Freelancer 1.0: Known Video Issues (814551)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Freelancer

SUMMARY

This article describes video-related issues that you may experience when you play Microsoft Freelancer 1.0. The article is divided into general video issues and issues that occur only on specific video hardware.

MORE INFORMATION

General Video Issues

"Freelancer Does Not Recognize Your 3D Video Card..." Error Message

When you start Freelancer, you may receive the following error message:
Freelancer does not recognize your 3D video card. Freelancer may have trouble running. Would you like to continue?
This error occurs because the Freelancer video adapter database does not have an entry for the video adapter in your computer. To resolve this issue, click Yes to continue or click to clear the Perform this check every time the application runs? check box. However, if you have an old video adapter, graphics problems or other problems may result. If you have a recent video adapter, Freelancer will likely run without issue.

"Freelancer Has Detected that Your Video Card Is Running an Older Driver Version..." Error Message

When you start Freelancer, you may receive the following error message:
Freelancer has detected that your video card is running an older driver version. If you happen to experience any issues while running the game, please contact your video card manufacturer to find the latest driver for your card. Would you like to continue?
To work around this issue, click Yes to continue. However, graphical glitches or other problems may result. To resolve this issue, contact your video card hardware manufacturer to obtain and install the latest version of the driver for your video card. For information about how to contact the manufacturer of your video card, see the "References" section of this article.

"Freelancer Detected an Unsupported 3D Video Card..." Error Message

When you start Freelancer, you may receive the following error message:
Freelancer detected an unsupported 3D video card. Freelancer may have trouble running. Would you like to continue?
To work around this issue, click Yes to continue. However, graphical glitches or other problems may result. To resolve this issue, you must purchase and install a video card that is supported by Freelancer. For assistance with purchasing or installing a video card, contact your computer manufacturer.

"Freelancer Did Not Detect a 3D Capable Video Adapter in Your System" Error Message

When you try to start Freelancer, you may receive an error message that is similar to the following:
Freelancer did not detect a 3D capable video adapter in your system. If you have a 3D capable video adapter installed please try rebooting. You may need to reinstall the game.
To resolve this issue, use one or more of the following methods in the order that they appear.

Method 1: Verify That Your Adapter Meets the Minimum System Requirements

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. In the Open box, type dxdiag, and then click OK.
  3. On the Display tab, verify that the Approx. Total Memory is 16.0 megabytes (MB) or more. The video adapter must have 16.0 MB for Freelancer to function correctly. If it does not, upgrade your video adapter hardware.

    Note Because of video memory that may be in use when you run the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DXDiag), this value may be a little lower than the actual total.

Method 2: Download and Install the Latest Drivers for Your Video Adapter

Contact the manufacturer of your video adapter for information about how to download and install the latest drivers for your video adapter.

Method 3: Enable Direct3D

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. In the Open box, type dxdiag, and then click OK.
  3. In the DirectX Diagnostic Tool dialog box, click the Display tab or the Display 1 tab.
  4. Click Enable next to Direct3D Acceleration, and then click Exit.

Method 4: Update DirectX

To obtain the most current version of DirectX, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/default.asp

For additional information about how to troubleshoot display-related issues, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

263039 Games: How to Troubleshoot Display Issues

Hardware-Specific Video Issues

ATI

The following issues occur with various ATI video adapters.

To download and install the latest ATI adapter drivers, visit the following ATI Web site:

http://www.atitech.com

  • When you try to play Freelancer with an ATI Rage Fury video adapter, you may see graphical corruption.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with an ATI Xpert 128 PCI video adapter, the explosion effects from the Freeport 7 introduction may be missing, and you may see other graphical corruption.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro video adapter, the title screen appears, and then the game may stop responding.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with an ATI Radeon Text video adapter on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, you may see graphical corruption and slow menu display. To work around this issue, adjust the hardware acceleration setting:
    1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
    2. Double-click Display.
    3. Click the Settings tab, and then click Advanced.
    4. Click the Troubleshoot tab.
    5. Drag the Hardware acceleration slider bar one step to the left to lower the acceleration level.
    6. Continue to lower the Hardware acceleration setting until the issue no longer occurs.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with the ATI Radeon VE video adapter or the ATI Radeon 8500 video adapter, a black screen may appear at startup. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the ATI Radeon 7000 video adapter, some asteroids and other images may appear incomplete. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the ATI Rage Fury PRO VIVO video adapter, the text is not stationary but appears to jump to different areas of the game window. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the ATI Radeon DDR video adapter, Freelancer stops responding or you may see graphical corruption of objects. This issue may occur when Freelancer is installed on a Microsoft Windows 2000-based computer with the color setting set to 32-bit color. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the ATI All-In-Wonder 128 video adapter, you may see graphical corruption of ships. You may also see black textures appear in unexpected places. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.

Matrox

The following issues occur with various Matrox video adapters.

To download and install the latest Matrox adapter drivers, visit the following Matrox Web site:

http://www.matrox.com

  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox Marvel G400 video adapter, the Manhattan city skyline may appear black. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest video drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Millennium G550 video adapter, the interior view of certain rooms may appear orange. Or, when you try to start Freelancer, a black screen appears, and then the game stops responding. To resolve these issues, download and install the latest drivers for this adapter.
  • The following issues occur with the Matrox G400 video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox G400 video adapter, you may see that many objects are missing from the city skylines. You may also see that some of the characters appear to be floating. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you try to change the game window resolution setting on a Windows 2000-based or Windows XP-based computer, you may experience graphical corruption. To work around this issue, restart the game after you make changes to the resolution setting. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox G400, you may see the same text rendering problems that have been reported with ATI Radeon adapters. (See previous text.)
  • The following issues occur with the Matrox G450 video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox G450 video adapter and retail drivers, the menus may unexpectedly appear with a white background. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you try to change the window resolution setting on a Windows 2000-based or Windows XP-based computer, you may see graphical corruption. To work around this issue, restart the game after you make changes to the resolution setting. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox G400 or Matrox G450 video adapters, you may see that the color setting in the game is 16-bit color mode. This issue occurs because the Matrox video adapters have dual head display capabilities. This disables the 32-bit color depth functionality. When two monitors are connected to both VGA outputs, the distribution of memory will change. When Freelancer checks onboard video memory, it will only detect less than 32 megabytes (MB) and only support 16-bit color mode.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox Millennium G-200 video adapter, many rooms may appear orange. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Matrox Parhelia video adapter, you may see a black background behind all text with capital letters, instead of the expected transparent background.
  • When you try to change the game window resolution in Freelancer with the Matrox Millennium G-550 video adapter on a Windows 2000-based or Windows XP-based computer, you may experience graphical corruption. To work around this issue, change the game window resolution, and then restart the game. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.

NVIDIA

The following issues occur with various NVIDIA video adapters.

To download and install the latest NVIDIA adapter drivers, visit the following NVIDIA Web site:

http://www.nvidia.com

  • When you start the game and you are using an NVIDIA Geforce FX video adapter, you receive the following message:
    Freelancer does not recognize your 3D video card. Freelancer may have trouble running. Would you like to continue?
    This error occurs because the Freelancer video adapter database does not have an entry for NVIDIA Geforce FX. Some video adapters were released after the game, so the game video adapter database does not include the entry for new video card. To resolve this issue, click Yes to continue or click to clear the Perform this check every time the application runs? check box. The game should run fine after that.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the NVIDIA Diamond Viper V550 video adapter, you may see blue triangles appear in the game window and other graphical corruption. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with the TNT2 Vanta video adapter, the game stops responding at startup. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL)-certified drivers.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the ASUS V7700 DDR video adapter on a Microsoft Windows 98-based computer, the game may stop responding.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with the ASUS V6800 video adapter, the game stops responding after the startup screen appears. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • The following issues occur with the NVIDIA TNT video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the NVIDIA TNT video adapter, some menus may appear with a white background, instead of the expected transparent background. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest WHQL-certified drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you try to change the game window resolution, you may experience game instability. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest WHQL-certified drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with the Maxi Gamer Xentor video adapter, the game may stop responding. This issue may occur when the game window resolution is set to 1024 x 768. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Elsa Gladiac 920 video adapter, the game may temporarily stop responding during space flight. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to start Freelancer with the Winfast Geforce DDR, the title screen appears, and then the game may stop responding. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Elsa Erazor III video adapter, the textures may be missing. For example, the main graphical objects in the game appear as silhouettes. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest Detonator drivers for this video adapter.

Other Video Hardware

  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Maxi Gamer Cougar video adapter, some graphical objects may appear as white squares. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the 3Dfx Voodoo 3 video adapter, you may see that no text or textures appear in the user interface or on graphical objects (such as signs, job boards, and dialog boxes) and that no textures appear on the graphical objects. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.

    Note Windows 2000 and Windows XP do not support Voodoo 3 video adapters.
  • The following issues occur with the PowerVR Kyro II video adapter.
    • When you try to play Freelancer with the PowerVR Kyro II video adapter, the Manhattan city skyline may appear without textures, and many other buildings appear in black. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest Sis 315 drivers for this video adapter.
    • When you press ALT+TAB to switch windows, Freelancer may stop responding. This issue may occur if you use Freelancer on a Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me)-based computer. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Hercules 3D Prophet 4000 XT video adapter, you may see graphical corruption with the cityscape launch pads. To resolve this issue, download and install the latest drivers for this video adapter.
  • When you play Freelancer with the Intel 82845G/GL video adapter, no fog appears in the main menu. There is currently no resolution for this issue.
  • When you use the Intel 810/815 video adapter, you may experience corruption of text on buttons in the Freelancer game interface. But the game installs and operates with no further issues. To troubleshoot this issue, follow these steps:
    1. Locate the program directory in Freelancer. By default, the location is:

      C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Freelancer

    2. Use Notepad to open the FLConfigDatabase.txt file.
    3. Scroll to the Intel section that is located towards the bottom of the document. Alternatively, you can search by using "0x8086" (without the quotation marks).
    4. Locate the "810" and "815" section. This will look similar to the following:

      0x7121 = "810" 0x7123 = "810" 0x7124 = "810e" 0x7125 = "810e" 0x7126 = "810" 0x7127 = "810" 0x1132 = "815" Bad8888 NoMipMap ForceSquareTextures LimitTextureSize

    5. Edit this section by removing the "ForceSquareTextures" line. This will look similar to the following:

      0x7121 = "810" 0x7123 = "810" 0x7124 = "810e" 0x7125 = "810e" 0x7126 = "810" 0x7127 = "810" 0x1132 = "815" Bad8888 NoMipMap LimitTextureSize

    6. Save any changes that you made to the file, and then close the file.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Trident BladeXP video adapter and you click to preview a ship in the Dealer Ships pane, the ships do not appear on the Preview (center) pane of the Ship Dealer dialog box.
  • When you try to access various shortcut menus in Freelancer with the Compaq Presario 1100 video adapter, the menus may appear distorted. Also, the planetary rings may not appear.
  • When you try to play Freelancer with the Trident Video Accelerator XP4, you may experience text corruption.

REFERENCES

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.
For information about how to contact the manufacturer of your video adapter, click the appropriate article number in the following list to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

65416 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, A-K

60781 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, L-P

60782 Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, Q-Z

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.
The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/7/2006
Keywords:kbConfig kbHardware kbdisplay kberrmsg kbinfo KB814551
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