After upgrading my GFX card to a DX9 Shader Model 3 card, I started getting random crashes while playing DarkAvatar. I have posted about this several times.

It doesn't _just_ crash it locks up my whole machine. This also happens with a few other programmes but DarkAvatar is by far the worst. The best way to crash it is to mouse wheel out the main map. That does it every time.

If it manages to write the lines to the debug file it always says that it has an error flipping the buffers and has lost the device. I know I'm not the only person to have this problem.

I have bought and returned the following GFX cards:
NVidia 7600 GT
ATI 2600 PRO
NVidia 7950 GT
They all have the same problems and my local supplier is getting well annoyed with me.

The 7950 was chosen and tested by the supplier who guaranteed that it was working perfectly and my machine could cope with it. And charged me an extra £30.00 for the service.

Returning to my steam-driven GFX card always fixed the problem, but the stars don't just dont look the same, do they?


Turning all the GFX options off has no effect. I have just learnt about the "softwarevp" command line switch which solved the problem. Now I can mouse wheel in and out to my hearts content.

I am sure that my shoe-horning a modern GFX card into my dodgy, old PC doesn't help, but most games and apps work just fine. I am sure that this is something particular to GC2 and Introversion's Darwinia. I'm just not sure what you are doing that is different to "Supreme Commander" or "SimCity4" for example.

Once in "softwarevp" mode and exiting cleanly I did notice this:
Debug Message: Device not cleared. 933 counts left.
That didn't look good. It was after about 10 seconds of frantic mouse wheel zooming on the main map.

If there is anything I can do to help you fix this problem please let me know or I will have to send another GFX card back for a refund...