Strange RS [graphical] behavior

[jkxx74]

Greetings all,

I'm wondering if this is just happening to me or is some kind of a widespread issue. As of at least the last week I've been having a problem of KRS no longer switching to full screen mode but instead appearing in a 'cut out' starting at the top left corner of the screen. In fact with my native resolution set to 1280x1024, the cutout is only 1024x768 so if RS is set up for native resolution, it'll simply appear with parts of its 'screen' cut off. Thus my only option for playing it is to start the game at 1280x1024 and then reduce the resolution manually in the Nvidia control panel.

What's more, RS will start if and only if the desktop resolution is set at 1280x1024 and will complain otherwise. What's bizarre about this is that it happens in both Linux [under Wine] and Windows XP in exactly the same fashion. These are the same binaries I've been running for months (MK2 update and the Dev Tools from August 08) which used to work fine. However, no other app has this switching resolutions problem and it happens with Nvidia drivers going all the way back to 178. (Again, these drivers used to work with KRS without any problems in the past).

Apart from trying to run KRS under 2 different OS'es with different Nvidia drivers, I have also repeatedly reinstalled KRS and its components and cleaned out the options.bin file which records the currently selected ingame resolution. Still, no go.

EDIT: Forgot to mention manually sanitizing the registry as well as doing all of the above. A screenshot of what I get has been posted to ( http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n14/ ... t=krs1.png )

Anyone experience this lately?

[Basherz]

(Just to display your image)

[AndiS]

I have not experienced this ever. But in windowed mode, KRS refuses to use the full size of your display, which is understandable. I.e., on my 1280x1024 display, I can only have a 1024x768 window. This makes me think that somewhere deep inside, KRS believes you want to run in windowed mode, while some other part knows that you don't.

Not that it helps you if you already cleaned out the registry and reinstalled ... I have no idea where else this info could be stored.

[Acorncomputer]

Hi

I have never had this before.
Are you trying to run in multi monitor mode?

[jkxx74]

I have not experienced this ever. But in windowed mode, KRS refuses to use the full size of your display, which is understandable. I.e., on my 1280x1024 display, I can only have a 1024x768 window. This makes me think that somewhere deep inside, KRS believes you want to run in windowed mode, while some other part knows that you don't.

Not that it helps you if you already cleaned out the registry and reinstalled ... I have no idea where else this info could be stored.

AndiS,

I was actually wondering the same and even considered the crazy notion that the data must be stored inside the RailSim loader exe (otherwise it's the options.bin file but it's some binary which means something to RS and nothing to me).

Idea: Would anyone be willing to mail me their options.bin (from the main KRS folder) file to jkxx2 -@- yahoo.com? (Especially if you are running RS in full screen 1280x1024.)

Geoff,

Checked this already but RS is specifically told that there is a single monitor only. The nvidia driver is instructed to accelerate a single screen as well.

Thank you both for the suggestions.

Regards,

jkxx

[Basherz]

No problem jk, and I also use those Resolutions.

Windows/Fullscreen uses the Options.bin, which, if you take a copy of this .bin for windowed mode and call it Options_Win.bin, and another for FScr mode and call it Options_FS.bin, you can make an executable to switch between bins without all the messing about.

[jkxx74]

Just *bumping* the thread because I haven't gotten a response from RailSimulator.com on this. (No worries, this will be the first and last time doing that so it won't be hanging out near the top for very long )

jkxx

[AndyM77]

If you need an "Official" response from RSDL then it's been said (by themselves for a while) that you need to use the "Official Forums" to get a reply.

[jkxx74]

Yes, hence that's what I have done. I'll stop beating the dead horse by updating this thread though.

Regards,

jkxx

[jkxx74]

I'm posting this for anyone who finds themselves experiencing a similar issue. Here's what I went through to get RS working:

1. Reinstall Windows, thoroughly formatting the drive in the process
(this should actually be your last if all else fails measure, it just happened to be the first step for me)

2. Install the latest video card driver for your system, any other applicable drivers
(Vista users with NVidia hardware: Avoid driver 18X.22 as it tends to crash when running RS. 18X.29 may have the same issue but I have not confirmed it.)

3. Install the DirectX 9.0c Redistributable package form Microsoft

4. Install Rail Simulator

5. Install the Mk1 and Mk2 updates and optionally the latest RsDevTools

6. Set application settings for running Rail Sim (things like AA, anisotropic filtering, etc.)

7. Try running Rail Simulator, if the graphical issue is there, proceed to step 8

8. Uninstall Rail Simulator completely, including both updates

9. Manually search the registry for any keys containing "RSDL", "Rail Simulator", and "RailSimulator" and remove all of them

10. Reboot twice

11. Uninstall the graphics driver and reboot again

12. Obtain the latest graphics driver and install it

13. Go back to step 4

Repeat this process until the issue is resolved. If it takes more than 5 RS reinstalls, then it might be necessary to reinstall Windows.

For the record, on my machine it took 8 reinstalls.

Cheers,

jkxx