Wrong colors :(

[Andrey]

Hi
When i'm started the game, i got a problem with colors i have all picture in pixels with random colors in intro movies and in main menu.
Anyone have same problem? is anyone fixes it?
My system spec is
AMD FX8320
Radeon 7970
24Gb Ram
Win 7x64

[Zeorymer - Battling Cancer]

With it being an older game, I'm assuming something happens with how it's quickly rendered.

I alt-tab to fix this problem. Minimize the game, then go back into it, see if it fixes it. If it doesn't, alt tab again, and go back full screen. I noticed that seems to restore the colors to the way they should be.

[Andrey]

Hi Zeorymer
I try your solution and its not working for me :(

[Sean Mirrsen]

I gave the solution elsewhere, basically it is because of color depth.
One solution is to go into the game's Visual options and adjust the gamma - for some reason it tends to work. If it happens in-game, F2 to bring up the menu and there will be the same Gamma slider in the Visual settings block.

Another possible solution is setting Totala.exe's compatibility options to always use 16-bit colors.

And, IIRC, the Unofficial Patch in the thread pinned at the top of the forum is supposed to fix it, but it adds many other things, and breaks the music selector (at least for most people), so I'd advise to try other options first.

[Andrey]

Hi Sean Mirrsen, thanks for reply
I try to adjust gamma in game - no chanes for me
I try to set compatibility mode to TotalA.exe to use 256 colors - no changes

So i think its time to read huge pinned post and research problem some more using links from it

[Tepeltijgertje (Hunter_248)]

Humm on my part I noticed when Windows 7 changed my background my collours gone crazy... So then I disabled the autocycling background and that fixed it for me

[Sean Mirrsen]

A more thorough fix could be to use DxWnd. - http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/
It's a neat little program that provides an emulated DirectX rendering window for old Windows games to run in.
I recently tried it out, and it runs the game very well for me. Even fullscreen, it doesn't allow the game's 640x480 main menu to break my desktop resolution.

[MAD]

**************************************************************************************************************
The problem is a conflict between the original colour pallet and windows new colour palet

you can easly fix this by disabling Windows Explorer while the game runs with a batch file
create a txt file, add the 3 lines to it and save it as TA.bat

eg
TA.bat
____ taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
____ C:\games\steam/steamapps/common/Total Annihilation/TAE.exe
____ start explorer.exe

please note that the path for steam is most likely different than mine as I stick all my games in the C:\game directory in order to give my PC some semblance of organization.
The same batch file is also recomended for any game pre windows XP
I use it all the time with dosbox

its very bad form on the behalf of the people who released TA not to have added that to the steam edition
**************************************************************************************************************

[Sean Mirrsen]

I prefer not to kill Explorer, because I might need to tab out of the game to do something. Like. Literally anything that doesn't involve the game. It's far better to solve the issue in other ways.

I have to add, again, that for some configurations (like mine) the issue fails to arise in the first place.

[MAD]

Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:

I prefer not to kill Explorer, because I might need to tab out of the game to do something. Like. Literally anything that doesn't involve the game. It's far better to solve the issue in other ways.

I have to add, again, that for some configurations (like mine) the issue fails to arise in the first place.

THE LAST LNE OF THE BATCH FILE RESTARTS eXPLORER

[Andrey]

Originally posted by MAD:

**************************************************************************************************************
The problem is a conflict between the original colour pallet and windows new colour palet
...

This solution not worked for me

[Sean Mirrsen]

Originally posted by MAD:

THE LAST LNE OF THE BATCH FILE RESTARTS eXPLORER

Oh, I had assumed it would stay disabled throughout the game's running. If it relaunches immediately, I don't see how it would fix anything - the desktop color depth would be reset as soon as you got past the intro cinematic, and again when you left the main menu to start the game proper, because of the resolution changing.

[MAD]

Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:

I don't see how it would fix anything .

why does it feel like I am being trolled
.... it disables explored before launching the game and restarts explorer when you exit TA

TA.bat
____ taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
____ C:\games\steam/steamapps/common/Total Annihilation/TAE.exe
____ start explorer.exe

[MAD]

Originally posted by Andrey:

Originally posted by MAD:

**************************************************************************************************************
The problem is a conflict between the original colour pallet and windows new colour palet
...

This solution not worked for me

sorry to hear that but I run windows 7 and it works flawlessly for me

[Andrey]

Problem solved for me. I just update video drivers to latest version and colors now correct!

[Angel]

Originally posted by MAD:

**************************************************************************************************************
The problem is a conflict between the original colour pallet and windows new colour palet

you can easly fix this by disabling Windows Explorer while the game runs with a batch file
create a txt file, add the 3 lines to it and save it as TA.bat

eg
TA.bat
____ taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
____ C:\games\steam/steamapps/common/Total Annihilation/TAE.exe
____ start explorer.exe

please note that the path for steam is most likely different than mine as I stick all my games in the C:\game directory in order to give my PC some semblance of organization.
The same batch file is also recomended for any game pre windows XP
I use it all the time with dosbox

its very bad form on the behalf of the people who released TA not to have added that to the steam edition
**************************************************************************************************************

2 questions on this post.
1. must this file then be saved In your Total Annihilation folder?
2. Does this small txt file in theory also work for other older games such as Roller Coaster that i also got from steam but struggles with the exact same problem?