Can't run on Netbook

Windows support forum for Eschalon: Book II
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Palathas
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Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 10:13 pm

Can't run on Netbook

Post by Palathas »

I know this may seem silly but I'm trying to run Eschalon: Book II on my little Netbook whilst out and about. I can run Book I just fine but when I click on Launch Game in the Book II launcher one of two things happens depending on settings.

If I run Book II in windowed mode it opens a window that can't be resized and cuts off the bottom of the screen across BOOK II so that it only displays the top half of BOOK and down to Credits on the menu to the right.

If I run the game in full screen mode the desktop flickers a bit and then a Windows Exception EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error appears.

I have a system that meets the min specs -
Windows 7 Home premium 64bit.
AMD Dual Core E-350
AMD ATI Radeon 6300 GPU

All drivers and OS are latest versions. I suspect that it may be because the screen has a maximum resolution of 1024x600 but the min specs mention nothing of minimum resolutions.

If nothing can be done to get it working on my Netbook then oh well, I'll just have to stick to playing it on my Desktop but these games are good to play if you are out and about and need to chew up some time.

Thanks.
Palathas
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Re: Can't run on Netbook

Post by Palathas »

Anyone have any ideas on how to rectify this issue? Are there any config files that will let me change the game window size?
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Kreador Freeaxe
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Re: Can't run on Netbook

Post by Kreador Freeaxe »

I'm surprised this didn't get answered before by one of the technical folks around. As far as I know, the game is drawn to a fixed window size/resolution. It can't be modified without actually reprogramming. Sorry.
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BasiliskWrangler
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Re: Can't run on Netbook

Post by BasiliskWrangler »

The game runs at a fixed resolution, and it doesn't fit most netbook displays.

I'm surprised that it doesn't scale down when in full-screen...the crash suggests to me that you might want to update your display drivers and see if that works for you.

FYI - we don't have any netbooks in our development studio for testing this. It's just not a platform we officially support.
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Palathas
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Re: Can't run on Netbook

Post by Palathas »

Unfortunately with the latest Catalyst 11.8 drivers it still crashes with an 'EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION'. It's probably because the netbook uses an AMD APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), basically a CPU with an integrated GPU. It also has a maximum resolution of 1024 x 600 where as the game wants to be 1024 x 768.

*shrugs* Oh well, I'll just have to stick with the desktop.

Thanks for the replies.

EDIT: Just out of interest I was trying to run it on an MSI U270 netbook. It runs Half Life 2, Torchlight, Heroes Online, Star Trek Online, Eschalon: Book I and Minecraft in full screen and windowed mode just fine. Eschalon: Book II is the first game I've had any problems with so far.

EDIT 2: Definitely a resolution thing. I plugged an external 1280x1024 monitor in to the netbook and the game worked fine at that desktop resolution setting. It obviously just doesn't like the 1024x600 setting.
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