Why is my game practically invisible?

[kate]

Hello. Actually not sure if this is a hardware or software problem, but I just installed an old favorite game: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Got it installed and ran it and it didn't seem to like my screen resolution, but even more, it loaded but was practically invisible. The opacity on it was probably 10%. I could see well enough to click EXIT. I tried a lower resolution but the same thing happened.

I am running Gloria on a Dell Studio 1550.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Kate

[DrHu]

Any of these factors..
Screen savers activated or powersafe nodes being used, could dim screen, lower CPU speed, reduce fan rate and pause hard drives..

Can you increase the brightness contrast of the screen; any buttons or controls

Mint menu>System,>Control Center>Look & Feel>Simple Compiz setup[ or Compiz Settings Manager

• Can you turn off compiz settings for opacity (transparency), brightness/contrast, screen dimming

--I actually disable all Compiz effect, as I don't need animated screen shutdowns or popups a la MAC OS-X, which also usually improves performance, especially if you don't have a great graphics card..

It can always be the game, any settings available ther same as above brightness/contrast, transparency, and so on..

[kate]

At the same time that the game is loaded with the light opacity, everything else is totally normal.

I just changed the Compiz settings to "Minimal"... restarted the game and its the same and I can't see the very bottom of the window.

Attached screenshot.

What do you think?

[DrHu]

I just changed the Compiz settings to "Minimal"... restarted the game and its the same and I can't see the very bottom of the window.

Power up from the mains (electrical outlet), so that it is unlikely to be using powersave modes (batteries), see if that improves look ?

It may be better to restart the desktop, either ctrl alt backapsce keyboard combination, and relogin: OR...

• logout
• ctrl alt F1
• sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
• sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start
• ctrl alt F7
  --to jump back to the desktop login screen

Note any results..

[kate]

Comp is fully charged and I'm plugged into the wall...

[DrHu]

OK, I don't have that notebook, are there no control sliders. keys that manage brightens & contrast, even though it appears normal for the desktop
--though you don't have the default Linux mint background of Green ; you have black

http://happypenguin.org/show?Sid%20Meie ... 20Centauri
http://www.lokigames.com/products/smac/
Your desktop's background color may be affecting the display of the game..
--I looked up the game, it is also a 16bit color game, you might be running the Linux desktop at 24bit (32bit) full collor mode, may explain the washed out colors..

[kate]

I have been having issues with my brightness keys not working to adjust the brightness. I adjusted the brightness using the Power Mgmt settings to 60% restarted the game and the same thing...

Dunno if it is helpful, but I just ran it as ./smac -f (instead of -w) and I got the following error:
X Error: BadValue
Request Major code 129 (XFree86-VidModeExtension)
Request Minor code 10 ()
Value 0xac
Error Serial #100
Current Serial #102

[kate]

Ohhhh well that makes a lot of sense.
How do I adjust that?

[DrHu]

I don't have that game, so I can only offer this as a method to run it on Linux..
http://hokietux.net/blog/?p=13

• For further tweaking, check out ~/.loki/smac/Alpha_Centauri.ini. If you read through the README or Google around, you can find a lot of cool hacks (changing the resolution, for example, or running the game in windowed mode).

And bugs Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) base for Mint 7 (gloria)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs ... o_package=
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/426471

[kate]

Thank you!