Rise of Nations doesn't display properly on X220

[hungryandbored]

Screenshot of problem (bad parts circled in red): http://www.flickr.com/photos/72630287@N05/6556600187/in/photostream/

Specs: X220 4286 CTO, i5-2410M, 6GB RAM, windows 7 home premium 64 bit, intel hd graphics with driver version 8.15.10.2538

The game works fine except for the obvious display problems. Any help is appreciated!

[ColonelONeill]

What if you run it in Windows Compatibility mode?

[hungryandbored]

Nope, that didn't work. I suspect it's the intel graphics, and I was wondering if anyone else has had the same problem.

Any other suggestions appreciated though.

[RichardW]

It's quite possible that the Intel graphics isn't up to the task. What resolution are you running? Try a lower resolution or change some of the settings in the Intel graphics control panel.

[hungryandbored]

Yeah, I tried changing all the settings to no avail. I'm pretty sure it's just they need a better graphics driver. It can't be a problem with computing power cuz this game is 6 years old; it must be the driver. Is there any way to request that lenovo ask intel to fix their driver so it'll work with rise of nations? I asked them myself but they'd probably listen to you guys more than me.

[The_Solutor Guru]

Intel is still not AMD or Nvidia, even if the things are way better today than few years ago.

You can try a different revision of the video driver (newer or older) to see if something changes

[ColonelONeill]

I'd expect Rise of Nations to run full well.

Try this. Launch the game, Alt+Tab out, Task Manager, end Explorer.exe, Alt+Tab back. This trick is necessary for Starcraft 1 on Vista/7.

[hungryandbored]

Thanks for the suggestion... unfortunately killing explorer.exe didn't work. I don't think it's a windows issue - I tried running it in compatibility mode and it made no difference. And, the game operates without any error messages, it just doesn't display all the text and text boxes - which are kind of crucial to be able to play properly.

I guess I could try all the different revisions of the driver but I doubt any would work. I think I've already updated it twice and rise of nations has never displayed everything properly yet.

[ColonelONeill]

Hmm. Curious, do you have DPI set to 100%?

Maybe set the compatibility setting to Windows 98? AOE2 works fine for me without compatibility tweaks.

[PeterTWJ]

Hi hungryandbored

You could try changing power plan to Maximum Performance (Lenovo) or High Performance (Intel), this affects graphics performance also.

How about trying drivers from Intel website?

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Graphics&ProductLine=Laptop...

Cheers 

Peter
ThinkPad: W520 (4284-A99)

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