The below was posted as a fix for weird colors/screen tearing in the "Jane's WW 2 Fighters" sim, as a "GeForce 2 card fix"

Granted, it is acompletely different game, but I am posting it here so that others, more knowing than myself, might possibly find something useful in it in regards the similar issues in some versions of EAW, or possibly other games.

FWIW, I patched my version of JWW3FTRs with the latest, official 1.8 patch, but I don't recall anything like these issues when running it on m yWin7 compute OTOH, I certainly did have color/tearing issues with some versions of EAW before installing a wrapper. Again, it is a totally different sim. I get that. Still, there may be something in the following that will cause some more experienced folks to ponder, and that might prove useful.

"
1) Get the 4.12.01.0532 drivers, and install them.

2) Open ww2.ini file and make these adjustments.
.MegsofTextureMem set to 32 [under Graphics]
.Vsync set to No
.ColorDepth set to 32
.Zbuffer set to 32

3) Then goto Control Panel Display Icon and open it up.
then click on the settings tab.
click on advanved,
click on the Geforce Tab
click on additional properties.
under OpenGL make sure to keep
enable buffer region checked, dual planes checked,
check enable alternate buffering technique.
then turn off Vsync,
increase megs of memory in PCI mode to 30.

4) Now click on the Direct 3D tab.
Make sure that the following are cheacked:
fog emulation table is cheacked,
adjust z-buffer is checked
enable alternate z-buffer is checked
set mip-mapping to zero
set auto-mipmap method to bilinear
set mipmap detail to best image quality

5) Now click on the More Direct3D tab.
set texel alignment to 4
set PCI memory mode to 31.


These settings were given to Su27 Angie(Angel) by the Electroinc Arts Support Group, she tried them
and they worked for her, she then gave them to ZG77_HUNTER and he tried them and it reduced his
blue screen tearing. Convinced that they worked he then forwarded them to regor<1VG> and he also tested
them and found they eliminated his tearing completely. Thanks to Su27 Angie for this badly needed fix"

After 26 views, I hope that some are investigating the above. It can't all be worthless (I hope).

lol, those settings are not in the game we play, nor in the recent video control panel. Turning back to an older driver of that age is BS in today's world.

Test those features out and tell me if they do anything.
VSYNC is possibly a cause for the tearing, but EAW doesn't have a switch for it , or if it even knows what vsync is.

But my Nvidiia control panel does not have those old options that where out when Win98 was used.
I wrote to Microsoft Win10 team several times explaing the situtation, but I doubt they will add back FOG that nvidia lacks in there drivers these days.
I also mentioned the DirectDraw / Direct2D issue regarding the halves frames per second in the Flight Window, from win7 to win8.1/win10. Also results in slow menu screen switching.


Thanks for sharing truly RIBob.
I'll write those down for now. However they look to be the settings we need, they are however from the olden days.

The color issue in Vista and 7 can be fixed without a wrapper.
Just read my install help doc, I have a section for for it. (It doesn't fix the tearing however).

The topic to read is 'Direct Draw Color Fix' under the Windows Registry section.
There two known tools that will create a fix for each eaw.exe you have in place.

I have included the registry path, so you can double check that it applied it to the registry.

As I suspected, the info I provided isn't directly applicable to EAW. I provided it simply in the hopes that it might provide food for thought. If that happens, then the exercise will be a success. Failures can be learning experiences just as much as successes.

I recently experimented with the .MNU files which control the screens and I found this interesting behaviour in it when I changed byte 13 from 35H to32H in MANM.MNU, which controls the main selection screen which functions normally on my computer. I don't know if it will lead anywhere but I think needs further investigation:



I've always believed the problem was linked to the linewidth being interpreted differently with newer videocards/drivers which have problems with specific screen overlays. It could be something as silly as an 8 bit value which now needs to be 16 bits or something. The value could also be a bitswitch selecting the screen format in the driver/card.
I tried changing the briefingscreen which is buggered on this computer, but I didn't mess for very long.

Beware though, changing the value will loose your input control and taskmanger needs to help you out again. It may not do the same thing with other hardware either.

VonBeerhofen

It was in the hopes that the info posted above might provoke some experimentation on the part of those more knowledgeable than myself that I posted the link.

In any event, my hope was that, initially, an easy, simple, way might be found for owners of the game, who do not play EAW currently, to be provided with a simple way to get their game up and running, when using modern equipment/hardware, and modern operating systems, such as Win 10, and beyond.

Once they are "hooked", so to speak, then some, at least, will presumably download simple patches, and possibly progress to more involved Mods, and try out other versions of the game.

In short, providing owners of the game a simple fix for the most glaring issues facing them (pun intended) seems to me to offer a reasonable prospect of gaining new game-users at minimal cost in time and resources.

If there are no new users, or old users brought back into the fold, the game will die, and all the fine development work done on it will be for nothing.