Display issue
 

Hi All

I replaced an older monitor. I have 2. I replaced the secondary monitor and made no adjustments to the primary one. When I open SPMBT, the opening screen is fine but when I click on play SPMBT I get a slanted screen. See attached. Has anyone else seen this or have any help. Like I said I made no adjustments other than switching my secondary monitors out.

Re: Display issue
 

Looks like the file is too big. Here is the zip of the screen shot

Re: Display issue
 

Go to mine below thread "BLACK SCREEN FLICKER" sounds like the same issue I had with the "stretch" and more.

First issue was to replace the PSU which was literally burning out. On Page 1.

Page 2 my last Post is more in line of your issue from the top down. My solution worked every time to fix the problem. This involved doing an "offline" scan from the OS MS Security software.

But haven't done that in a very longtime now since. Simply put, all my issues just vanished and never came back.

Very strange.

Something somewhere at my end or other simply "fixed itself".

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Hope this helps.

Re: Display issue
 

tRYING TO GET READY FOR WORK-MADE TIME TO JUST NOW OPEN YOUR "ZIP" AND CAN CONFIRM THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I HAD GOING ON AS WELL-GOTTA RUN!!

REGARDS,
PAT
:capt:

Re: Display issue
 

I've tried all your solutions nothing seems to have fixed it. All I did was switch out the secondary monitor... weird and frustrating

Re: Display issue
 

You get that result when you try to open the game in a fixed resolution that your monitor cannot handle. The game options programme does not matter - it is a windows desktop programme. The game is launched by it, and the game is a DirectX programme, and if you tell it it is in full screen mode, it will try to use the entire monitor like in games of days of yore, because SP is a game of days of yore - just updated to actually play nice with windows if you play in windowed mode. Not full screen!

Full-screen mode remains but is unsupported, we don’t care if it works on whatever hardware you happen to have. If it does so, good for you - but the next say video driver update you get may nuke that.

Full-screen mode is only there for the odd end user who nay be using some version of video driver and monitor combo that allows the old 4:3 pixel ratios in full-screen modes.

Windowed mode is the supported mode for the game. So if you have the free demo version, then you are stuck to a 800x600 mode window. (I don’t think anyone is masochistic enough to try 640x480, even if that was the game's original dimensions way back when!).

Windowed mode is there to be used in Desktop Resolution, where it takes full advantage of your modern widescreen monitor. That mode is the main selling point for the paid version of the game.

Re: Display issue
 

And so your old secondary monitor was old, and happened to support the full-screen resolution you were using. Switching back may work, but maybe not if you also loaded a new video driver - unless you can find the exact older one you used before the monitor swap.

"Modern" hardware and software for windows - drivers, monitors, video cards etcetera often have no inbuilt support for "long gone and unneeded by modern consumer" modes like 4:3 resolution, or smaller full-screen modes, perhaps not even supporting 1280x, let alone 800 and 640 seems to have disappeared in a puff of indifference 10-15 years back.

Don't use full-screen mode, use windowed mode. Or, if you insist on full-screen mode then find yourself the right combination of obsolescent video kit that still supports it. We do not support full-screen mode, but its still in there for historical reasons but only for the very few who still have obsolescent video kit that "knows" about stone-age windows graphics modes.

Re: Display issue
 

I have only used windowed and desktop screen size. I did try other options today but got the same result. I switched between GDI and DirectX as well. I have the full version.
My primary monitor is 1920*1200. That is the screen the game deploys on. I just played around and put the screen size to 1280*1024 it works. I guess it works but doesn't take up the screen.

Re: Display issue
 

Looks like this weird resolution of 1920x2000 - WUXIA - is a "new thing". At least there are a couple of such monitors available at the local PC world, and a couple of those are in the 120-159 quid bracket.

And it also look like it is one that breaks the game's screen size requirements like the old one for 13 inch laptop screens (1024x700 or whatever it was - it was over 5 years back, a few lines off the screen saved the manufacturers a few pence per item). The game expects the X and Y pixels to be divisible into 4-pixel chunks like all other monitor resolutions were - except for that cheapo laptop screen, which needed special code. I just happened to have such a laptop at the time, so testing was a breeze!

But I won't be doing any special code for that size since
- I can buy a WUXIA monitor for a reasonable price
- But the new Dell i7 Inspiron "S" model I bought for just under a grand in November wont drive a monitor size greater than standard HD 1980x1068.

(To anyone thinking of the "S" model dell Inspiron - yes, its nice and small and takes up less desktop space. But, the graphics output is limited, the sound card has to be rammed up to 100 to hear anything, and the fans make an electric whine/moan noise, some sort of induction mode to make it quieter - no whirring so you get annoyed by the moaning of the cooling thingy. The one in the full-sized case may have been a better choice for me...)

As I would need a brand new computer and monitor to properly test the fix, it wont be happening since I have just done that recently.

Try setting your windows screen size to regular FHD 1980x1080 mode and then launch the game in desktop resolution in windowed mode - see if that works properly. If so, you have yourself a workaround.

Re: Display issue
 

1366x768 was the weird and wonderful display resolution these cheapo laptop 13 inch or 14 inch screens used, one had to shave 6 pixels off the game window width for these or kaboom.

I forgot to ask - do you have windows set up to use the taskbar as recommended - situated at the bottom of the screen and set to be Non-Hiding?

Not having that set-up can make the game crash, but some end users have reported that they can use hiding taskbars, side task bars etcetera - windows can be weird:doh:. But if you have a taskbar that is not set up to be the bottom of the screen, or one that is set to auto-hide usually brings problems with the game. If you do - try the recommended settings for the taskbar and see if that helps.

Re: Display issue
 

Thanks for the help

I tried to change the screen size. I got the same result. I have always had my taskbars at the bottom and non hiding.

I find it odd that the screen I play on has always had the 1900*1200 resolution and the game has worked fine. The only change that was made was the other screen. It seems somehow that is affecting the primary screen... Either way thanks for your help.

Re: Display issue
 

Please enter display settings and change Scale and layout, Change the size of text, apps, and other items. If you have more than 100% for example 200% (Recommended) change it to 100%. I had the same problem and this help me play in desctop resolution.

Re: Display issue
 

Thanks

The settings are already at 100%. Not really sure why this happened

Re: Display issue
 

Are you running multiple monitors simultaneously?

If so - try running just the one monitor at a time and see if it works properly in the older 1980 HD and with the new WUXIA one.

IIRC, some users have reported hiccups with multiple monitor setups, some have resolved that by playing the game on the first monitor (where the toolbar resides? - I don’t use multiple monitors). Some, I think, had to unplug the second monitor. The game is written with a graphics engine that is well before multiple monitors were a thing, DirectX 5 I seem to recollect, I have built it with the DirectX libraries. Current Directx is like version 15 or so I believe?.

And if you have the usual "integrated" graphics with shared RAM and so on rather than a proper graphics card, these can apparently only run smaller resolutions on multiple monitors. Not something I'll be able to try out on this new Dell, all Inspirons use this "slugged" budget-mode HDMI video connector which is built into the motherboard apparently, and that wont drive more than 1920x1080 mode. Wish that I had delved deeper into the specs before buying that model of Dell, as I would have given it a body-swerve if I had realised the limitations of the cheap video hardware inbuilt to these Inspirons!

But video is a weird thing. I used to have a virtual windows XP machine - VMware - to boot to play Civilization 3. After a Vmware update, it refused to run it. Windows 10 played Hearts of iron 4 just fine, but a VMWare w10 virtual machine wouldn’t play that properly - just in a vertical box. Windows 11 barfed on it. But VMware have released the full engine for private use - I threw HOI on the W11 virtual machine I had just made (idea is to do my home banking on the VM - keeping it a level secured from the outer windows 11 on the actual hardware) - VMware Player (the cut down version) - wont properly scale HOI to the screen. But the newly released for private use "full fat" Vmware fusion(?) engine will. Sound's the exact opposite on the 2 vmware players - the cut down player runs the audio, the full-fat fusion one gives me an error about object creation..

That being said, its worth a look at playing the game in a Vmware (or other virtual provider) container if you have problems as it may work there if not on your physical hardware. Although the current owners of Vmware have made it very difficult to actually find the latest free version - I usually updated by the inbuilt link in the VMware engine, but it stalled and barfed on the last internal update process so off I went to find the latest installer - I think I found the actual link to that through a google search and a Reddit post that showed up, having had the run-around on the owners website! That was midway to later last year, maybe they have stopped messing about on their site by now?.

Re: Display issue
 

So I decided to play today after not messing with it since last weekend. For the heck of it I changed it to desktop and lo and behold it worked! No adjustments or changes since last weekend. Weird but I guess I'll count it as a win... Even though I did nothing but give it a week to think about it LOL

Thanks for everyone's help

Re: Display issue
 

Yes it work in desktop resolution if you have set Scale and layout in Windows to 100% any Scale and layout change genertating screen problems like yours and you have to set game resolution to 1900x1200 or lower to fix this. I tryied to explain this i my first reply but forgot mention about changing in game resolution to desctop :)

Re: Display issue
 

I've been following this, as I'm considering upgrading my monitor. Maybe I'm missing something, but you say you ** didn't change ** anything, but you also say you ** changed it ** to desktop?

Re: Display issue
 

Hi

When I say I didn't change anything I mean I didn't change any display or video settings or any setting on the computer. The game would not work on the game setting of desktop after I switched out to a new secondary monitor. I had to use the game setting of 1280*1024. After not playing the game and not making any pc settings, I decided to put the game setting back to desktop. It worked with no pc/monitor setting changes. The game setting is what I changed.

In summary: Day 1 with new monitor it would not play in game setting desktop mode on 1280*1024. 7 days later with no pc/monitor changes, it magically worked in game setting desktop mode.

Hope that helps. It was definitely weird.

Re: Display issue
 

In ~7 days, Windows may have downloaded an updated driver for it perhaps?.

Re: Display issue
 

I have found that WinSPMBT works best if it's the only "older" game I have run since I last switched on the computer.

Re: Display issue
 

I set the delays somewhere between 5 and 15 each. The action is fast furious that way. Makes for some very intense firefights, just like the real thing. You miss most of the in game descriptions doing that, but that doesn't matter, because most of them are just cosmetic in nature. I got used to it real fast.

When I do that, I make sure I leave the sound on. I always play in window mode too. The sound stays in sync with the visuals. Makes it more realistic and stays responsive.

Glad to hear you got your setup it to work cbreedon. Like geoff, I'm looking to get a new computer too. I just hope it ain't so powerful that I can't set the delays down like I described.