14 replies to this topic

[Smokey]

Please help me!!!

Lucasarts haven't been much help, but I'm sure there's a way around this. My previous HP laptop, also Windows 7 64-bit had no trouble running EAW and Foc with ALL graphics sliders at MAX. My newer HP laptop (also Win 7 64-bit) running a Core i7 with 8 GB RAM and a 2GB graphics card (With T&L and shaders etc.) can run games like AvP, Starcraft 2 and HL2: Lost Coast with FULL graphics and reflections etc.

WHY won't EAW and FoC let me increase the Water and Shader sliders manually. It would seem evident that my machine can run it very fast; but I would prefer ALL details to MAX as otherwise the game's potential is wasted. The games and machine are fully updated and patched (inc. Vista-64 patch), I've already tried Win XP compatibility mode & disabling User Access Control; but still no change.

FoC seemed hopeful when it let's you 'move' the sliders but then shifts back after clicking "Apply" or "Accept". Surely there must be someway to manually override this in the game or in a file I could use to overwrite the config etc. Please, please don't give me the stock Lucasarts answer of "Sorry the game's not tested in Win 7".... Well duh!
Just because we've got newer machines and OS's, we shouldn't be penalised for it; I love this game and want to continue enjoying it at it's FULL potential. Please help.... I have some programming experience on a low level (is there anything I can do?) :S

Attached Files

•  DxDiag.txt   44.98K   2 downloads
•  Msinfo32.txt   359.68K   0 downloads

[Strategist]

Sorry you are having this problem, though I can at least say it isn't windows 7 or an I7 that is the cause in and of themselves (my own system has both and has no problem running the graphics on high).


I'll see if I can find someone who has any ideas on how to override the interface. I'm afraid I don't really have any real experience with EaW's files so I'm not sure where everything is.

[slornie]

What graphics card do you have?  In that DXDiag it first says "Mobile Intel HD Graphics", but then later you also have drivers installed for a Radeon HD 6770M.  Does your laptop have/use an integrated graphics card? I know some games don't work too well with those, so maybe you could check which card is being used when playing games?

[Berek-PG]

Hi Smokey! There may be some incompatibility here with the Intel HD integrated graphics, which is what it looks like you are running here. An HP Pavilion right?

[Smokey]

Hi, thanks for the replies, yes it's an HP Pavillion with Intel HD Graphics but manufactured by ATI with thier chipset. Whether it's integrated or not I'm not 100% sure. But I do know it doesn't use the system memory, it has ~2GB of it's own plus 2 GPU's (One high spec and one low-power). I'm currently playing Sega's Aliens vs Predator on it at 1600x900 with all settings to max, as an example of what it can do. The laptop is an HP DV7-6107ee Pavilion. I believe my previous older laptop (another HP Pavilion) had another ATI graphics card which could run EAW & FoC at full sliders (shaders and Water included) probably it wasn't Intel at all.

From a programming perspective I openned Gamedata\config.meg with notepad and saw the automatic graphics adjustments for specific graphics cards and adjusted them all the 3 ~(MAX) but it had no effect in game; they still remained at 0 (LOW). There must be a way round this, every other game I've played never forces you to move the sliders to what 'it' suggests. You can move it yourself; and if the game runs 'pants' you just move them down manually.

PLEASE HELP!!! :S

[Smokey]

Isn't anyone able to help me? I know I'm not the only one out there with this problem. :S

[Strategist]

Sorry for the delays, Petroglyph recently launched a new game on Steam and most of their staff and the moderator team have been focused on that particular game's forums.

Smokey, on 26 September 2011 - 01:12 AM, said:

From a programming perspective I openned Gamedata\config.meg with notepad and saw the automatic graphics adjustments for specific graphics cards and adjusted them all the 3 ~(MAX) but it had no effect in game; they still remained at 0 (LOW).

I'm not sure if this will work or not, but perhaps you could add your card to the list with the modifier? You might also want to try editing and saving the file with FinalBIG (it's basicaly tool designed to edit or extract EaW files among others for modding purposes). I'm not sure if notepad actually saves the files edited within the config file.

Anyway, the staff will be back on monday. I'll ask Berek if he can find anyone with some advice.


Again, sorry for the delay.

[Smokey]

Strategist, on 02 October 2011 - 04:21 PM, said:

Sorry for the delays, Petroglyph recently launched a new game on Steam and most of their staff and the moderator team have been focused on that particular game's forums.



I'm not sure if this will work or not, but perhaps you could add your card to the list with the modifier? You might also want to try editing and saving the file with FinalBIG (it's basicaly tool designed to edit or extract EaW files among others for modding purposes). I'm not sure if notepad actually saves the files edited within the config file.

Anyway, the staff will be back on monday. I'll ask Berek if he can find anyone with some advice.


Again, sorry for the delay.

Hi, I'll give that a try and see what happens. Hopefully in the meantime if some of your colleagues come up with any advice, would be great to hear from them on this subject too.

Thanks again.

[Smokey]

Hi, that program can't find a BIG file in the folder. It seems to want to only edit C&C files not EAW. Can anyone please help me with this issue? It can't be that complicated surely :S

[Strategist]

Oops, I guess I linked the wrong version...


Try this version, it should have EaW compatability: http://wagnerma.de/y...ad.php?detail=1

[Smokey]

Hi, thanks for that. I've managed to open config.meg and edit the XML file GRAPHICDETAILS. After I adjusted all the default Shader and Water settings to 3, I copied the file to the main FoC dir. The game ran fine, however in the Video in-game menu after clicking Auto detect it did actually set the two sliders to MAX. The problem is after clicking Apply or Accept it sets them back to MIN. What do I need to edit/adjust with the editor, to prevent Apply or Accept from resetting the water and shader sliders back to zero. It's annoying because I'm almost there, I got the auto detect function to work, but it won't keep it there.... Any ideas? :S

[Potato-PG]

For some reason, EaW has detected that the driver can't support the higher shader and water detail levels. Whether that is true or not, it may be impossible to convince the game otherwise. The only other thing I could suggest would be to set those values directly in the registry and try running the game. Even if it works, it's not an idea solution as any time you make a subsequent change in the video settings dialog (resolution for example) the settings in the registry will likely be stomped. If you are comfortable editing the registry, and you want to try it, then these are the values you would need to change:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Petroglyph\StarWars\Profiles\Profile0\Player]
"ShaderDetail"=dword:3
"WaterDetail"=dword:2

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Petroglyph\StarWars FOC\Profiles\Profile0\Player]
"ShaderDetail"=dword:3
"WaterDetail"=dword:2

It's possible that this won't work at all, or make the game inoperable until you revert it, so use at your own risk!

[Smokey]

Thanks for that. It seems to work except of course if I alter any of the in-game Video settings, then I have to run regedit again; but still it works.... Now for my next problem.

The graphics look great now (with full shading and water detail) and the game runs fast, but in EAW & FoC in Land Battles ONLY, when you scroll fully out to the bird's eye view overviewing the entrie map. There are lots of little black squares dotted around the map at random places on the landscape, where some of the texture's missing. As soon as you zoom back in to the normal isometric views, the graphics are fine... It's just in the fully zoomed out top-down mode and only in land battles.... strange :s HELP!!!

[Smokey]

^^ Isn't anyone going to help me with the above graphics issue in Land Combat; it's been over a month :S ^^

"Get out of your canoes and help me please "

[slornie]

Sorry, i thought someone else had replied.

As far as i know there isn't a fix for that, i think someone said its to do with newer graphics drivers or something.  It affects lots of people (me included), and seems to just black out things like ground cover props (grass, rocks, etc).  I guess the answer is really just to ignore it since it only affects the zoomed out view which doesn't tend to get much use (from personal experience anyhow).

Edited by slornie, 04 December 2011 - 08:15 AM.