Jump to content
XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Xp Graphic Bug


Guest Storm

Recommended Posts

Guest Storm

The game seems to run under windows XP however, the graphics / colors are all messed up. I am running in Win 95 compatible mode and 256 colors selected but it looks like the color tablet is all messed up.

 

Any ideas on how I can fix this.

 

I have the original CD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
The game seems to run under windows XP however, the graphics / colors are all messed up. I am running in Win 95 compatible mode and 256 colors selected but it looks like the color tablet is all messed up.

 

Any ideas on how I can fix this.

 

I have the original CD.

 

I'm having the same problem. Anyone?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Hi All, I have signed up for this forum and bumped this post because I'm hoping someone has ever found a solution for this problem.

 

I have spent hours and hours trying to get XCOMAPOC to work for me on my XP box. Everything imaginable, from several DOSBOX

versions, VDMSOUND, etc.

 

In the end, I couldn't get it to play well enough in DOSBOX. It's way too slow (my processory is probably too slow, P4 2.53). I

could deal with it like that, but it will lock up all the time as well. Like, every couple of minutes at most. There are certain places where

it will *always* lock as well, like turning music off, or pressing "abandon and restart game". It'll lock and the music will loop and the

cursor is frozen. You have to alt tab out and forcibly close DOSBOX to resume. It's completely laggy, slow, jumpy and locks up.

I can't deal with it, and I have tried everything (I have been working on this for a week and reading dozens of forums and faqs).

 

I can get it to load and run perfectly in XP with just using VDMSound however! Except for one thing!

 

The graphics palette is completely corrupted, as described above. There was another message on the front page where someone

else had the problem, and he said he fixed it by swtiching to DOSBOX. That is not proving to be successful for me. And even if I

got it working as best I could, it would still be a slow, jumpy experience compared to how wonderfully it actually runs natively with

VDMSound.

 

I can see that running it with VDMSound will be far, far preferable. IT runs like a champ. I have played a bit with the corrupted graphics

palette and it runs awesome, sounds great, and generally would be fantastic. But I cannot play with the graphics all screwed up.

 

It seems clear to me this is a palette issue of some kind, that I would think would be relatively easy to fix for someone who has

the know how. Basically, I think that on newer video cards, palette info is stored differently, or in a different location.. I would think that

a simple patch to the game (like the SVGA patches) to point to the proper palette info.. or perhaps taking the known, correct palette info

and forcibly overwriting the data where it *is* reading the palette info from.

 

I hear this is a new problem that has come up with newer video cards. I have a Radeon X1950 for what it's worth.

 

Please, if anyone out there can help.. I'm desperately wanting to play this game again. I have spent too many hours messing with DOSBOX

and this stuff to give up now. I have to stress that I can see it will run perfectly flawlessly wtih VDMSound.. but this palette corruption is

going to ruin that. Does anyone have any ideas? Can anyone with technical skills try to help with this problem? I think this is going to

end up being an issue for more and more people in the future..Sooner or later I suspect some technical wizard out there will figure it out

and fix it.

 

please, please someone help! I beg of thee! It's so close to working.. I just need to figure out how to fix this graphics problem. If anyone

can help, I'll be forever in your debt, as will be (no doubt) many other people!

 

I wanted to include a screen shot, but it's strange, when I do an ALT-P screenshot in the game, with the corruptect graphic colors / palette,

and then quit the game, and look at the screenshot, it looks NORMAL! I wonder if that helps anyone figure out what's wrong? It looks

psychadelic in the game, but the screenshot comes out normal!

 

I tried using print screen to create a screenshot in memory to paste into paint, but that doesn't seem to work. The graphics all look normal, it's

the colors that are goofed up. It's not reading the correct palette information. And I want to stress I have tried all the "force 256 color" and

640x480 modes and all that. Nothing helps at all!!

Edited by Whiplashr
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
The game seems to run under windows XP however, the graphics / colors are all messed up. I am running in Win 95 compatible mode and 256 colors selected but it looks like the color tablet is all messed up.

 

Any ideas on how I can fix this.

 

I have the original CD.

I got it running smoothly with VDMS! Everything is ok but the graphics as mentioned.

 

I suspect that has something to do with the LCD/TFT monitors. My old monitor (15 inch standart tube) had no problems. This graphic bug appeared after I got myself a LCD monitor.

Of course I can be in a big mistake about that. Tried the SVGA fixes.... no effect.

Screenshots also are normal. Graphics - not normal!

 

Some help will really be appreciated. I just want to once again be able to play for the old times :)!

 

Oh yeah! My video card is Radeon X1650 Pro!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After doing some research I found out the case!

Indeed TFT/LCD monitors are the reason for the messy colors. They are high resolution devices but the old dos games are mainly low resolution.

If you have CRT monitor - you will not have any problems.

But since CRT monitors are going out of the picture, we'll eventually have to buy LCD monitors (I did already)

 

So here is what to do for the DOS Graphics issue (and others):

1. Install VDMS Sound drivers - if you want sound

2. Install DOSBox 0.72 - here http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

3. Install DOS Shell v1.4 by Loonies Software - - here http://www.loonies.narod.ru/dosshell.htm

REALY easy to use and takes care of you having to setup DOS Box manually.

4. open the dosbox.conf with notepad and edit it to your needs(graphics, cpu, frameskip etc.) But be careful because you can mess it up (I did 3-4 times and my PC crashed too :D).

Make a copy just in case.

 

Here is my setup and works not only for X-Com but for all other games I put in DOS Shell:

You can just copy my setup :).

 

# This is the configurationfile for DOSBox 0.72.

# Lines starting with a # are commentlines.

# They are used to (briefly) document the effect of each option.

 

[sdl]

# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.

# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.

# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).

# windowresolution -- Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.

# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.

# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.

# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.

# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.

# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lowest,lower,normal,higher,highest,pause (when not focussed).

# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.

# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

# usescancodes -- Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.

 

fullscreen=true

fulldouble=false

fullresolution=original

windowresolution=original

output=overlay

autolock=true

sensitivity=100

waitonerror=true

priority=higher,normal

mapperfile=mapper.txt

usescancodes=true

 

[dosbox]

# language -- Select another language file.

# memsize -- Amount of memory DOSBox has in megabytes.

# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,pcjr,vga.

# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.

 

language=

machine=vga

captures=capture

memsize=16

 

[render]

# frameskip -- How many frames DOSBox skips before drawing one.

# aspect -- Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down!.

# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.

# Supported are none,normal2x,normal3x,advmame2x,advmame3x,hq2x,hq3x,

# 2xsai,super2xsai,supereagle,advinterp2x,advinterp3x,

# tv2x,tv3x,rgb2x,rgb3x,scan2x,scan3x.

# If forced is appended (like scaler=hq2x forced), the scaler will be used

# even if the result might not be desired.

 

frameskip=0

aspect=false

scaler=none

 

[cpu]

# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,simple,dynamic,auto.

# auto switches from normal to dynamic if appropriate.

# cycles -- Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.

# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.

# You can also let DOSBox guess the correct value by setting it to max.

# The default setting (auto) switches to max if appropriate.

# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.

# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

 

core=auto

cycles=auto

cycleup=500

cycledown=20

 

[mixer]

# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.

# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will

# probably lower their sound quality.

# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering

# but sound will also be more lagged.

# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

 

nosound=false

rate=22050

blocksize=2048

prebuffer=10

 

[midi]

# mpu401 -- Type of MPU-401 to emulate: none, uart or intelligent.

# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.

# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.

# config -- Special configuration options for the device. In Windows put

# the id of the device you want to use. See README for details.

 

mpu401=intelligent

device=default

config=

 

[sblaster]

# sbtype -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.

# sbbase,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.

# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the DOSBox mixer.

# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.

# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.

# All OPL modes are 'Adlib', except for CMS.

# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

 

sbtype=sb16

sbbase=220

irq=7

dma=1

hdma=5

mixer=true

oplmode=auto

oplrate=22050

 

[gus]

# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.

# gusbase,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the

# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)

# gusrate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.

# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory

# there should be a MIDI directory that contains

# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used

# with Timidity should work fine.

 

gus=true

gusrate=22050

gusbase=240

irq1=5

irq2=5

dma1=3

dma2=3

ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

 

[speaker]

# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.

# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.

# tandy -- Enable Tandy Sound System emulation (off,on,auto).

# For auto Tandysound emulation is present only if machine is set to tandy.

# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.

# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation. Covox Voice Master and Speech Thing compatible.

 

pcspeaker=true

pcrate=22050

tandy=auto

tandyrate=22050

disney=true

 

[joystick]

# joysticktype -- Type of joystick to emulate: auto (default), none,

# 2axis (supports two joysticks,

# 4axis (supports one joystick, first joystick used),

# 4axis_2 (supports one joystick, second joystick used),

# fcs (Thrustmaster), ch (CH Flightstick).

# none disables joystick emulation.

# auto chooses emulation depending on real joystick(s).

# timed -- enable timed intervals for axis. (false is old style behaviour).

# autofire -- continuously fires as long as you keep the button pressed.

# swap34 -- swap the 3rd and the 4th axis. can be useful for certain joysticks.

# buttonwrap -- enable button wrapping at the number of emulated buttons.

 

joysticktype=auto

timed=true

autofire=false

swap34=false

buttonwrap=true

 

[serial]

# serial1-4 -- set type of device connected to com port.

# Can be disabled, dummy, modem, nullmodem, directserial.

# Additional parameters must be in the same line in the form of

# parameter:value. Parameter for all types is irq.

# for directserial: realport (required), rxdelay (optional).

# for modem: listenport (optional).

# for nullmodem: server, rxdelay, txdelay, telnet, usedtr,

# transparent, port, inhsocket (all optional).

# Example: serial1=modem listenport:5000

 

serial1=dummy

serial2=dummy

serial3=disabled

serial4=disabled

 

[dos]

# xms -- Enable XMS support.

# ems -- Enable EMS support.

# umb -- Enable UMB support.

# keyboardlayout -- Language code of the keyboard layout (or none).

 

xms=true

ems=true

umb=true

keyboardlayout=none

 

[ipx]

# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.

 

ipx=false

 

[autoexec]

# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

 

 

After you setup DOS Shell and the dosbox.conf - add your games in DOS Shell and then double click to run them at any time :)

Sorry for the long post but I hope this helps!

 

I'm off to wiping the aliens one more time (or several :)), racing in Death Rally and "nuking" in Duke 3D. They all work :)!

Edited by BEAR_Ilko
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I got the game working with the crap colours too.

 

But in dosbox it just doesn't start. I have no idea why but it shows as if it's starting but just stays in the console. Guess it's time to dig the old CRT from the garage :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...