MoO3 and my LCD!

[thedraka]

Hello to all the Apolyton brothers and sisters.

long time reader 1st time poster.

Just like the rest of the MoO3 maniacs i rushed rite out and grabbed me MoO3 the 1st chance i got, rushed home and to my UTTER HORROR discovered that (GASP) MoO3 will not work on my 17" Flat Screen LCD?!

Has anybodyelse run into this problem or am i unique in this dillema?

[thedraka]

i guess i should add that at my work we have a 15" Flat Screen LCD different brand different video different everything!

except tyhe result is the same!

the SWINE!

[Kinjiru]

Guess that means no laptop play which would be horrid...

[tore45]

I have 17" LCD - it works without a hitch.

Are you sure there isn't something else wrong? There must be.....

[Alex]

Why did you post this in the Civ3-Help forum?

[wyldrose]

>>Guess that means no laptop play which would be horrid...<<

It runs on my Toshiba laptop (though the 800x600 size means I get a pathetic veiwable area). It does give me a Direct X error if I try to alt-tab, but I don't know if that's specific to LCD.

[Kc7mxo]

thedraka,

the problem is probably that your lcd's minimal resolution is 1024, and the game runs in 800 by 600. A friend of mine ran into this EXACT same problem with d2 when trying to play it on his laptop. The resolution simply prevented it from running because the lcd refused to go that low.

And thats one of the big problems with LCD monitors. Whereas a crt can ussually go below its prefered resolution without a hitch, a lot of LCDs are physically unable to do so. LCDs also have a significantly lower color gamut, which is why a lot of colors will look kinda of faded / washed out on an lcd.

On the other hand, LCDs are typically much brighter, and they take up a lot less space.

If you want to play moo3, go find a CRT and hook it up to your laptop's monitor out.

[Epistax]

I have a 15" 1600x1200X32 LCD (laptop). It runs great.

[wyldrose]

>>the problem is probably that your lcd's minimal resolution is 1024, and the game runs in 800 by 600. A friend of mine ran into this EXACT same problem with d2 when trying to play it on his laptop. The resolution simply prevented it from running because the lcd refused to go that low. <<

My 1024x768 LCD just puts a big black border around the 800x600 playing area, so that can't be the only issue.

[ender382]

my lcd on my laptop has a native resolution of 1400x1050 . I can use screen streching but it doesnt look very well

[thedraka]

Well im glad to hear that at least some of the MoOManiacs out there have no trouble with their LCD's.

Guess it's just the lord punishing me for getting an off brand of an off brand of an off brand!

but fear not! i have already gone out and fixed the problem by getting me an honest to god good old fashoned CRT!

gaul dern new fangled contraptions!

either that or someone in Tiwan is laughing there butt off rite about now.

the SWINE!

[canamrock]

When in doubt, update the monitor drivers.

BTW, what kinds of monitors are having the problems?

[petemajor]

Well, although my display functions ok when I run the game, if I ALT-TAB back into windows (like to read the manual or something) and then ALT-TAB back in MOO, the display goes completely haywire... lots of lines and stuff. If I move around the display it eventually rights itself as blocks on the screen are refreshed.

A couple of times I even got an error message about "DirectX surface is unavailable". Now, I've just installed DirectX 9.0 so I know DX installation is ok, and I'm using an ATI Radeon 9000 card which is specifically designed for DX8+ so I don't it's an incompatability issue either...

Add to the fact the display of the game is fixed at 800x600 and I've got to say I'm not overly impressed with the graphical side of the game so far.

Hmmmm....

[percuno]

Not just LCD-related

The problem is not just LCD-related, I get the "DirectX surface unavailable" (on a big, black screen that locks my computer up completely) on my desktop computer, which uses a crt monitor, but not on my laptop which is a Dell Inspiron 4100 with a 1400x1050x32 resolution LCD.

MoO3 works great on the laptop, which has even managed to go into hibernation due to loss of battery power, and gone right back into the game without missing a beat.

The problem is not with the hardware, it is with either MoO3 (the only program I have eve seen this happen with), or Microcrap DirectX 9.0 (which is on the desktop, but not on the laptop, as it causes the GeForce2Go in the laptop to go into an endless loop just browsing the web). Both are using the latest nVidia drivers, the laptop under XP, the desktop under 98SE.

I'll stop now before I get into a diatribe about how DirectX is a piece of garbage only slightly less scummy than Windows itself.