Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

Full screen doesn´t work anymore. Only a 2 inch x 2 inch greyish square appears top left corner, otherwise the screen is black.

Same thing with both WW2 and MBT.

My graphics card updated it´s drivers twice within the time I didn´t play any SP so maybe that´s the problem. Has anyone else experienced problems with a GEFORCE GTX series cards? Mine is 750Ti. I´m also on Windows 7.

Windowed still works, but I hate it and I ain´t going to start looking for old video drivers..

Re: Full screen problem
 

Still not enough information, but I had a similar experience and the fix was to lock the taskbar! My clock was off too, but I suspect it was the auto-hide on the Win 7 taskbar.

You might want to include a screen print, and the winspmbt display settings.Follow this link for more info.

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Re: Full screen problem
 

Task bar was already locked.

Not much use for a screenshot... It´s just black with a small square of messed up texture upper left corner. It appears after the loading screen with a changing ww2 photo where normally the start screen appears.

I have to ctrl+alt+del and close the program from the start task manager. There´s nothing on the screen to click to. The game fails to start.

I re-installed the game and tried the earlier versions while installing. Tried with DirectX also that is available on the 1.0 version. Tried different resolutions too...

I´ve got 24" wide screen monitor.

Re: Full screen problem
 

So what really is your objection to running the game windowed desktop ?

Re: Full screen problem
 

Have you set the screen size to desktop - or are you trying to force a particular 4;3 screen size onto a wide screen monitor? - the latter will often cause problems if your monitor or driver wont support 4:3 resolutions.

Have you turned the splash screen off in the game options programme? - Show introduction = no.

If it worked before - what changed?.

Full screen support is a relic of MSDOS and the outdated 4:3 aspect ratio monitors. Many modern video cards and monitors don't handle those modes well, if at all. Some don't like directshow (which is used for the splash screen) - despite it being a standard Microsoft Multimedia protocol that's well over a decade old...

Additionally many new wide-screen monitors/drivers wont show resolutions less than 1024 or so wide, and therefore in the free demo with its maximum 800x600 mode it may mean that full-screen is unobtainable since they will return an error code to the game and it'll barf. In that case, the free demo will require to be run in windowed mode using part of the screen. So - if you are a free demo user, or a CD owner who has deliberately chosen, a resolution less than windows allows (check your screen settings) - that could be why you are seeing problems.

In addition - on modern graphics cards the 256 colour full-screen mode is not well implemented resulting in a slower screen update (especially animations and scrolling issues), whereas windowed mode with the colour rendered to high colour modes is faster. So - again full screen is deprecated on modern machinery.

Add in the problems with windows post XP taking control of the 256 colour palette to make the game "go psychedelic" and once again - full screen 256 colour mode is not recommended on modern hardware.

All that means that for wide-screen support, windowed mode in desktop resolution (CD feature) is the way to go. If your hardware actually allows 256 colour mode full screen, does not mess up the palette, and does not cause video stuttering - then consider yourself lucky in your choice of hardware.

(But given the problems modern video hardware causes, I'm all for removing the MSDOS legacy full-screen 256 colour pallet mode just so that we don't get any more grief from it.)

Cheers
Andy

Re: Full screen problem
 

Hey,

thanks for the replies! Interesting information.

I´ve got CD version. My favorite setting is 1024x768 full screen. Had the same problems everybody else had with Win 7 couple of years back, but after that none whatsoever.

Now that I tried with 1600x1280, full screen, instead of the screen going black it says something about SAL error and DirectDraw not being initialized.

Last time I played the game was about 2 months ago. It has got to be the graphics card drivers. Nothing else has changed... I asked here hoping someone more adept than me had a magic trick for this particular problem. There are some weird features with these new graphics cards that I don´t understand anything about. Maybe some of those conflict with something in sp or something...

The game is just smaller in windowed mod and rolling around the map feels awkward. Small things... but I guess I´ll start getting used to them.

Been playing SP for 15 years and will hopefully play another 15!

Re: Full screen problem
 

The left side of this screen shot is taken at 1152x864 fullscreen. The zoom level is default level 4. The right side is taken windowed desktop which in my case is 1920x1080. There is no difference in the size of the Icons on the screen.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1423156462

The only difference is the purchase screens etc etc which will be , naturally, 640x480 but that can be fixed, if that is a problem, using the magnifier detailed in the sticky part of the main forum

Further....... the inserted area with the dropshadow was taken windowed desktop mode and the main part of the screenshot was 1152x864 fullscreen mode

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1423157215


Don


EDIT... I apologize for the screen shots.... the forum software turned nice sharp PNG's into low quality JPG's

Re: Full screen problem
 

Magnifier messed up the desktop icons... oh well, deleted lots of crap from the desktop while placing the icons back where they were.

I have a similar magnifying function in my mouse, but it´s not the same; although the map and the icons are of same size to full screen, everything else is smaller. Which sucks, but I will start getting used to it. Starting now ->

Re: Full screen problem
 

You have the directx error since you are trying to drive the card at a resolution it cannot support. Wide screen flat panel monitors cant handle sizes that are bigger than their natural pixel size (1280 deep - bet your flat screen is 1080i, so a mere 1080 lines deep, ie massively retrograded compared to the CRT monitors of 10 years back..)

The fixed resolutions are all 4:3 aspect ratios, as used by monitors before wide screen letterboxes became the gold standard.

Use desktop resolution and not the 4:3 obsolete modes. This uses the current windows desktop resolution, and so does not try to squash a square screen into a squished down letterbox mode. Desktop mode was written precisely for these modern shallow letterbox LCD monitors.

Windowed mode set to desktop resolution takes an hour or so to get used to - then you wont go back. It only takes a little experimentation setting the mouse scroll sensitivity zone up.

And its faster than 256 colour full-screen modes on modern video cards! - no stuttering when trying to scroll the map, and no sudden stops of units moving across it. Unless you have found a video card driver that someone has written to properly support the Jurassic MSDOS modes, windowed mode is it.

If the game is "too small" in windowed mode then
1) set the windows desktop to a lesser resolution, say 1300ish by whatever - experiment with what your driver offers till you find a satisfactory size.
2) Launch and play the game in windowed mode at desktop resolution.
3) On exiting the game, simply reset the windows desktop size back to your normal preference.

Re: Full screen problem
 

Matching the desktop resolution with the game really does the trick. Windowed mode now looks and feels almost like it´s my beloved the full screen. I didn´t come to think of that. Thank you very much!

A major annoyance, not being able to scroll around the map with moving the mouse cursor to the edge of screen but having to find a spot at the edge of the game window, is also now gone.

Changing the screen resolution back and worth takes a few seconds but I guess I can live with that.

Re: Full screen problem
 

I had this EXACT same problem and have found a solution. Nvidia control panel has a setting for DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) which I use in other games. I found that turning off all DSR multipliers, ie: turning OFF DSR worked. I can run SBMBT and SPWW2 at full screen again. This fix also worked for other games that I had this problem with. Give that a try and I hope this helps you out!

TL DR: ensure that all DSR multipliers are disabled in Global Settings of Nvidia Control Panel.

Re: Full screen problem
 

How did you come up with this!? It actually f*****g works! Thanks, man!

Re: Full screen problem
 

I am making this a sticky thread so others with the same problem can find it easily

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

I had a slightly different issue with purchased version.

Every time I ran the game in Windowed mode with Screen/Window size as Desktop, I would get a window full width, but only (and exactly) half height.

I had locked taskbar, I had un-checked auto-hide, Borderless Gaming didn't help... I was baffled. Then I did something completely silly, using the sort of logic inspired by Vaughan's take on Alexander Pope's words: "To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer."

I moved the perfectly-configured taskbar from monitor 1 on the left, used for my browser and chat and temperature gauges and such, to monitor 2 on the right, slightly closer to me, which I use for gaming (and thus an inappropriate place for the taskbar, given that windowed games may get confused by it, or at least may have their bottom dozen pixels covered up by said taskbar).

VOILA!! By moving the Taskbar to the same window as the game is intended to run on, it worked! Desktop sized window! Glory of glories, finally Steel Panthers covering my screen, allowing my to make war without squinting!!

As soon as the game window properly draws, I was able to unlock the taskbar, move it to the other window, and set it to auto-hide again. Also note, simply moving the "winSPWAW Game Options" window to Monitor 2 did not resolve the issue. The taskbar had to be moved to the monitor on which I expected the game to play on... even though 2 is identified by Windows as my Main Display. I can't fault any programmer here, some of this visual/display/etc API programming is like drinking a pan-galactic gargle blaster (and if you don't get that, for God's sake go read you some Hitchhiker's Guide).

So in short, in a multi-monitor setup, make sure the taskbar is locked, auto-hidden, and on the same monitor as you want to run the game on when you fire up the game! Then set it however the devil you want afterwards.

Hope this helps someone!

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

I have been playing CD version of WinSPWW2 with absolutely no problems, other than I cannot ALT+TAB while the game is running in full screen, desktop mode. I usually play at deskytop fullscreen, and when I'm selecting units to expand my core, or to start a new campaign, I'll select fullscreen and 800x600.

So I installed WinSPMBT today, installed the patches 6, 10 & 12 from here http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Wo.../MBT_page.html

I started the CD version of WinSPMBT with the exact same settings as WinSPWW2,and the game crashes immediately after the splash screen, or if disable the splash screen the game crashes almost immediately

SAL Error
IpDD->SetDisplayMode() failed, code 80004001

and

SAL Error
DirectDraw could not be initialized: Error code 800004001


I assumed that since WinSPWW2 worked, so would SPMBT.

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

Which is telling you that you are trying to drive the screen at a resolution your graphics card will not support. 800x600 support, as I have stated in the above posts, is not something that can be relied on by modern drivers. Perhaps you have had a driver update put in by windows updates?.

Try another, larger windows 4:3 resolution should you want to continue with full-screen modes. Perhaps 1024x768 will work?.

The 2 games should behave exactly the same since the graphics engine is the same - so if there is a difference, then something in your set-up between the 2 installations is likely to be different. You will have to find out what that is, if any. (You may have used Windows compatibility mode on the one EXE but not the other?).

If the game runs fine in windowed mode at desktop resolution - fine, that is the supported mode. As we have said before, the windowed 256 colour full-screen mode is now an unsupported mode which is only there because it's inherited from legacy DOS and early Windows 98/XP and it cannot be guaranteed to work from Windows 7 onwards.

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

Sir, I must vigorously thank you for your insight!

I don't have a multi-monitor setup, but I did have an adjusted 'right-side' taskbar along the right side of my screen. I encountered a very similar issue to what you discussed.

My native display resolution is 2560x1440, and I was noticing that both the Windowed-Desktop resolution setting and the 1600x1280 windowed option were unusable. I now believe this is because the taskbar itself is interfering somehow with the game when in a non-standard location, and causes the compression as you've described.

For anyone else with non-standard taskbar positions...beware! WinSPMBT does not play nicely with these, and it may render your game unusable until you change the taskbar back. Though, for me the windowed 1280x1024 setting worked in all conditions.

http://imgur.com/a/i70cYTm

Attached are three images, two of the right-taskbar 'unusable' display and one of the fixed bottom-taskbar display. So if you run across similar issues...set your taskbar to 'bottom' or 'top' on your WinSPMBT screen and try again!

Many thanks for your fix, I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out what the issue was. :)

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

What you have "discovered" is info we put into the game guide years ago


https://i.imgur.com/7J1o4ey.png


That info is what would be the first or second page of the game guide.The title flashes on an off. Note the main topic is autohide but it also says

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

Discovered or not, I was simply glad to have the issue fixed. I would note, however, it seems to have no issues with a top taskbar on my end--for whatever reason.

Of course this just goes to show that there is rarely a new bug under the sun...especially for a game with this long of a support trail. Though admittedly the manual wasn't where my first instinct was to look for technical issues...but in the future I'll definitely keep a keener eye to it!

Thanks!

Re: Full screen issues and a solution or two
 

Never tried the top before. Didn't work for me the first time I tried but it did the second time but every system is a little different.....to me it's feels weird at the top