Problems with BZ2 & Latest Nvidia Drivers (8800GT, 9600GT)

[Steeveeo]

I recently upgraded my video card to an nVidia 9600GT, and ever since, I can play BZ2 for all of about 5 minutes in game before everything 3D disappears and all the menus go transparent except for a few outlines.

Seemingly the only way to repair this while in game is to go into Shift-F9 mode, exit, then go back to full screen. Of course that still leaves a problem when Im in a normal game without the edit mode, in which I have to ctrl+alt+delete out of the game because I cant see the menus.

Anyone experience this problem/have a fix?

PS, It also seems to happen a lot more on the maps with larger flat areas, like Firestorm and my custom desert map.

(Image coming soon)



EDIT: The following is the basic solution for this problem, found through posts and testing.


SOLUTION/WORKAROUND:

Versions 1.3 Public Beta 4a and lower:
-If you cannot find earlier drivers for your card that work, setting Sky detail to [LOW] or [NONE] pretty much kills the problem.
-If your text disappears during the occurrence of the issue, put /noDXT into your commandline when you start up.

OPTION B
- Update Battlezone to 1.3 TechAlpha 5, the port to DirectX 9 fixes this bug in its entirety.

[Angstromicus]

Nope. No problems here. But I have a 8800 GTS 640MB.

Thanks for upgrading and posting your experience though. Now I'm definitely not going to upgrade any time soon .

I recommend going into your video card settings and set a custom profile for BZII. Disable features one by one until the problem is fixed (hopefully). That's the best I can recommend.

[Steeveeo]

Ok, pics taken.





Note that some things still show, while the rest do not....strange error. The card is not OCd in any way, the control panel is set to have everything Application Controlled, and I dont know what's going on...

Also, while alt+tabbing to get these, I ran into a Fatal Error. "Uhoh, Repeatedly failed to call BeginScene. Possibly a graphics error. Exiting"

[VSMIT]

Remember that this is a relatively new chipset, and the drivers may not be bug free yet.

TOO gives good advice, but I would do it in reverse: do it like an ODF.  Disable each feature, then enable one by one to find out what the issue is.

VSMIT.

[Steeveeo]

I turned EVERYTHING I could onto the off/lowest position in the console, the problem still occurs.

Keep in mind that I am doing this all externally, since Im not sure if theres anything in BZ2 I can change to fix it, although I have not experienced ANY similar problems whatsoever on ANY other game (including GZDoom, a port for the very old Doom series)

[Steeveeo]

UPDATE: The /nodxt flag on the shortcut I just tried works basically as a half-fix. It worked to somewhat bring back some things during the crapout, namely Text, also, my 3D cockpit flickers in and out with it on, instead of going away completely...

Particle TGAs are still there during the crapout, and dont change even if I turn /nodxt off.

The ground is still gone, but my menus are partially back, the text is there, along with the outlines, but the backgrounds are not back...

Im getting somewhere, anyone have any other debug things similar to /nodxt?

[bigbadbogie]

it seems like it could be a texture read error - i have very limited knowledge of computers but i would recommend you roll back your drivers if you updated them - and if that doesnt work, pray!! 

[GSH]

Avatar had some problems w/ the most recent nVidia drivers a few months back, if I recall correctly. Going back to an older version fixed things for him.

Both ATI and nVidia seem to be trying to kill off DX6 support at some point, or at least neglect it from their testing plans. If you file bug reports with them, that may provide more votes for them to at least test things on their end.

-- GSH

[Avatar]

Exactly so, it was like a memory leak in that after a certain, random time the game would stutter to a stop.  The 6.14.0011.6375 set was the latest I could find that didn't cause this.

There are numerous complaints on other game forums about this, that the newer chipsets are forgoing support for earlier DX builds.

I hate to say it but it's almost getting to the point where you need to keep an older system running to play games more than a few years old.  I already keep a 98SE machine running for BZ1, now I'll have my XP system sitting around for years to keep BZ2 going... 

-Av-

[Commando]

I guess I'll have to think twice regarding purchasing a Nvidia 8900 GTX or an ATI 3870 GX2 .  I'm in the process of building a new system and it will suck if I have to purchase an older video card just to get bz2 to run.

[GSH]

My 8800GTS (640MB) works just fine at home. I know I'm not using the latest drivers, though.

The more people register problems at the source of these problems -- the driver makers -- the more chance there'll be a fix. http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=86516 claims new beta drivers were released yesterday, with "numerous game and application compatibility fixes." I'm not going to play driver roulette just for kicks, though.

-- GSH

[Commando]

Are you sure that isn't an April fools joke?  I know some of the comments had to have been jokes.

[GSH]

Seems legit to me. If I go to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us , select GeForce 8 Series (which is what I've got at home, work is less than that), and hit search, it shows 174.74 drivers, March 27, 2008.

Things like http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/moltencore/  ("Has sound" ) is an April Fools post.

-- GSH

[GreenHeart]

A few months ago i made the mistake of installing an nvidia update for my video cards from microsoft update & that broken my ability to even play any 3d game until i rolled back to the previous version.

[OvermindDL1]

I got my BZ2 working again, do not recall how (this was after my hoard of driver fiddling, but I did not do anything that should have made it start working, but it did...), still using the ancient old drivers though as the new ones still have problems in some other games.
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