Problem Graphics?

[~Lazarus~]

Guys,

Neighbour has a small problem when he tries to run a game he bought for his kids.

THe game installs fine, but when he tries to run the game and error box appears on the screen :

error line : 2680
error : DDERR_NODIRECTDRAWHW
Create surface error

I think it may be a problem with his Gfx Card (SIS 530) not being able to handle the instruction from the game on how to display the "pictures" as it were.

Anyone confirm / deny thi.

Would new drivers help, or will it need a new card?

Any help much appreciated.

 

[xane]

No offense intended, but could you post more exact details, like the OS and game concerned.

If it's a fairly recent game, have you tried upgrading to the latest DirectX ?

 

[~Lazarus~]

sorry my bad,

OS : Windows 98SE
Memory 60 MB

Game : Enid Blyton's Famous Five (Silver Tower)

 

[(Shovel)]

Assuming here that this friend isn't especially computer literate, apologies if he is.

I'd advise graphics drivers first: Very, very common problem, since majority of 'average home users' don't even know drivers exist.

Alongside that, directX update should rule out any other graphics issues, unless it's with the chipset itself.

Might be worth checking how much RAM he's got assigned for the graphics - you say 60MB system RAM, implies only 4MB for the graphics. You may need to tweak this and see if you can put more memory onto the graphics from the BIOS.

 

[~Lazarus~]

Thanks Shovel,

I updated his GFX drivers (from 1999 to 2001) but the problem was still there (believe me its difficult finding drivers for that card over 56k )

Ill take a look at the BIOS settings for the card as well.

Going by the Specification on the game, it SHOULD run on his system.

And you are correct - computer literate he is not :|

 

[~Lazarus~]

Guys,

Went round last night armed to the teeth with drivers and utilities I found through the day.

nothing worked.

New drivers.
Changed BIOS to 8mb memory.
Updated DirectX

Still the same error.

What really confuzzled me was that the error seemed to indicate a problem with DIRECTDRAW.

However, there is a function within DXDIAG which allows you to test the DIRECTDRAW - it worked.

Any other ideas before having to purchase new hardware (hes out of work atm so dont want to incur costs)

 

[jaba]

from a quick look on google the msdn website says this
"DDERR_NODIRECTDRAWHW
Hardware-only DirectDraw object creation is not possible; the driver does not support any hardware."
which to me sounds like he has an old graphics card which does not support this...do you have a spare gfx card you can try in his machine? that would be my first port of call before blowing any money on a new card

 

[(Shovel)]

Originally posted by jaba
from a quick look on google the msdn website says this
"DDERR_NODIRECTDRAWHW
Hardware-only DirectDraw object creation is not possible; the driver does not support any hardware."
which to me sounds like he has an old graphics card which does not support this...do you have a spare gfx card you can try in his machine? that would be my first port of call before blowing any money on a new card

^^ What he said.

There does indeed come a point where cards just don't have the ability to do the job.

If you can stomach it, you could also try running the game on your own PC, just to thorough?