Problems with Graphics with Fighting Steel

[AlmightyTallest]

Hey guys,

I got Fighting Steel to run, but when I have FSP installed, I get strange graphical glitches in the sky textures, which, when my mouse pointer is in the sky or any contacts are around in the sky textures causes them to streak and become unreadable. Also, the game will play for a few minutes until it bogs down and freezes up. I also tryed playing the game with the origional patch 1.1 which came with my copy of the game, but I get the same graphical glitches and crashes a few minutes into the game.

Please let me know if you guys know of any way to help me to get this to run with FSP,
Below are my Computer Specs.

Windows XP Home Edition version 2002
Service Pack 2
Intel Core 2 CPU 6600 at 3.41 GHz 2 GB RAM
NVidia BFG 8800 Ultra OC running version 175.16 drivers
Direct X 9.0c

I installed NWP, and checked to make sure that it's saying that NWP is installed on the load screen but the game runs exactly the same. Still having graphical glitches with the sky textures and the game freezing up after a few minutes of play. I have tried the oldest NVidia drivers I could with my card (163.xx) and the game will run without crashing or bogging down, but the same graphics problem with the sky is still there.

I was wondering if it might be a problem related to my card being Direct X 10 compliant, or if there was a way to use a Direct 3D wrapper or something that I can use to have this game running well.

I'd really appreciate any help and suggestions, thanks.
Brian Haley

[cj95]

SOunds similar to the problems I'd been having.

I have not found a solution other than switching the graphics off.

Unfortunately my problems dont end there....lall the 3d ship models are invisible or only half way rendered.



I think its time to give up on this game as there seems to be no solution.:(

[AlmightyTallest]

Well, I'm so close that I don't want to give up on it yet. Perhaps there's a way to use a wrapper like the old Glide voodoo emulators out there to fool our modern video cards into representing the game correctly, except it would be a Direct X9 or Direct3D wrapper.

I'm thinking it has something to do with my video card being Direct X10 compliant being incompatible with the Direct X9 calls the game is asking for....

Or maybe I have an option in my graphics card selected that I should change to get the sky textures right. It's just odd that all the other graphics are working fine, except the sky.

[William Miller]

Hello,

Try the following since you are running Windows XP:

1) Set the game to run in Windows 98 compatibility mode
2) Turn off advanced text services and other features in the compatibility options
3) Set the game to run in 640 x 480 in compatibility options as well.

[AlmightyTallest]

Hi William,

I set the program in Windows 98 compatibility mode with all of the other options you suggested turned on. I rebooted and ran the program, but it's still behaving exactly as I described before. Game seems to have crashed while I was using the different camera modes, the text for all contacts doubled, then tripled, and multiplied until the game bogged down and refused to respond, as I have seen before.

Any other suggestions? I'm running out of ideas for what to do. :(

[Glossza]

Read the thread on fighting steel on new computer for some background info,

and once again we are seeing this problem with Nvidia cards.

Your driver version for your video card does not seen to work with this game, Nvidia has know issues with its drivers not just for this game but many others. I won't get into the details but Nvidia has a lawsuit file against them due to these driver issues. These drivers are suppose to work with Vista and XP but are causing a lot of problems.

Drivers version that are tested and working are: 93.71, 94.24 - but are not for your card the 8000 series, these are for XP and all cards under 8000 series

look at Forceware release 95 version 97.92 used for only 8800 series cards and xp

See if you can "downgrade" to this version to get the game to work

This driver is a more stable version for XP, good luck

John

[AlmightyTallest]

Hello Glossza,

I tried the Forceware 95 version 97.92 drivers for Windows XP, but when I try to run the new drivers an error window pops up and says "The NVidia setup program could not locate any files that are compatible with your hardware, setup will now exit."

[AlmightyTallest]

Hey guys, I figured out which drivers I needed to get Fighting Steel working for my system.

It turns out that the drivers that worked were Beta 177.79 for Windows XP. I got them from this site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_177.79_beta.html

Now everything is working great!!! ctdahlquist, can you try these drivers and see if it works for you?

[Glossza]

Great Hunting Brian

Looks like those drivers just came out last week,

Now if we can only find Vista drivers for Nvidia that work,

that would make a lot of people happy

Congrats

John

[AlmightyTallest]

Thanks Glossza,

I guess in my excitement I was a bit premature, the graphics are all working perfectly now, but after playing a few scenarios, I get that sudden glitch where all the contacts in 3D mode start multiplying and bogging down my system until it freezes. Has anyone else run into that problem before? It does seem to happen more often when I'm using the camera feature that allows me to see which enemy ships I'm targeting and switching around from enemy contact to contact to see my units gunnery results.

[AlmightyTallest]

For those interested and using Vista, you can try the 177 series drivers at the following link:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-177.79-Vista-(64-bit)-download-2014.html\

Hope it helps :)

[Glossza]

Brian

The above link does not work - BUT

be careful what drivers you use - this link is for Vista 64?

Windows XP comes in 2 flavors - 32 and 64 bit, must of us have 32 bit
same with Vista, not only do you have to make sure your drivers work for your video card, but also for your operating system, now back to your original problem.

First I would totally uninstall Fighting Steel, you mentioned that you tried with the patch that came on cd, from my understanding you cannot have any patches installed except the one from this website. Get a clean install.

Second, take a look at the FSV102Manual.pdf file on this website.
If you look at the .inf section you will see that the video is set to AGP.
You can set it to 0 (zero) so the game doesn't use AGP calls.
This had no effect on my computer, but all video cards are different.

Third, Nvidia has .inf files that allow you to use any driver with any video card if it is modified. ( I would hold off on this as a last effort)
Normally is you install a driver and it says that it could not detect the hardware, this is caused by that video card not being in the .inf file.
Take a look at web sites in relationship to this topic.
In theory you should be able to modify the .inf file to include your video card.
Once that is done, you should be able to use that driver set.
The only drawback is that the older the set the less functions it will have for your video card - again take a look at the web if you want to go that way.

Fourth, the new Nivida cards also have SLI and dual monitor functions.
Just double check your setting and make sure SLI is disabled, unless you have 2 video cards of course. Make sure you are only using the one monitor setting for this game, most new cards come equipped for dual monitors and auto setup functions.

The text problem you are having on the 2D screen could be caused by many problems, lets see if it happens with a clean install. Make sure your opening screen shows at the bottom:
V1.87 (unofficial) Navel Warfare Simulations FSP V 10.43 - something like that.
Maybe the guys here at NWS have seen this problem before and can help us.

Talk to you soon

John

[AlmightyTallest]

Hi John,

The link actually had a nice list of both XP and Vista 32 and 64 bit versions of the 177.79 drivers. I guess you could Google Guru3D and find them there if anyone wanted to try them for themselves.

So far, I've had no graphic problems at all since I got the Windows 32bit 177.79 driver. Although I have had the game crash in 3D mode with Vanilla version 1.1, and with the FSP 10.43.

I have completely uninstalled Fighting Steel, and then Reinstalled it, but the CD I have only has version 1.1 already, it doesn't give me an option to install version 1.0 of the game (It's the newer Revival version of the game) After installing, the Title screen shows it's version 1.1. So then I install the FSP 10.43. And after rebooting, it does say that it's version 1.87 unofficial version 10.43 FSP on the game title screen.

I also went into the .ini and turned off the AGP calls and set them to PCI for the game.

I double checked the NVidia settings and I have mine on single display mode.

I tried a campaign and again in 3d mode it simply chunked up, the text for the contacts above each ship multiplied and my game locked up, though the sounds always continue to play, it's not a looping sound either, the game's running and things are happening, but the graphics in the 3D setting just aren't updating after the text problem.

I also have this very same crash in default windows XP running the game, and when I try to run the game in Windows 98 compatibility mode.

Please let me know if you guys have any more ideas, I'm so close!! :) And I really appreciate the help.