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Any Ideas for Trick Ball?

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Started 2 weeks ago by Dragonlair
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Dragonlair

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A friend of mine downloaded and installed Trick Ball yesterday but can't run it. She's running Vista32 Home Premium SP2. The error message she is getting is: "Hardware failed to switch to the specified mode"

I gave her the link to the DirectX (she's got at least 10 because she's got Vista). I also gave her the OpenGl link. She's not the most adept at new situations but can work with instructions.

Any more ideas what she can do to get past this error message? It comes up as soon as she clicks on the shortcut. She's not even getting the "loading" messages.

Diane

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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I'll see if can come up with some fixes, but not today. I'm wiped out after staying up all night to fiish the game giveaway review. I can hardly think straight at the moment.

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Dragonlair

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A little more info - A download of OpenGL should not be needed. Looking at the install folder, it appears that what is needed is there.

I don't know what driver level she has - getting information from a chat-like environment is NOT easy. I do know her display adapter from Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Display Adapter gives "Intel (R) 82945G Express Chipset Family".

For now, she's just sitting on it. It's not hurting anything - just not playable (I'm experienced with that situation - evil smilie here).

On the plus side - she was able to download, install and can execute Crystal Cave Classic - despite the "?" all over the place!

Diane

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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I should be in bed, but just can't stay away, lol. Yeah, those ??? were a surprise. Oddly I also got them when I treid to install yesterdays giveaway (Lazesoft Recover my password).

The problem your friend is experiencing could arise from an unsupported video card. Not all cards support OpenGL, thouugmost newer cards do. It also depends upon her video and System RAM (though the video RAM is the more important here. The graphics aren't ground breaking, the game is definitely a few years old, but it would still require a reasonable graphics card. do you know the specs of your friends computer, how old it is and whether or not it uses an onbord video chip ( a chip integrated into the motherboard) or a video card?. It could also be the video cards driver thats causing the problem. Tell her/hito check what card/chip she has (usually NVidia or ATI) then go to the appropriate site (just Google the name of NVidia or ATI to get to the home page. Drivers are usually linked to from the front page) If they alredy have the latest video drivers roll back to the previous driver. (the latest drivers are sometimes only in the beta phase and can often be the problem). Finally, have they tried running the game in windowed mode?

Regards

W.R.

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Dragonlair

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Her computer is just under 2 years old. It came pre-installed with Vista Home Premium so it's got to have at least 1 GB RAM. She says it's a 2 GHZ processor and 2 GB RAM.

Her information under Device Drivers gave the Intel information. Like me, she has Windows Update check and notify her for updates. She doesn't let it update without the OK. However, it also updates her hardware drivers along with Windows and other Microsoft apps. I know she has received updates for RealTek (we have the same sound driver). If the game is several years old, it would make sense that the LATEST driver should not be needed.

She can't run in windowed mode because she can't get far enough into the game to set it to windowed mode! Is there a way to switch from Fullscreen to Windowed and OpenGL to DirectX without opening the game? That's seem to be what we need to try.

I just found the console.log. I'm asking her to send hers to me by email.

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Dragonlair

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I think I may have found a way around her problem. I found the prefs.cs in Common\client. I compared OpenGL and DirectX setting from my machine and sent her the changes she needs to make to switch to DirectX. She's not getting far enough into the game without this trick to change the option directly.

I hope it works. We'll know later. It's late for both of us and we're going to bed!

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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fingers crossed :)

Did you find out what graphics card she has? If it's an onboard graphics card from two years ago its likely to be a 64Mb RAM chip or even less. Which could also be the problem. Unfortunately the specs don't include Graphic RAM, unless the quoted 128Mb system RAM is actually a mistake and is Graphics RAM???

I just hope the window fix you've found works. :)

Regards

Stephen

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Dragonlair

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It may be onboard graphics. All she can get is Intel GMA Driver looking in Control Panel and the other information said "Chipset". Neither of us is hardware oriented enough to pursue that path very far.

I don't think it's a problem with the amount of graphics ram because it's failing trying to change modes.

Looking closer at the console log, this may not work either. This message was found twice in succession:

Activating the OpenGL display device...
Activating the OpenGL display device...
Setting screen mode to 800x600x16 (fs)...
Changing the display settings to 800x600x16...
OpenGLDevice::setScreenMode - ChangeDisplaySettings failed.

Then it shut down OpenGL and tried to open D3D with the same 800X600X16 and that also failed. Among the changes I'm having her make, that 16 should become a 32 and maybe that will work. If not, I'll have her try a higher resolution (1024X768). I'm not sure which command in prefs.cs is the windowed/fullscreen setting. I'll have to figure that one out!

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Dragonlair

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It worked! I learned something -- if the person you are helping has NO experience editing code, have them email the file to you so you can fix it and send it back by email. That's what I finally did after the file type was changed from .cs to .rtf! It will save hours of time and trouble!

It also turned out that there were two places that the editing had to be done. There are two (identical - at least after the first time through) copies of prefs.cs for Trick Ball. I fixed one and had her download it to the first place and copy it to the other. The two places were Trick Ball\Common\client and Trick Ball\game\client.

At least she can now play the game. If anybody needs to know what changes need to be made in the files if they can't run OpenGl, post and I will post the corrections (I assume you know how to edit a .cs file). I used Notepad!

Posted 2 weeks ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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Nice on Dragonlair. Glad it got sorted.

I'm starting to compile a FAQ's document to include everything game orientated. virtually every week I end up repeating myself answering specific questions, so though it would be a good idea to compile this help document; (which when finished will be posted here). Then all I'll need to do is post a link to it rather than have to repeat myself countless times. :) It's Probably going to take a while though as I've got lots on at the moment. I'm just collecting together thoughts on what to include at the moment. It would be cool if you did post the info here as I may be able to use it as an example . (It will be referenced to you).

W.R.

Posted 1 week ago #
Dragonlair

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Ok, I worked so hard on this, it would be a same NOT to share it with others. :)

In the prefs.cs file, you need to work on the bottom section (All commands start with "$pref::Video::") I am not listing all the commands in the section, just the ones that need to be changed. The following are the variables and the correct values. Comments to the right in parentheses are NOT part of the command - those are just my comments.

displayDevice = "D3D"; (as opposed to OpenGL)
fullScreen = "0"; (windowed mode)
profiledRenderer = "Direct3D"; (result of D3D above)
profiledVendor = "Microsoft Corp."; (I have no idea why this is needed)
resolution = "800 600 32"; (*optional* high resolution - you could leave this at 16)

The last one and a windowed resolution lower in the file setting may be changed in the Options once you can get that far!

Note that changes must be made to both prefs.cs files. It is best to change one and then copy it to the other location. It's a good idea to make a copy or rename the original prefs.cs file before you start playing with it!

Locations of Prefs.cs are as I listed above Trick Ball\common\client and Trick Ball\game\client.

One other note - my friend had to make a new shortcut. The one provided during installation still failed after all these changes. However, as soon as she created her own shortcut from the T2D.exe file, everything worked fine!

On a side note - I have noted that NOTHING is remembered from session to session and you can pick and choose from any of the levels you want. None seem to be locked. If anybody has a way to keep your "top scores" remembered to the next session, please let me know!

Posted 1 week ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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Thanks :)

Posted 1 week ago #
Whiterabbit-uk

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Thanks :)

Posted 1 week ago #
Dragonlair

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I just noticed something. There is no way to change that 800 600 from the options. I played with it a bit and it doesn't seem to want to change much, regardless of what you give it (it changes your settings either somewhat or entirely). You can set the "windowedres" higher but it doesn't seem to make much difference in a windowed mode anyway so it's probably best to leave those two commands alone.

Posted 1 week ago #

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