Laptop question....
 

OK I have a Sony Vaio with windows XP. I have a rage mobility graphics card with 8mb. The accelerator is set at full. The drivers are the most current.

But everthing is washed out.....or translucent. Is there something else I should do?

I did e-mail tech support at serenescreen, and they were a little baffled at the problem. They suggested redownloading directX 8. i have not done this yet. I just wanted to know if there was something else I am missing.

Also my version of XP did not come with the "fish" theme. I bought this notebook 2 weeks ago. It really does not matter to me because I want the full version. But I find that a little strange also.

Oh well.....again any help would be appreciated.

Thanks ....Avsfan

welllllll a 8mb video card will do that to ya ;p
Maybe ur video card doesn't support certain curves or something else that this screensaver has. Try upgrading the video card to 16mb laptop video card (and get a techy to install it for ya so u don't destroy ur laptop trying it). Also Try ajusting ur gamma to make it less washed out. BTW the screen saver trial only comes with the winXP plus CD which u have to buy seperatly.

I haven't seen the latest Vaio with the Rage Mobility, but I have a Compaq Presario with the same chip, and it works fine. It could be that the XP (DX8) drivers for the Vaio aren't quite ready for prime-time yet.

So it should not hurt to redownload those drivers right? (the DX8.1 drivers)

I would think not any ways.

Thanks for the response guys.

Well I'm basically really bummed about this. I really wanted this screen saver.....but alas I have done everything possible to rectify the problem...but no go, the whole thing is still transparent.

I downloaded the latest drivers for my ATI Rage card, redownloaded directx 8.1. Still have the problem. I scaled down my video acceleration slider from full to basic, the aqaurium immediatly came on but it was choppy and running in the "non hal" mode.

Man I'm bummed. You think maybe version 1.0 might work? I cannot think of anything else to do.

Are you absolutely sure you have the Rage Mobility chip. The symptoms sound exactly like what happens on the NeoMagic chip that Sony used in the previous Vaio laptop. What frame rate are you getting?

I positive it is the rage mobility chip....its the ATI Rage Mobility™ M6 graphics chip with 8mb sdram.

When the aquarium starts it runs at 20fps 1024x728 in the hal mode. But again everything is washed out during this mode.

Yes, that is a Rage Mobilty frame rate - the NeoMagic maxed out at about 9 fps.

Definitely a driver problem. Have you been downloading the drivers from Sony or ATI?

Well ATI does not carry the ATI mobility drivers for laptops, I had to get it from Sony.

The driver from Sony was new and only...say..... a week old on their website. So it was a definate upgrade from the older version. (I want to say the new version number is 6.13.10.5779)

Is the older driver still availabe?

Yes and no.

The old driver is not available on their website, but is available on my Driver CD that came with the computer.

What are you suggesting?

Just trying to determine if there are Win2000 drivers available. The WinXP drivers for several cards don't work, but reverting to Win2000 drivers usually fixes the problem.

You might try the drivers at:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers...ok/tm_730.html

Scroll down to "MS Windows 2000 Drivers", where there is a link for ATI Mobility M1 Version M6.11.25-T03.

Just a suggestion - I have no idea if these will work.

Thanks Jim

I will try it out...and let you know.

On whatever page you are downloading the Sony XP drivers, is there also a Win2000 option?

Jim I found a driver on another Vaio notebook page it is for the "ATI Rage™ Mobility-M1 AGP Display Driver" and the version number is 5.00.2195

Is this what I need/should be looking for? This is for Windows 2000.

I guess my concern is over the "Mobility M1" to my "Mobility M6" Is there a difference? I found another driver that is version 5.0.2195.4045.

No, the M6 is a Radeon, and the M1 is not. Whether the drivers would work or not, I don't know. Personally, I would try every Win2000 noebook driver I could get my hands on.