Weird graphical bug at startup

[hi there (name sux)]

Hi. I'm not getting any crashes at start up, but I am getting a strange graphical bug. It's hard to explain so just look at the picture. I can maneuver around the screen, zooming in and zooming out and moving side to side, but everything is incomprehensible in this mess. It is also extremely laggy, like 5 fps. Note that this isn't in the actual first level of the game - this is where you choose the levels (I think the first one is called Garden but I may be mistaken). I don't have a blackbox because, again, I don't crash.

My system:
3.2 GHz Intel CPU
512 RAM
Mobility Radeon 9000

As for drivers, I have the latest OMEGA drivers for my radeon 9000. Note that ATI stopped supporting the radeon 9000 quite a while ago, so I have the latest ones that actually work with this card, not the latest ATI drivers available (they no longer support my card).

Also, I am using the Steam version of the game, which I am assuming is the latest.



Darwinian worked a year or so ago but I heard they had some major graphical conversion that could possibly make it not work on my computer any longer.

Thank you and please tell me if you need more information.

[xander]

The problem is almost certainly your graphics card. As far as I know, the only way to solve the problem is to downgrade to a pre-1.5 version of the game (assuming that Steam has updated you to 1.5). I don't know how you would go about downgrading the Steam version.

xander

[hi there (name sux)]

I can play the prologue fine. The problem seems to be only with the world map. I tried the trick of setting bootloader to none, and startmap to garden, but it didn't work. It just brings me to the main world map.

I also contacted Steam support to see if I can run an older version. I haven't received any reply yet.

[xander]

You might try moving the files to another directory, and downloading the 1.4.2 patch from IV.

xander

[hi there (name sux)]

That did the trick. I do have something to add though: now I must run the game by clicking on the exe in my Steam folder. If I click on "Defcon" in the steam interface, it reverts back to the normal problem. I assume this is because steam updates it (even if you have it set to "do not update"). Hopefully this can help someone who has the same problem.

Steam support replied to my message. They said you can't run an older version of a game on Steam, but it seems we have found a way around that.

Thanks.