DirectX Problem

OK, so a friend was testing my shooter game and it worked fine. Then one day he reports an error "Cannot Create 3D Scene". Then he tells me that he installed Diablo 2 ... and the version of DX that came with it. I told him that was a mistake that you're just supposed to leave the newest DX on there which is 9.0c. I had him install it again ... but still the same issue. He also has the latest drivers for his GFX card and my OpenGL game works fine still on his system.

Since installing DX 9c doesn't do anything I'm telling him to use a DX uninstaller ... and then reinstall DX 9c. Any other ideas?

I don't remember any drawbacks with the directx installer. What I mean usually they don't install older vertions...
Hear my today story after formating...
The dx installer says that my computer does not have enought memory or space or the file is curupted...
So I still have the build in DX from windows.

I saw someone post that exact same message not so long ago either here, on gg or gamedevnet.

Wish I could remember what the problem was.

Just did a google search and:

the computers video card doesnt support one of 3 things, windowed(or fullscreen, whatever your using) 3D, the resolution in 3D your trying to use, or the color depth
Edit:
to get around it, try using Graphics3D 800,600,0,0
the 0 in the color depth means best available, and 800x600 is supported on almost all cards for 3D. Also, i have never run into 3D not working in fullscreen, just windowed.

full thread at:

http://www.codersworkshop.com/viewpost.php?id=46079

Which reminds me, make sure that they installed some working drivers, it's possible they didn't install enything better than the default windows drivers.

Hmm... I switched it to use 32 bit color depth. However, he has a GeForce 2 card ... should have no problems with 32 bit color depth ... hmmmph! Maybe it doesn't support 640 X 480 X 32? That would be odd!

I used to have a GeForce 2 MX 440 card, which had no problems with 32 bit depth. I have had problems with games that force 640 x 480 though, so I suppose that's worth checking out.

I thought 640 X 480 was the most widely accepted res? I guess 800 X 600 is replacing or has replaced it.

if its a Geforce 2, a lot of newer drivers don't work properly with Geforce 2 or Geforce4MX cards.

From their website:

The following products are not supported in the current ForceWare Release 80 driver. Please continue to use the previous ForceWare Release 70 drivers available here.
TNT2
TNT2 Pro
TNT2 Ultra
TNT2 Model 64 (M64)
TNT2 Model 64 (M64) Pro
Vanta
Vanta LT
GeForce 256
GeForce DDR
GeForce2 GTS
GeForce2 Pro
GeForce2 Ti
GeForce2 Ultra
GeForce2 MX Integrated graphics
Quadro
Quadro2 Pro
Quadro2 EX

800x600 is the lowest available resolution in WindowsXP after you first change it to above 640x480. 800x600 has been the common ground now for a few years :)


It does seem that the geforce2 range are getting a bit problematic- A bit worrying to say the least when quite a few low end systems still use these cards.

Hmm, this sounds like the exact problem I'm got with this macine.

I even posted a thread about it:-

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=54505

I've tried everything I can possibly think of to fix it and the problem still remains. The only solution I believe is to format, reinstall Windows, something which I can't be bothered to do. (and won't do for a fair while yet)

Yeah, I had something similar myself ... but it was with newer games and Blitz was unaffected. Reformatting fixed my problem and I told my buddy to do that but he's not the most computer literate person around.

This is another case where I would recommend the WHQL drivers off of MSUpdate - they -definately- work for a GeForce2.

were having blitz problems with Geforce 2 era GPU's too in the racer. Might just be that the racer has finaly exceeded the 32mb vram threshold we originaly had for it though.

As someone pointed out the newer Forceware drivers dont support geforce2 cards so if by latest he has 80 series drivers he will get problems with some stuff, seen it myself. Get him to use an older driver, personally I find that new drivers tend to make old cards like that and even geforce4 cards run everything slower than the drivers that were around at the time the card was middle of the road.

I have a GF2 mx200 32mb, no problem at all these days, although I have
finished updating the drivers a long time ago, Blitz3D used
to get slower and unstable with each drivers update I used to make ... so I did a format and installed a more than 1 or 2 years old drivers and
everything work pretty good, x2 blending, multitexturing, cubic mapping ,... and I have DirectX 9.0c ... my PC even runs
Far Cry with a playable fps (without any FXs off course).

So, anyway, the best solution for your friend is to format and then
try first with the default drivers that came with the video card ...

Paolo.