Bizarre inventory scrolling problem

My friend and I like to each play single player CRPG games while chatting using TeamSpeak. We both have identical USB headsets, use PS/2 mice, Win98SE, the same mouse driver, the same (1.0.7.4) patched version of Arcanum, and the same version of TeamSpeak.

Unlike me, my friend cannot scroll down in followers' or shopkeepers' inventories while running TeamSpeak (which I believe to really be related to using the USB headset, not necessarily the TeamSpeak application - I bet it is some hardware conflict since I do not experience it with identical software).

If he tries carefully, he can drag the inventory elevator button down, but the instant he tries to move his mouse pointer into the inventory area, the inventory screen pops up to the top of the inventory so he cannot see the bottom half of the shopkeeper's or follower's inventory or purchase/tranfer items from there. This only happens when he is running TeamSpeak/using the headset.

What I find so puzzling is our software is so identical, as is our hardware for the most part. He has a regular Logitech mouse, I have a Microsoft mouse with a scroll wheel, we both use the default Microsoft mouse driver. I have no problems whatsoever.

This problem is making it difficult for us to chat while playing Arcanum, which is very annoying, since we got in the habot of chatting while playing Fallout and Fallout 2.

 

You talk about your external hardware being essentially identical, but how similar is the hardware inside your computers? If he has an older motherboard or one with an older BIOS, he could very well be experiencing a problem with non-support for that USB headset or a bad driver causing conflicts.

Also, what type of video cards are you both using and what vintage are the drivers on them? I can't advise about ATI/Radeon cards because I don't use them, but if you are using any version of nVidia card, you have to be sure not to update the drivers past the 53.04 version of the nVidia drivers or Arcanum will cease to run. You can experience other problems with any video card by having your system settings tuned improperly, i.e., so that they cause conflicts with Arcanum. There are numberous threads on that topic here and at the Sierra Forum.

I hope this helps some in isolating your problem.

 

Thanks for the tips, especially on the newer nVidea drivers.

The thing is, he has never experienced a problem playing other games like Homeworld, Fallout, and Fallout 2 while chatting with me on TeamSpeak. Nor has he experienced it while playing Arcanum while not using TeamSpeak. Only Arcanum has this problem, and only in the inventory interface, and only while using TeamSpesak - and I don't have the problem at all, TeamSpeak or not. I have looked around for posts on this problem but the only one did not involve USB headsets, only someone having this problem all the time, and the recommended advice was to use ths standard Microsoft mouse driver, which he already was.

I'll dig around some more, but other than that one post on Dimensions of Arcanum, I have found nothing remotely like this.

 

Your friend needs to logon here add ask the question. Your being helpful but he may say something a little different that will help the knowlegdable to aanswer the questions.

 

Problem Solved

Well I solved both his problems.

The TeamSpeak problem also occured, when we tested it, with Roger Wilco, and as I suspected was a mouse/headset conflict. I suggested he buy a new mouse, which he did (a Microsoft Optical mouse to replace his old Logitech mouse). The new mouse got rid of the scrolling problem in inventory while using TeamSpeak. This was without installing any drivers for it. It was purely a hardware problem (that only showed up when using both Arcanum and a chat program, strange but true).

He also was suffering severe slowdowns when playing - and when playing on non-safe mode, got black triangles all over the screen. Both these problems went away when he made the following adjustments in the System control panel under Performance: turned File System read-ahead down to zero and turned Graphics hardware acceleration down to zero. After that he could run Arcanum Fullscreen with no black triangles, and no slowdowns.

 

If he got the black triangles on Arcanum with graphics hardware acceleration enabled then he really should consider getting one of the the better nVidia cards as I discussed above. That would solve that problem while allowing him to use the graphics acceleration capabilities. His current graphics card probably has very little memory and is probably just barely capable of running Arcanum.

 

He has a small power supply and little money and is not a techie, and lives in another state - my help to him is over the phone. He is not going to spend a lot of money to get his machine upgraded for one game.

I am disturbed by the concept of the newer graphics cards coming with drivers which are incompatible with Arcanum. If you go and get an older driver somewhere, is it going to cause problems with newer games, or not take advantage of the card's full capabilities? Seems like Arcanum is kind of frozen in time - won't work with recent graphics card drivers, or XP SP2, will be hard to keep a machine around that can run it.

 

I can relate well to having very little money to work with for upgrades. I am retired on disability so I am on a fixed income and it has to support four people. Things don't have to cost a fortune to upgrade computers, but it does help if you know how to do the work yourself or have a friend or relative nearby who can do it for you at no cost except for parts. That is what I do for my family and sometimes they buy parts that I need.

As for the problem with the drivers and Arcanum, what I would really like to see happen is for everyone who loves to play Arcanum and has an nVidia graphics card to send an email to Troika asking them nicely to do something about fixing this incompatibility. Contacting Sierra and VU seems to be a lost cause because they won't even respond to the email. I do think that if enough of us were to contact Troika and if we are all nice then they might be willing to do something about this.