Video problems

**I'd like to "thank" whoever erased this thread while I was busy editing it, so that I have to rewrite the entire thing. :curse: Now on to the problem.**


I have a bunch of doujin fighters and shooters, and now I can't play 'em!

I recently got handed down a notebook. A Dell Inspiron 7500, Pentium III 751, 256megs RAM. It's old, but it's actually better than my old PC. It had WIN98 on it, but it was too loaded with crap to use, so I wiped it and installed 2K. Did the Windows Update, installed security programs, yadda yadda. Most of my games (like the Eternal Fighter Zero demo. Check www.burningdojo.com to check it and others out.)worked fine, but the demo of Melty Blood: React ran very slowly, and GGXX: Reload (which worked fine on my other PC, even without a soundcard and some other issues) would exit out atfer the Title screen.

I installed the latest DirectX, but it didn't help. I went to Dell's site and got the latest video drivers for the notebook. GGXX still didn't work, and when I tried to play MB:R, my computer would restart on its own. I got drivers from another source, and no change. Now, suddenly, almost none of my games will run. For some they shut down, some I get an error in Japanese that I can't read, and some just give me a black screen, which I have to ctrl+alt+del to remove. This only happens with games. Videos and other programs work fine.

The display is an ATI Rage Mobility P, version 5.13.1.5058, driver date 4/17/2002. There are no conflicts. The games from the link I posted, save Mind Arms, do not work. The shooter, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and other games from the same team, do work, as does a little game called Qtank that I got off of GameHippo. I don't know what the problem is, and I need to have it fixed. I'm getting a team together for a game project, and I need to be able to check out builds of the engine. One probrammed sent me a sample of what he could do, and I can't even run the file.

all I saw was a blank post, sorry

Try reinstalling the generic ATI drivers, and make sure the other ones are totally uninstalled. Maybe it has something to do with the games setting new resolutions on the display? Try watching a video file (shouldn't matter which playback software you use) and switching to fullscreen. See if it does the same thing the games do.

I just checked, and the videos work in fullscreen. I'll try the generic drivers.

I'm having trouble removing the drivers. I go Properties > Settings > Advanced > Adapter > Properties > Driver > Uninstall. When prompted, I say yes, then the computer restarts. The picture starts in a low resolution, low color mode, but is easily changed back to the settings I had. I check, and the same drivers are installed. They can't be the basic ons, because the system was last revised in 2000, and the date on the driver info is 2002.

Try removing the current driver set and installing the generic stuff via safe mode.

If worse comes to worse, you should be able to wipe your graphics card stuff right out of device manager and have it auto-detect upon next boot.

I actually had(have) two types of drivers installed. They're both from ATI. @ne's the 2002 one I described, and the other is from 1999, with a name closer to what was on Dell's page. I uninstalled the hardware for the 2002 through the device manager, and the 1999 took its place when I restarted. I did the same with the 1999, and the 2002 came back.

I did a file search for the word "error", and explore.exe recieved an error and had to restart. Did it again without any problems. I then testes some more games out. Stepmania (the DDR simulator) had some trouble at first, but did start up. Other games failed, and on one I got the error:

Error

data.bin 'untranslatable symbols'

I checked prior to this, and I have no known viruses. Maybe something got removed from the computer when I uninstalled a program.

OK, it really sounds like a driver conflict now... I'm not sure what else I can offer in terms of advice next to getting rid of drivers for both the 1999 and 2002 profiles of the video card and starting fresh. Perhaps somebody else with more laptop experience here can help you with the problem.

Thanks for trying.

Try downloading Driver Cleaner (I think it's up to 2 now, that's the one I use). Whenever I update my vid card driver, I download the new one then uninstall the drivers and reboot. Then run Drive Cleaner (choose ATI in the pulldown menu since you have an ATI card) and let it delete any left over stuff the uninstall missed. Reboot again and then install the new drivers. If it asks to reboot again, reboot. You should be good to go after that.

I'll try that.

Edit: It's up to 3.3