[robvalverde]

any improvement with the new drivers? I'm on Windows XP so I can't check it. thanks!

[ptdmini12]

well, Counterstrike is now playable fullscreen, softwaremode 1280x800 16-bit colors. Yes, games are tending to work better with the new vista driver. I'm gonna dl starcraft again and hopefully the driver will be able to support direct draw... Hopefully. I'll let ya know/.

[robvalverde]

Originally Posted by ptdmini12

well, Counterstrike is now playable fullscreen, softwaremode 1280x800 16-bit colors. Yes, games are tending to work better with the new vista driver. I'm gonna dl starcraft again and hopefully the driver will be able to support direct draw... Hopefully. I'll let ya know/.

thanks, good luck!!


EDIT: Sorry but it already has been tested . Quote from another thread:

Originally Posted by soul

I'm sorry Koolitan, but those claims are very misleading. Playing full screen HQ video isn't as liquid as they suggest. Perhaps family guy? with low bit rate video, but anything with high bite rate (music video) it lags. It definitely play smoother than before. Aero runs the SAME as before (my personal experience), it's not any better. Video performance has gotten a tad bit better with latest driver. Using Media classic player and VLC.

Test:
-Star craft still doesn't run
-Baldur's gate 2 launches (before it didn't even start)
-war craft 3. I dont' see a difference between the old 1095 vs latest 1105.

Koolitan, there's no way this GMA 500 is going to be able to handle War craft 3 or playable. The hardware specs just isn't strong enough, software/driver can only do so much.

[Tylwith]

Hello everyone i have open an account just to share my experience.
i don't have a dell mini but an acer 751h with a gma 500 the dell got a faster processor so it must run better . And sorry for my bad english i am french.

diablo 2 is playable in non direct 3d
to go over the direct draw faillure just launch it in windowed mode
edit the shortcut and add -w example "c:\diablo2\diablo 2.exe" -w
if you have lord of detruction it will open in 800*600 which is good enough to play.

As a lot of people, i tried stracraft and didn't manage to make it run until i thought that it should run in windowed mode. So i use chaoslauncher (google it) because there is no native windowed mode for sc and ......... It Works!!!

i have tried also call of duty 2 run fine in 680 all effect at min and 3danalyzer to tweak the directx settings(tick force shader version 1 disable lighning performance mode low shader precision)

unreal tounament 2004 almost playable at low setings with disabling harware shader and hardware tnl in ini file.

Need for speed underground low fps.

guild wars low fps

counter strike source 10 fps forgot to try in directx 7

half life like counter strike playable in software mode.

dawn of wars almost playable

dungeon siege 15 fps

ice wind dale 2 playable but low fps.

quake 3 runs very well in low setting.

tomb raider 3 playable

Medieval total war gold low fps.

i still have some old/ not so old games to try i will update

if you want to try there are demos of most of the games available on internet.



Tylwith

[strongbad]

Hey all, has anyone got running or able to test Sims 3 for me? The wife is desperate...

Also, contributing - World of Goo works fine on Dell Mini 12 with May 09 drivers. (stuttered a little before)

[maxoueb]

Thanks a lot Tylwith for your post!

I own an Acer AspireOne 751h (with GMA500), and was pretty disappointed it couldn't even play games like Starcraft.
After seeing Tylwith's post I've downloaded Chaoslauncher, and now running Starcraft (in Window mode) indeed works, which is pretty cool.

I've tried to do the same for Age of Empires 2 ("-w"), but the game unfortunately still throw me the following error: "Could not initialize graphics system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with DirectDraw."... Any thoughs/hacks to get it working?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers,
Max

[maxoueb]

A quick note to let you know that Age Of Empires 2 still won't start, on Windows XP SP3 w/ latest drivers (6.14.11.1009) - same error as previously stated "Could not initialize graphics system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with DirectDraw".

Any idea to force games to start?

Did anyone notice any visible difference with the 6.14.11.1009 drivers on XP? I honestly can't tell (and windows still have some kind of trailing when dragged and dropped).

Cheers,
Max

[notladstyle]

As stated already, Diablo II Expansion runs great on 10.1093 drivers in Windowed mode. Full screen runs at about 2 FPS with direct3d disabled.

Diablo 2 Video (800 x 600 Windowed)

YouTube - Dell Mini 12 Running Diablo 2

YouTube - Dell Mini 12 Running Diablo 2

Master of Orion II will not run because the video drivers currently do not support 640 x 480 DirectDraw scaling.





Simcity 3000 runs great. Something very strange I noticed was that performance actually improved when I changed from 800x600 to 1024 x 768 in full screen. This leads me to believe that the hardware scaler for the GMA 500 is disabled or is not functioning properly in the drivers i'm currently using.


SimCity 3000 Video (1024 x 768 Full Screen)

YouTube - Dell Mini 12 Running Simcity 3000

YouTube - Dell Mini 12 Running Simcity 3000

My Test Rig:
Mini 12, 1.3Ghz, XP Pro SP3, DX10

[Tylwith]

For Age of empires 2 it is stated in the driver release that it doesn't launch so if intel(or company hired by intel) doesn't manage do launch it i don't think we will find a way. i will look into it but do not have hope.

for games that could not scale try to lower down your resoltion and screen color to the one that the game ask.

game tested

nfs 3 : run well in software mode directx mode is slow.
nfs hot poursuit 2 : playable at lowest setting but screen glidches ...

edit : I had 1 hour to spend so i look into making age of empires 2 working
and i somewhat find 3 ways.Basically the driver implementation is not able to call the right function in windows kernel so definitely a driver problem. A basic driver tweak will not work. So the solution is to unload the actual driver. 3 ways of doing it choose the one you prefer in every case you will have to reboot once before launching the game and one after playing. I will see if i can find/program something to dynamically unloading the driver but no time for the moment i am overbooked. So you can do one of the following.

-reboot in safe mode (but you will lose acpi functionalities and internet connection)
-uninstall the driver from your add/remove program (but you will have to reinstall the driver afterward)
-my preferred solution: disabling the graphic card in the hardware list, with this solution you will keep most of the functionality. When finish playing enable your graphic card again and reboot

Hope it will help otherwise the game is working well full setting in 1024 mode fullscreen

Have a good game
Tylwith
ps: the same trick must work to play starcraft full screen

[maxoueb]

Hi all,

Once again a quick message to thank Tylwith for his reply. I really appreciate you took the time to figure out a way to get Age2 working!

I just tried your solution and it works perfect (Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Display Adapters > Disable Intel GMA 500). I find it insane to have to disable the graphic card to be able to play a game like Age of Empire 2, but at least the game starts and is working without any issue.

I believe we can modify the 1st post of the thread and mark Starcraft + Age of Empires 2 as working (with hacks).

I'll also have a look at a quick way to disable/enable drivers on Windows XP without a reboot. Would be definitely much quicker!

Thanks again Tylwith for your time!

Cheers,
Max