop isNvidia, so can't help.) Maybe there is an older version of ATI driver that will work.

Alternatively, the person having the problem with the new video card might try turning off all acceleration in the driver and see if that helps at all.

Chris

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Just to clarify - does version 1.02 work on the new card? I woudl assume not but just wanted to check.

Haven't tried that yet - when I reinstalled I went to 1.03.

However - what I did do was get rid of some old NVIDIA drivers that were still hanging around. So far so good - but I haven't thrashed it enough yet to judge conclusively if that did the trick. If it crashes again I'll roll back to 1.02 and see what goes on there.

Any idea why the Help file is blank when I press the open book icon?

[batesmotel]

Just to clarify - does version 1.02 work on the new card? I woudl assume not but just wanted to check.

Haven't tried that yet - when I reinstalled I went to 1.03.

However - what I did do was get rid of some old NVIDIA drivers that were still hanging around. So far so good - but I haven't thrashed it enough yet to judge conclusively if that did the trick. If it crashes again I'll roll back to 1.02 and see what goes on there.

Any idea why the Help file is blank when I press the open book icon?

Try opening the help directly from a browser and see if that works properly. It is standard HTML so shouldn't make any strange demands on your video. You might want to check and see what you have defined as your default browser and make sure that is something vanilla like a recent version of IE or Firefox.

As another thought, does the NVidia controller still appear in the device list in Device Manager (under Display Adapters). If not, the NVidia video drivers should never get loaded. Depending on your mother board there could be NVivida drivers for other chips on it but I would not think that the old NVidia drivers would get loaded if they are video drivers. If the old NVidia video adapter is still listed in Devide Manager, you should at a minimum disable it (form the right click menu).

Chris

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Just to clarify - does version 1.02 work on the new card? I woudl assume not but just wanted to check.

1.03 crashed. Rolled all the way back to 1.01 - same thing. With no discernable pattern, sometimes when I do something (i.e click on a unit) the screen just goes entirely muted purple with vertical lines.

I'd suspect a dead vid card - but this is a week old. Unless I've been unlucky enough to get a dud.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Try opening the help directly from a browser and see if that works properly. It is standard HTML so shouldn't make any strange demands on your video. You might want to check and see what you have defined as your default browser and make sure that is something vanilla like a recent version of IE or Firefox.

Yeah. it works fine when I open it from a browser, and my default is IE. Funny thing is that the links actually ARE there - the cursor changes when it's over one - I just can't see them (they are covered by the background brown) until I start Task Manager and cancel out of it. The reason why I suspect it has something to do with the vid card is that it wasn't happening with the old one that died.

[IainMcNeil]

It is probably a driver bug rather than a bad video card. We'll have to investigate.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

It is probably a driver bug rather than a bad video card. We'll have to investigate.

There's a new Catalyst package out today. Do you want me to install that and see if there's any difference? It's 10.1 and I'm running 9.12 (although it was doing the same behaviour on the iteration before 9.12).

Just to recap the other specs: Vista 32, Radeon 5770 card.

[IainMcNeil]

It is worth a try - we have no idea what the problem is as its related to a card we don't have and can't repeat.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

It is worth a try - we have no idea what the problem is as its related to a card we don't have and can't repeat.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh - I jinxed it!

I installed the 10.1 Catalyst package - played a number of games and it was fine. Looked like the problem had solved itself. Then, in a PBEM chat, I said that I was "cautiously optimistic" that the problem was gone. I fired up a new game after sending the turn, left the comp for about 5 minutes and when I came back the screen was purple with faint vertical stripes. I think I have noticed that I can't leave it idle for long or it does this, although it has done it when I have been moving stuff around without downtime.

Why me?

[pipfromslitherine]

That sounds like a video card issue, but the card is new, so it could be the slot on the motherboard? Is there any way to test your old card on another system.

These kind of random wierd issues can be very hard to track down...

Cheers

Pip

[Retreat_in_shambles]

That sounds like a video card issue, but the card is new, so it could be the slot on the motherboard? Is there any way to test your old card on another system.

These kind of random wierd issues can be very hard to track down...

Cheers

Pip

No - the other comp I have is ancient with an AGP slot.

I think there might be a problem with the whole damn 5770 line. Quite a few people are reporting problems on the ATI forum, and I just had a weird black screen freeze with no 3D app running. It's not the power supply to the card - this one requires less than the old card.

Might have to see if I can replace it. Knowing my luck, they won't take it back. I'm in Australia and we have much less compliant retailers than in the US.

[Retreat_in_shambles]

Well, hopefully this is what the problem is ... and hopefully they can fix it:-

AMD has confirmed that a previously reported issue of grey lines or screens with certain Radeon HD 5000 GPUs affects both the 5700 and 5800 series.

Earlier this week, it emerged that many 5000 series users were experiencing problems with crashing and grey or colored lines appearing on his or her display. The grey screens and hangups were occurring while users were gaming, watching movies or in some cases, when the computer was just sitting idle.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI-Gr ... or=RSS-181

I've had the gaming, the watching moves and the sitting idle crashes.

[pipfromslitherine]

Bummer Hopefully they can come up with a fix, or you can replace the card without any hassles.

Cheers

Pip