monitor blacks, says "Out of range"

Raighne

Hi,
I freshly installed Half Life and Natural Selection and tried changing my resolution to 800x600 and I got an error message and said "Switching to Software mode" I then tried joining a server and got a black screen that says "This server doesn't support software mode" or something. I went back and switched my Video Options from Software Mode to D3D and my resolution to 800x600 and now the game blacks out and my monitor gives me it's factory error message that says "Out of range."

The game will load, I can hear the background music, and can hear my mouse hover over the options but the game won't show on my monitor now. I can't change the resolution back to an acceptable one if I can't see the options to do it!

I've uninstalled, deleted the game files, updated my video drivers, re-downloaded the game... had my buddy file-share his Half Life game file and replaced mine with his.... all to no avail. The video settings must be saved in the Steam client somewhere or something if none of these attempts solved the problem. Is there a way to restore video settings to default without being in the game? I'm out of ideas... Thank you in advance

pSyk0mAn

There is probably a way to change it back to OPENGL, but I don't know it.

In the meantime you could try some programms like refreshforce in order to fix the refreshrate at 800x600 which is probably the cause for your monitor not working.
<a href="http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/" target="_blank">http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/</a>

If you get proper hz with 800x600, change back to OPENGL.


Edit: You could also try to run it with -windowed, maybe that fixes the refreshrate problem.

Faskalia

<!--quoteo(post=1777830:date=Jul 11 2010, 07:45 PM:name=Raighne)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Raighne @ Jul 11 2010, 07:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1777830"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hi,
I freshly installed Half Life and Natural Selection and tried changing my resolution to 800x600 and I got an error message and said "Switching to Software mode" I then tried joining a server and got a black screen that says "This server doesn't support software mode" or something. I went back and switched my Video Options from Software Mode to D3D and my resolution to 800x600 and now the game blacks out and my monitor gives me it's factory error message that says "Out of range."

The game will load, I can hear the background music, and can hear my mouse hover over the options but the game won't show on my monitor now. I can't change the resolution back to an acceptable one if I can't see the options to do it!

I've uninstalled, deleted the game files, updated my video drivers, re-downloaded the game... had my buddy file-share his Half Life game file and replaced mine with his.... all to no avail. The video settings must be saved in the Steam client somewhere or something if none of these attempts solved the problem. Is there a way to restore video settings to default without being in the game? I'm out of ideas... Thank you in advance<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right click Half-Life inside the steam game list->properties->set launch options

Use the following parameters to force the resolution you want:

-w <width> - Forces the engine to start with resolution set to <width>. Ex: -w 1024
-h <height> - Forces the engine to start with resolution set to <height>. Ex: -h 768

Raighne

<!--quoteo(post=1777832:date=Jul 11 2010, 07:07 PM:name=pSyk0mAn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (pSyk0mAn @ Jul 11 2010, 07:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1777832"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There is probably a way to change it back to OPENGL, but I don't know it.

In the meantime you could try some programms like refreshforce in order to fix the refreshrate at 800x600 which is probably the cause for your monitor not working.
<a href="http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/" target="_blank">http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/</a>

If you get proper hz with 800x600, change back to OPENGL.


Edit: You could also try to run it with -windowed, maybe that fixes the refreshrate problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

By the time I had received replies I had uninstalled half-life, natural selection, and even Steam to try and get rid of all video preferences. During my reinstalling I received your advice. Even un/reinstalling everything didn't work, but refreshforce worked like a charm. Definitely bamboozled as to why totally fresh, new preferences wouldn't work but I'm definitely glad you responded :)

As for the load settings, I didn't even give them a shot but thanks for that tip too Faskalia. I appreciate the help from both of yas.

Happy fragging