In-game text unreadable

[35263526]

Hey,

I'm having an issue with Dawn of War on my laptop. Basically, the game runs fine, with the exception that text simply won't render properly. When it's large (i.e. the size of text on buttons of the main menu screen), it's readable, but looks odd compared to when run on my desktop. When it gets any smaller (i.e. tooltip size), it becomes totally illegible. It's not really blurred so much as some of the pixels just aren't being rendered, meaning that large blocks of each character aren't shown.

I've been able to use Dawn of War without this problem on my laptop before, but I reinstalled Windows recently, and that's when it started. I reinstalled all the origional drivers and updated them through the manufacturer's site, the one exception being the driver for my Radeon Mobility Xpress 200, which I downloaded straight from ATI. The native resolution for my laptop is 1280x800; I've been running the game at 1024x768, but I get the problem at 800x600 as well. It occurs in Dawn of War, Winter Assault, and the Dark Crusade demo.

I've attached an image to illustrate the situation. Has anyone experienced this? I Googled the problem and the closest thing I got was instances of blocky or anti-aliased text, which doesn't seem to be occuring here. Any help would be appreciated.

[Stormsong]

While the problem is probably due to not running the game at your display's native resolution, you could try this (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=52262). FYI, according to Relic and THQ the full version of Dark Crusade will support widescreen resolutions(DoW, WA and the DC demo don't, as you will have noticed).

[ArTizan]

Do you AA enabled? This screws the ingame text up sometimes if you have it on in your windows 3D program.

[35263526]

While the problem is probably due to not running the game at your display's native resolution, you could try this (http://showthread.php?t=52262). FYI, according to Relic and THQ the full version of Dark Crusade will support widescreen resolutions(DoW, WA and the DC demo don't, as you will have noticed).
Tried alt-tabbing, but that hasn't fixed the issue. I don't think it's a resolution thing, b/c as I said, I've been able to play it without this problem on the laptop before. Plus, my desktop is a 16:10 widescreen display, so I play it at 1280x1024 on there without issues. I've used the Catalyst Control Center to try it with the image stretched to fit the whole screen, and with it centered at its resolution with black borders; both have the issue.

ArTizen]Do you AA enabled? This screws the ingame text up sometimes if you have it on in your windows 3D program.
I've set Catalyst to "Let the application decide" on AA settings. That being said, I've also tried forcing 2x, 4x, and 6x (including temporal AA), and while it makes the text more blurry, it doesn't make it any more readable. It's as if the left side of each character is too thin, so with small instances of text, it doesn't show up at all. As far as in-game AA options, I haven't done anything to turn it on, and it certainly doesn't look anti-aliased, so I don't think that's to blame.

[Stormsong]

Plus, my desktop is a 16:10 widescreen display, so I play it at 1280x1024 on there without issues.

Wait, how does that work if the native res. is at 1280x800?

Anyway, is the text still blurry without any AA enabled at all?

[35263526]

Wait, how does that work if the native res. is at 1280x800?
Sorry, should have been clearer. I've played on both my laptop and desktop. Both computers have widescreen monitors (so I have to run the game at the non-native resolution for both of them), but I only get this text problem on my laptop.

Anyway, is the text still blurry without any AA enabled at all?
With no anti-aliasing at all (keeping in mind that I can't actually switch it off with the ATI control panel, but I've told it to let the game decide and W40k.ini has it turned off), the text is still messed up.

I just uninstalled and reinstalled the Dark Crusade demo and I'm still getting the problem.

[typhoon87]

My friend is also having a simular issue. He is using an ATI X1600 pro. and all of the text half of the letter is missing some letters dont show up at all it also happens on the games menu. The next time I go to his house I was gonna get a screenshot and open a bug report. He asked me to help him out and I have tried every AA setting to every level. He is using the same monitor I have a VA1912wb by Viewsonic. So it cant run at native resoultion. Alt tabing fixes it unitll you click on something. then its back. I have a 9800 pro so we installed it at my house and it works fine. If we go ahead and change the resolution from 1024*768*32 to 1024*768*16 the text is fixed but all the colors are ugly in menus game and cutscenes. I tried going to micrsofts website and downloading the latest Direct X end user runtimes web update version and no luck. We also tried an uninstall then ran crapcleaner to get rid of registry entries then deleted the THQ folder then reinstalled it and no change.

EDIT 1: Menu and game text missing (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=106577) is now in bug reports. http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=106577