Simviation Forums

Please help.

I just bought a new Gateway computer with a GEforce4 ti4200 graphics card, and the game is having all sorts of problems.

Okay, just in case others have the same problem, I downloaded the latest Nvidia drivers and that seems to have stopped the horizontal bar problem and the other weirdness to a certain extent.  I still can't use the 1280x1024 resolution, since the problems come back when I do that, although less than before.

If anyone has any more ideas so that I can get this thing running well at the full resolution, please let me know.

I don't have FS2002, but I had similar problems with CFS2 on a new WinXP system.

CFS2 pre-dates WinXP.  The WinXP Program Compatiblity Wizard seems to have fixed it for me.

This is what I did for CFS2:
In Windows XP/Start/Help & Support

 Fixing a problem
  Games sound & video problems
    Getting older programs to run on Windows XP
 Program Compatibility Wizard

Select Combat Flight Simulator 2 and it does the rest for you.  

Try it on FS2002 and let us know if it helps

Yeah, I tried the compatibility wizard yesterday, but it only gives 3 options to choose that I guess it thinks might be the cause.  Unfortunately none of them seem to make any difference.

There is one thing that will take you forever to work out if it's the problem and you don't know about it.

This is a long shot but a possibility, well worth trying to safe you some grief if it's the prob.

Try moving your PCI addon cards away from the end PCI slots (leave slot 4 or 5 empty if you have a five PCI slot motherboard)  on your motherboard.

I don't know why this is, but sometimes the arrangement of cards in PCI slots can cause havoc in my experience.

Also, you could try reinstalling direct X, sometimes files will corrupt. with Direct X , if it asks for a reboot, then it has found missing or corrupt files.

After that, reinstall your motherboard AGP driver and check the BIOS setting for 4X AGP.  Also set the graphics window or aperature to half your system ram. And lastly in BIOS, check the Primary VGA Card setting is for AGP Graphics Card.

As for Nvidia Drivers, go through the advanced options and tweak if you havent already, there are guides on how to do this, try www.guru3d.com for help.

good luck  

Thanks for the info.  It'll be good to know if I run into further problems.

Just for anyone's info if they encounter the same problem, I just now figured out what the problem probably was.  There 's a setting box in the control panel\display\settings\advanced\troubleshoot dialog called 'enable write combining'.  This speeds up the display of information to the screen, but it can (apparently) cause screen corruption.  It is checked by default.  I unchecked it and hey presto - no more weirdness.  Unfortunately the loss of speed after unchecking this box means that I get slight flickering of framerate in built-up areas like Chicago at 1280x1024 with all display options at maximum, but hey, I guess you can't have everything.