Mission editor corrupt

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

What resolution are you running the game at and what resolution is your pooter screen set at?

1400x1050, with the Res Fix. That's the most I can get without stretching things out since I don't have a widescreen GUI.

The monitor's native res is 1680x1050 (16:10 I think). Before switching OSes and getting all the new drivers for that, I could just tell the graphics card not to rescale and it ran fine at that res in 4:3, but with the new drivers I've been using another little app to force the desktop res to change only when the game's .exe is running - this allows the options for 'no rescale' with the graphics drivers.

That tweak is the only difference from what I had before. Then all I had to do was disable the d3d9.dll temporarily and ME worked fine. And I had no trouble with screenshots either.

Of course it's not the ONLY difference since I have a buttload of additional mods now.

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, even game installations that don't have the res fix installed give me the same problem with ME - so it's not *just* the res fix. Probably a big 'ol tossed salad of different things that I'll have to sort through one by one.

[Jimbuna]

Have you tried 1680 x 1050 without the res fix?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Have you tried 1680 x 1050 without the res fix?

I've never altered the native res without the res fix, what file do I edit to do that?

The thing is, though, I don't want to run in full WS without a WS GUI because I really, really, really don't like the way things get stretched out in the 2D screens, particularly the circular dials/compass/etc.

And I suspect it may be the tweak I'm using to force the 4:3 aspect ratio that is the problem, because that's the only difference in the new setup. If I take that out and the problem goes away, then I'm gonna have to figure something else out, probably go with WS display whether I like it or not, because I'm pretty sure I tried everything else to maintain the 4:3 ratio and that was the only thing that worked.

At this point I will probably just create a new game installation and start experimenting with resolution stuff there, maybe look at some of the widescreen stuff that's available. Problem is I don't think any of it was done for a 16:10 display so that may open up another can o' worms to sort out.

[Jimbuna]

You copuld try a quick 20 second test to help in the elimination process by right clicking on your desktop then selecting 'Screen resolution' and trying different settings...it is easily reversible by turning the settings back to what you had originally.

My suspicions are there is a corrupt or missing dll file involved though.

As you know, my PM system is fubard atm so why not PM fubar2niner (just coincidence LOL) and ask him what he has his settings at on his W7 64 bit system?

[frau kaleun]

Well now this is really weird.

I have tried several different things. I turned off GPU scaling in CCC. I reset the res in d3d9.cfg to 1680 x 1050. I changed the res in Main.cfg to the same. I set my monitors (actually a monitor and HDTV) to duplicate desktops rather than extended. I uninstalled the Res Fix. I reinstalled the Res Fix. I changed all the other settings noted above back and forth several times. I removed the "tweak" that forced the desktop to drop to 1400x1050 when SH3.exe is running. I've tried both ME and MEX2. I've tried them both with the Res Fix's d3d9.dll temporarily renamed. I've tried various combinations of the above in four different game installations.

A couple of times I got the ME to open a campaign file and display the map properly, but whatever the set up I had when that happened, I was unable to duplicate the success in a different game install or even in the same game install the next time I tried to open ME there.

Now sometimes I just get the black window with no map again, and sometimes ME crashes and problem details show the faulty module as Simdata.dll... but I might have been trying to open a campaign file from a GWX install with the ME in my Stock game folder, I don't know. I was pretty confused by that point.

I don't know, I'm starting to think it would just be easier to do a complete reinstall and start from scratch.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Well now this is really weird.

I have tried several different things. I turned off GPU scaling in CCC. I reset the res in d3d9.cfg to 1680 x 1050. I changed the res in Main.cfg to the same. I set my monitors (actually a monitor and HDTV) to duplicate desktops rather than extended. I uninstalled the Res Fix. I reinstalled the Res Fix. I changed all the other settings noted above back and forth several times. I removed the "tweak" that forced the desktop to drop to 1400x1050 when SH3.exe is running. I've tried both ME and MEX2. I've tried them both with the Res Fix's d3d9.dll temporarily renamed. I've tried various combinations of the above in four different game installations.

A couple of times I got the ME to open a campaign file and display the map properly, but whatever the set up I had when that happened, I was unable to duplicate the success in a different game install or even in the same game install the next time I tried to open ME there.

Now sometimes I just get the black window with no map again, and sometimes ME crashes and problem details show the faulty module as Simdata.dll... but I might have been trying to open a campaign file from a GWX install with the ME in my Stock game folder, I don't know. I was pretty confused by that point.

I don't know, I'm starting to think it would just be easier to do a complete reinstall and start from scratch.

Well you may as well be the first to know.......I've been pottering around trying to figure out what could be causing your problem and I've gone and lost the bugga mesel

Multiple reinstallation of ME versions one and two have failed to correct the fault

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Well you may as well be the first to know.......I've been pottering around trying to figure out what could be causing your problem and I've gone and lost the bugga mesel

Multiple reinstallation of ME versions one and two have failed to correct the fault

WE'RE DOOMED!!!

I could swear that after it worked okay in one game folder (the one I test stuff with), I went into my main game folder and made sure everything matched up exactly, didn't change anything with the monitor or GPU or desktop res, and... IT DIDN'T WORK. So I went back to the game folder where it had just worked two minutes before and tried it there again and then it didn't work there either. I'm completely baffled. I even rebooted to clear up as much RAM as possible in case it was a memory issue and that didn't work either... and I think you've got 8 gigs which is 2 more than me, so it's probably not memory anyway.

[frau kaleun]

You know what else is weird?

I went in and started trying to play with different settings for the display again, and now when I choose to extend my desktop across the monitor and the HDTV - which gave me NO problems before - I get all kinds of weird flickering on the monitor (but not the tv screen) when I'm moving stuff around, including the mouse cursor.

If I choose to duplicate the displays I get the weird flickering on the tv screen but not the monitor. I know they have different native resolutions but I could swear I used both setups before with no problems because I've had extended desktop where I watched a DVD that was in the computer's DVD drive on the tv screen while having other stuff up on the computer monitor.

I feel like there's some setting in CCC for the GPU that I'm missing or getting wrong but I keep trying different things and nothing works.

[privateer]

Did you update the OS lately with automatic updates?
I shut that off because of weird problems with MicroSoft screwing with my Stuff.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by privateer

Did you update the OS lately with automatic updates?
I shut that off because of weird problems with MicroSoft screwing with my Stuff.

Well, I have automatic updates turned on and once things have been downloaded they install at the next shutdown. I so rarely have any problems stemming from that, that I've never really worried about it.

I was having trouble with ME before the last few updates installed - honestly can't remember when I last tried to use it, but it was before Jim posted in here about the newer version of it because I had to keep reminding myself to go download it.

This business with the two displays not wanting to play nice together is something new, though, so I have to wonder what changed. I was in there messing around with all the settings for the past couple of days and today's the first time I get this weird flickering in the displays depending on how I have them configured.

Hmm... just checked for graphics driver updates and something was released on Wednesday. But I didn't think Windows would update that automatically.

I dunno, maybe I should get the newest drivers and give that a try.

[frau kaleun]

Well, what I ended up doing was downloading the newest drivers... then I had second thoughts and went back and downloaded the Win7 64-bit version of the last version of the 9.* Catalyst Control Center suite of drivers/apps etc. Judging by the date it would have been CCC 9.* that I had on my system with XP 32-bit, and I had ME working fine with no problems then, with the Res Fix installed. As long as I renamed the d3d9.dll file while using it, everything displayed perfectly.

So I uninstalled all the CCC stuff from ATI and then uninstalled the gfx card itself in Device Manager, including whatever drivers might still be there. Then rebooted and let Windows find the card and install the default drivers for it, and then installed the older version of CCC and whatever came with it.

Now I have my extended displays back with my monitor as 1 and TV as 2 and ME works fine in the game installs without Res Fix, and fine in the ones with it as long as I run it using that little .bat file described above to rename d3d9.dll for the duration.

I don't know what gfx card you have, Jimbuna, but if it's ATI with CCC, you might consider reverting to an older version of that and the drivers and see what happens.

The next test will be to fire up the game and see what happens. I went into the onboard menu for my monitor and set the Image Size to "Auto" because a couple people with the same or similar Samsung models have said that doing that caused the game to run in 4:3 no matter what the gfx software wanted to do as far as rescaling. If it doesn't work I'll either have to try my little Display Changer tweak again or start playing around with widescreen GUIs.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I don't know what gfx card you have, Jimbuna, but if it's ATI with CCC, you might consider reverting to an older version of that and the drivers and see what happens.

My card is an ATI HD5750...I'll have a ganders at the drivers.

Pleased your sorted

[privateer]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Now I have my extended displays back with my monitor as 1 and TV as 2 and ME works fine in the game installs without Res Fix, and fine in the ones with it as long as I run it using that little .bat file described above to rename d3d9.dll for the duration.

SEE! I'm not as dumb as I look.

Umm....

That didn't come out right.

[frau kaleun]

It's funny, it didn't look as though the existing stuff had been updated to the newest version... but who knows. Maybe something basic got updated that didn't go with the full "suite" of CCC software. At any rate, I was having no trouble with the older drivers I had on here so whatever works.

[Jimbuna]

What ATI card are you using and do you have a link to the CCC software?