We bought our son Atari’s new “Axis and Allies” game for the PC. When he loaded it, the install program informed him he needed DirectX 9.0; we had DirectX 8.1 loaded, and the program graciously offered to upgrade to 9.0.
Even after the upgrade, whent he game starts all he gets are geometric shapes in various shades of gray on the screen while the background music plays. It sure looks like the graphics are screwed up.
Checking in control panel, it says our video card supports DirectX 8. So I’m thinking, we need to upgrade our video card. I went to the Gateway site, and it looks like most of the video cards that support DirectX 9 are AGP, but Control Panel tells me my existing card is PCI bus.
To add to the confusion, my wife tried loading another game, Evil Genius, which also requires DirectX 9, and she reports the graphics work fine.
So, do I need a new card, or do I have a bad game in Axis and Allies? And if I need a new card, what’s with AGP vs. PCI - is AGP a new standard? If I take the top off the PC, will I be able to distinguish AGP vs PCI? Any insight at all will be gratefully received.
Games that require directx9 are supposed to work on cards that say they support earlier versions. Directx is backwardly compatible in many ways.
For years I ran directx 8 games on a directx 7 card with no problems. What is the name of your graphics card?
AGP is not that new (The new standard is PCI-Express), but was an improvemnt on PCI because it meant the card has direct access to the computer’s RAM (rather than via the CPU)
The AGP slot is shorter than the PCI slots and is usually brown (PCI are black) but not always.
AGP is an extension of PCI standards, so (depending on which part of the Control Panel you’re looking in) an AGP video card may be (correctly) identified as a PCI device. By itself, this doesn’t mean anything.
It may be that you’re having problems related to your old card or old card drivers - can’t say for sure. I doubt swapping the game for another copy will change anything. Try installing the latest drivers for your video card and/or contacting tech support for your game before you do anything drastic /expensive.
Actually, to add to the confusion, PCI is the ancient standard, AGP is the old and currently most common standard, and PCI-Express is the New Deal.
If you bought your PC in the last four years or so, and it has a real graphics card (i.e., it’s not built in to the motherboard) then you almost certainly have an AGP slot and an AGP video card. Some cheaper PCs are built with AGP video cards integrated into the motherboard. Some of those have vacant AGP slots to allow upgrading the video card, some do not.
AGP slots are positioned differently from PCI slots - they’re farther from the edge of the motherboard - and are easily recognizable that way. If your PC has an AGP video card, you’ll easily distinguish it when you see it - the AGP slot is the only one the video card can possibly fit in. Conversely, none of your other peripheral cards could possibly fit in the AGP slot. AGP slots also frequently have plastic retaining clips, tabs, or other snap-on doohickies to keep the card firmly seated, something you’ll never see on the PCI slots. They’re often a different color than the other slots in the system, too - flamboyant colors like red or purple are popular on newer systems.
I see that this is a pretty new game, and there are quire a few complaints about its bugginess over at the Atari A&A forum. If you’re new to gaming on the PC, you may be surprised to learn that this is embarassingly common. Some games are much improved over the following months by patches and other updates from the studio. You might also try asking your question in that forum - maybe another player has already solved your problem.
Normally, when you try to play a game and you see shapes without proper texturing or coloring, it means you do not have sufficient video RAM to run all the game-display options that are selected. So I would first go to the game options and see what the screen display is at, such as 1024x768, or 800x600, or (gasp) 640x480.And turn it down a notch, if it’s not on the lowest setting already. Also look around in there and see if you can turn off any advanced (not-strictly necessary) display options–things like dynamic lighting (turn it off) and color settings (don’t use 32-bit, ,switch to 16-bit if it allows that).
Right now, for about $100 retail/$80 online you can get a 4X AGP videocard with 128 megs of DDR RAM that will run newer games in 800x600 okay, if you turn the display options down. I have a card with those specs running Half-Life 2 (I bought the card as a laast-ditch effort to update the coputer), but I leave it at 800x600 and I have to turn the water reflections to “simple”, or else the game gets all choppy on me during the aquatic stages. Other regular programs run just fine at higher resolutions, it’s just games that the card won’t run at higher detail.
Or the game itself might just have problems,
or the game might just have problems with the videocard your computer has right now. What is the videocard you have now? To find out, go into My Computer->Control Panel->System->Hardware and look for the one that says “video adaptor” and it should say what videocard [chipset] you have. Then you can go online to support forums for that game, and see if anyone else has the same problems with that specific videocard.
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Before you do anything else, download and install the latest driver for your video card.
When I first started playing Battlefield 1942 my video driver was 6 months out of date… let me tell you, an M1 Abrams Tank just is not that intimidating in pink and blue plaid.
it will be helpful to know your system specifications.
Axis and Allies System Specs:
Processor: Pentium® III 1.5 GHz (Pentium® 4 2.0 GHz recommended)
Memory: 256 MB RAM (384 MB recommended)
Video: 64 MB Windows® 98/SE/Me/2000/XP-compatible SVGA with Hardware T&L video card* (128 MB Windows® 98/SE/Me/2000/XP-compatible SVGA with Hardware T&L video card* recommended)
Processor: Celeron 1.8- GHz
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Video: 64. MB Intel 82845G/GL Graphics Controller, driver version 6.13.0001.3119
Current mode: 1024x768
DirectX version: DirectX 9.0c (which came as a surprise - somewhere else, it said I’m still at 8.1)
I haven’t had much time to look around, but this weekend I’ll try updating the video drivers (although I’m not sure where to go, to do that - Intel’s site? Gateway’s?). If that doesn’t work, I’ll try reducing resolution for game-play. If that doesn’t work, I guess it’s off to card-upgrade-land, which is always scary.
. . . and, I’ll try posting on the game site to see if anyone else there has had the same problem.
Thanks, all, for your input. Damn, you guys are smart!
Celeron processors are not very good for gaming systems. Upgrading to a Pentium (or better, a cheaper AMD 64 processor) would involve a new motherboard and RAM, so that might not be an option now, but keep that in mind for the future.
256 MB of RAM is also very low for a gaming system. What OS are you running? If windows XP then 128+ megs are already in use by the OS and you’re leaving the game starved for memory and relying on the scratch disk which will slow performance considerably. Consider buying some more memory (512 megs more IMHO, but check to see what type of RAM is compatible with your mobo & CPU).
The video CPU appears to be a built in system. This is again, bad for gaming as usually built in systems use the comp’s RAM rather than it’s own VRAM. See if you have an AGP slot, and if so, consider upgrading to an AGP video card. Geforce ti are affordable, and the 4600 and 4800 are excellent (DirectX 8) cards. Radeons 9600 + plus their new genertion of cards are more pricey but well worth it (direct x9 compatible too), as are the new Nvidia cards.
Try updating the video drivers, you’ll probably have to check the gateway site, this might alleviate the tecture problem, it might not. Either way you are below the reccomended specs for the game, so performance will be poor, you might also run into other problems such as CTD’s (crash to desktop).
My recomendation is to upgrade that puppy, or play with it for now, see if it will run the game, and save up for a gaming machine for xmas!
Your video is the problem. Axis & Allies, as well as most modern games, require a video card/chip with Transformation & Lighting (T&L) abilities. Intel Integrated stuff doesn’t have T&L. The easiest solution would be to add a real video card. Now, if you have an AGP port, I would reccomend something like this Radeon 9600 for $80; it will make any current game quite playable. Even a $41 Radeon 9250 would be a massive step up.
If your computer maker cheaped out and didn’t include an AGP port, you are limited to PCI graphics. Still, something like this $66 Geforce 5200 PCI will vastly increase your performance.
Okay, here’s an update. I popped the top on my computer and discovered the video card is on-board, and no AGP slots. I took **RandomLetters’ ** advice and bought the GEforce 5200 PCI card. Installing the card was easy; remembering how to switch the BIOS to look at the PCI slot rather than the on-board AGP took some doing! Still, I was ready to test after only about a couple hours worth of fumbling around.
Axis and Allies - loaded, ran great!
Rome Total War - had run, but very slowly, in fits and starts - now runs fast!
So far, so good. Thanks everyone for your input and advice. I may have squeaked out another years’ worth of service from my old PC.
I am very glad that card I reccomended is working out for you; too bad you didn’t have an AGP slot, but the 5200 is a good budget card. Anyways, next year if you need advice on what to get in a new machine, just ask. That will give me enough time to read up on PCI-Express, and all the other new goodies coming out.
