Worms Armageddon: Water and sky are black

[kvn8907]

I installed Worms Armageddon on my computer, and by and large it works fine. Trouble is, in the game the water beneith the waves is pitch black, as well as the top part of the sky.

I tried the FAQ at http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7166 but that didn't help me.

I searched the forum for "black water", but all I got was this:
http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=33223&highlight=black+water
which didn't help because I have version 3.00, and when I installed 3.6.28.0, all it did was make the introduction and main menu colors weird, and didn't even fix my problem

and this:
http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3159&highlight=black+water
Which I'm not really sure what to make of, because I have DirectX 10 as well as the DirectX 6 the game came with (I tried it with and without installing the optional DirectX 6, but it didn't make a difference) and I'm using NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150, as you can see in the DxDiag document I included.

So what can I do? It seems a few others have had this problem before, it it doesn't seem like their solutions will work for me.

Oh, P.S., I tried pressing Insert in the game, but that didn't help.

[Muzer]

That seems to be a new one. For the colour problem, try looking at my unofficial FAQ, the official one is way out of date. It's at the top of the Worms Armageddon forum (like, right at the top). I'm to tired to provide a link.

[CyberShadow]

This is a driver issue, present in older nVidia/Vista drivers. Please update your drivers.

[kvn8907]

I went to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us and did an automatic search of what Graphics Driver I need. It told me to go to HP for my driver. So I went there and after imputing my system information it told me at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&cc=us&product=1842155&dlc=en&lang=en that I should download "NVIDIA VGA Driver". So I did, but sky and water were still black after I was finished. There also doesn't seem to be much difference when I did another DxDiag.

[CyberShadow]

I don't think I can help you, then; this is a driver problem, not a W:A one. You could circumvent this problem by running W:A in a virtual machine.

[kvn8907]

How do you mean?

What's a virtual machine?

[bonz]

What's a virtual machine?
A virtual computer in your computer.

[kvn8907]

A virtual computer in your computer.

I swear, this has got to be the least helpful Support I've ever gotten for a game.

[CyberShadow]

Official support is over here (http://team17.com/support.html), but don't be surprised if they will be even less helpful.
1) This is a support forum where forum members can provide help to other forum members.
2) Worms Armageddon was released in 1999. That's 9 years ago.
3) Worms Armageddon was released way before Windows Vista was. Be glad the game works at all.
4) Don't assume your time is more important than ours. If you can't even look up the meaning of something using Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=virtual+machine) or Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine), maybe you should get yourself acquainted a bit more with the Internet.

[kvn8907]

You got that right. I went over to the official support, and they didn't even have an option for Windows Vista, so I couldn't even submit a support form.

Though telling me a virtual machine is "A virtual computer in your computer" really gets me nowhere. There's really nothing I can do to constructively respond to a comment like that.

Indeed, I should have gone to Wikipedia to look up Wikipedia first thing and done away with the question "What's a virtual machine?". But now that I know what it is, I'm still stuck, and haven't a clue which virtual machine I should install.

[CyberShadow]

Microsoft Virtual PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx) is free and is known to run W:A well enough.

[kvn8907]

First it told me that I didn't have the right opperating system (Vista Home Premium isn't in the requirements http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/sysreq.mspx) but installed the program anyway.

Then when I tried to run a virtual machine, it booted and gave me a little spinning thing for about 2 minutes, before saying "No boot filename recieved", then "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device".

I've never used a Virtual Machine before. Please bear with me. :(

[Muzer]

You have to put into the CD drive of your computer a CD from an older version of Windows that WA will run on, preferably '98, for the VM to install. If it doesn't work, make sure it's mounted (it's in a menu option somewhere, I can't remember where)

[kvn8907]

What if I don't have a CD with an older version of Windows?

[Muzer]

Then you can't, or if you can *ahem* locate an ISO image, you can mount that in the software.

[kvn8907]

Alright, thanks for the help anyway.

That's the trouble with being experienced with computers. Then often if you can't fix a computer's problem, often others can't either :-/.

[franpa]

it doesnt have to be older o_O well, maybe for the vista versions with the virtual clause in them...

[Muzer]

Older is better, otherwise it runs like ****.

[kvn8907]

Well actually, I've been trying to run it on my laptop because I wanted to play it with some friends, but it wouldn't work on the school's computer. But then, after installing Delta Force: Task Force Dagger, I realized the school computers by defult don't have DirectDraw and Direct 3D acceleration enabled (and the computer gets reverted everytime you log off). So, I ran DxDiag, enabled DirectDraw, and not only did TFD run fine, but I re-installed Worms Armageddon and that ran perfectly on the school computer.

So, though the water and sky on my Vista laptop is still black as pitch, at least I got it to run on the school's Windows XP computers (and I already finished the WA missions years ago). So it's not all all bad :D

Now if only my laptop would correctly run Medieval: Total War and Blitzkrieg >.>.

[kikumbob]

Out of mass curiosity, are Worms Armageddon and the other two games the only games you've tried to run on your laptop? Have any games actually run correctly?

[kvn8907]

Out of mass curiosity, are Worms Armageddon and the other two games the only games you've tried to run on your laptop? Have any games actually run correctly?

I just got my laptop last Summer.

Lets see, I played Age of Mythology for nearly all the time, but I've also installed and ran correctly:
Sim Tower
Age of Wonders
Black and White
Rome Total War
...
I think that's it.

Bear in mind, it also has rather low system specs. They're all in that DxDiag file I uploaded, but in short, I have 1.9 GHz and 1982 MB of RAM. So Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter ran, but it was slow to the point of being unplayable.

[marymary]

Ok, so we have a laptop with vista (sigh) and it wont run WA. So we tried the MS virtual PC and successfully put win me on it. 98se wouldnt install needed drivers for virtual pc and the only other disk I have is winme. winme installed perfectly and it runs well. WA still will not play even in the winme environment. Upon launching the game the screen goes black and I can hear the intro. Pushing esc to bypass the intro has no effect. Also can't get back to the winme desktop and have to reboot winme. The video card for winme in virtual machine is a s3trio card, is that whats wrong? Can someone point me in the right direction the get WA to run in virtual PC? It's been a fun experiment and really cool to drag and drop from host to virtual PC. Sort of funny to put Virtual PC in full screen mode and show someone that you downgraded the OS since many have thought winme was the worst OS to date. Thanks in advance for any input on getting this to work.

Mary

[KRD]

You could try running the game from a shortcut that has something to this effect in its Target line [right click it and select Properties]:

"C:\Team17\Worms Armageddon\WA.exe" -nointro

That could work if the only problem was with the intro screens, but screen modes change as you switch between the frontend and the actual game anyway, so it might not get you very far. The graphics card being emulated could of course be the problem as well, but I don't know much about S3 cards or their drivers.

Have you tried looking for the drivers needed to run 98SE in Virtual PC? I've never had any problems with WA on that OS.

[CyberShadow]

It seems like W:A will only run in a virtualised Win2000 or XP...

[franpa]

anyone tried it in virtual pc with the machine add on's?

[Muzer]

That makes the mouse go spastic when in-game

[franpa]

Ah, ok then :)

[kvn8907]

*sigh* Why did Windows have to mess with XP, just a few years after they worked all the bugs out of it? :(

Sure, some games run, but it's irritating to not know whether it'll run or not, and moreso than usual mind you because there's a good chance it won't run on Windows.

Anyway marymary, mine would run, though only the in-game graphics were having troubles.

[franpa]

blame your video card manufacturer for not making good drivers. not microsft screwing up winXP.

[kvn8907]

blame your video card manufacturer for not making good drivers. not microsft screwing up winXP.

Who says Widows screwed up winXP?

[bonz]

Who says Widows screwed up winXP?
http://www.themexp.org/screenshots/small/boot/46451.jpg