Fix for graphics issues on XP with Nvidia card?

[ericmj]

I am experiencing similar graphics issues as others have with an Nvidia card, but I'm running XP SP3. I have an older Core2 1.86GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and a Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT video card. My drivers are the latest as of a couple of weeks ago. My DirectX is v9.0c

When I run FMS (using the .bat file along with the registry fix), it runs, but I get all sorts of weird graphical tearing, screenshot is attached. It's semi-playable, but not very enjoyable. Looks a lot like what others have experience on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines.



I've read thru the majority of the posts here, and searched for 'nvidia xp' and didn't find any mention of a fix for this sort of error on XP machines. Has anyone been successful in fixing this? For the moment, I'm playing around with R/C Desk Pilot which seems okay.

Has anyone tried turning off some of the DirectX features such as DirectDraw, Direct3DAcceleration, etc.? Can't think that would help performance, but who knows.

Thanks,
Eric

[ggunners]

Have you tried different scenery and model files? Are you running alpha 8.5 or beta 7? Windowed or not. -- ggunners

[ericmj]

Sorry, left out some details, shouldn't post just before falling asleep...

Running alpha 8.5, though I saw similar issues with beta 7 which I tried before I figured out how to get 8.5 to run w/o a serial port. I have tried both windowed as well as selecting a screen resolution, have not tried all the resolution settings though. Tried turning all the various graphics options on/off. I have tried different landscapes and models, from within the basic program, but have not installed or tried any add-on files.

Thanks,
Eric

[ggunners]

First thing I would do is to uninstall FMS, then download it again just to be sure the file was not corrupt and reinstall FMS. I have had my version get a little whacky like yours after setting some zoom and auto-zoom settings and then using the numeric keypad to pan and zoom. The only fix is to edit the registry or reinstall. Also, although you can run both beta 7 and alpha 8 on the same computer, they share Windows registry entries that may cause conflicts. -- ggunners

[ericmj]

I have tried uninstalling, re-downloading, and re-installing, with no change. Are there other registry fixes besides the port fix? I'm tempted to try it on my work laptop, but that is sub-optimal for many reasons.

[ericmj]

Well, I just installed it on the computer that my kids use, which has an ATI Radeon chip built into it's motherboard (also running XP) and it works just fine there. So I suspect that it is purely an issue with my Nvidia card. I will try playing around with some various settings in the graphics card options, and see if anything helps. If anyone else has ideas of things to try, let me know please.

Thanks,
Eric

[ericmj]

Tried the method that has worked for folks with Vista/Win7. I installed the Application Compatability Toolkit and made a "fix" for FMS 8.5. Since I'm running XP SP3, I don't have quite all the same options, but close. With the following fixes applied:

ForceDirectDrawEmulation
ForceDXSetupSuccess

FMS runs and the graphics look okay, kinda blocky, but no weird vectors and such, but it runs slow, FPS ~20-some when the program is windowed, and <10 FPS if full-screen. Without the application fix (ie. "crappy-graphics mode"), it runs with FPS > 40.

I guess it's playable in windowed mode, but not as fun. Will keep tweaking and such...

Eric

[ggunners]

One thing I would like you to test is to load the .mqo file in Metasequoia and then save it as a DirectX file on your computer.

This has fixed a couple of models that had the odd vector issue on my XP machine.

Don't know why this worked, but it did on a couple of rare instances.

-- ggunners