Video Corruption on Transformer Book T100HA while playing older games

[MMFan798]

Last December I bought an ASUS Transformer Book T100HA 2-in-1 specifically to play re-packaged old-school games from GOG.com while travelling. It has a Cherry Trail Intel Atom SoC. It worked perfectly for my purpose until recently, when it automatically upgraded to the "Creators Update" (Windows 10 version 1703).

I re-imaged the machine to clear the gunk from the upgrade and then I reinstalled Might and Magic 6. When I launched the game, it did run, but the entire right edge of the screen was just gray. About 20% of the screen was covered in gray. Since the opening menu is on the right side and was obscured, I had to Alt-F4 to get out of the game. I have this problem no matter what I set the scaling mode to; preserve aspect ratio or stretch the image, it does not matter. GOG.com has certified their version of Might and Magic 6 for Windows 10, but it's a DirectDraw game from 1996 so it's not at all demanding.

I re-imaged the machine again and tried again, to no avail. I was beginning to think my GPU was failing so I installed MSI Kombustor and set it for 800x600 resolution, full screen. I tried several different tests using the same settings and I saw no corruption, so I'm pretty sure I can rule out a hardware problem.

My wife has an ASUS T102HA that came with Windows 10 1607 which I tested as well. All my games worked fine until the machine upgraded to Windows 10 1703, then I had the exact same problem I did on my T100HA.

I've also tried every combination of graphics settings in the Intel control panel and compatibility modes I could think of, with no luck. I also tried to upgrade my GPU driver but there is no new driver available. Windows won't let me install the drivers from Intel's website and I'm using the most recent driver from ASUS.

I had the exact same problem with Might and Magic 8 and Baldur's Gate (the original; the Enhanced Edition from Steam works perfectly), but all the games I tried seem to run perfectly on my gaming desktop (GTX 970) and my old Toshiba laptop (Radeon HD 7670M), both of which also run Windows 10 1703. It seems there's some interaction between Intel's video drivers and the latest version of Windows 10 when trying to run low-resolution fullscreen games.

I did find one workaround that worked for Might and Magic 6, but not for other games. If I start the game, and then detach the keyboard, then rotate the screen, then rotate it back, then re-attach the keyboard, the game works normally until I alt-tab, then the game will be corrupted again when I go back into it. However, since this trick only works for Might and Magic 6, it would be nice to find a more comprehensive solution.

I love ASUS and I own a lot of ASUS stuff, but if I can't fix this it will be a huge disappointment.

Any help is appreciated.

[cl-Albert]

Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately, not sure what the problem is, but assuming it is software-related for now if everything was working before the Win10 Creator's update.

Not sure if you tried returning to the previous version of Windows which should have uninstalled the Creator's update, but also assume you didn't have a back-up of the original working image, so just guessing you may be missing some software or patches with your current Windows image.

If you haven't, carefully look over all the downloads at the ASUS T100HA download site to see if there may have been anything important that was skipped (like the chipset driver?).

Otherwise, consider installing ASUS Live Update as well just to see if it finds anything to install or update that isn't posted on the ASUS download site.

Don't expect you want to send back the unit to ASUS for re-imaging (which hopefully can solve the problem?), but maybe something to consider later on if you're interested.

Anyway, hope this is able to help or others have better ideas. thanks.

[MMFan798]

Thanks so much for the response! I did re-install a bunch of drivers from ASUS' website, but going back to version 1607 isn't really an option because it would just upgrade to 1703 again because the Home edition of Windows 10 doesn't let you postpone upgrades. Theoretically I could spend $100 on the Pro version but that would just delay the upgrade by several months and then I would have the same problem down the road, so that's probably not worth it.

I have made some progress on game-by-game basis though. In addition to the aforementioned trick for Might and Magic 6, somebody made a d3d compatibility layer that works well for Might and Magic 7 and 8, found here: https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/16555 - It has the beneficial side-effect of making those games look better, but also makes the mouse sluggish, though that's not the end of the world because combat in the Might and Magic games is (optionally) turn-based.

Pretty much everything from Steam works fine, it's just the GOG stuff that doesn't work well. I supposed I just need to pony up for "remastered" or "enhanced edition" versions of stuff I want to play. Not an ideal solution, but it will work for now.

I get the feeling that this would be fixed if ASUS releases a new Intel video driver for my device. I'm not holding my breath, but I do hope they see this thread and realize that they should do this anyway for new versions of Windows 10.

Thanks again!

[BanananaJoe]

Hello MMFan798 and Community,

after managing to update my T100HA i also ran into the problem you described.
I don't use games from GOG, i tried two old games Settler 4 and another one.
Before the Update i had no issues, after it i was also facing a irritating bar at the right side.
At Settlers it is partly the desktop-screen partly black.
The other game is just black.
The bar-screen seem to be a display problem. The game is running infront and is in full resolution, as i can click the parts i can't see.

It seemed first to be the infocenter, but deactivating this didn't chance a thing.
Severel tries and errors left me pretty frustrated.
You seem to be the only post with a similar failure.

Did you manage to make the games running again?

Sorry for my bad english.

Best regards.

[MMFan798]

BanananaJoe wrote:
Hello MMFan798 and Community,

after managing to update my T100HA i also ran into the problem you described.
I don't use games from GOG, i tried two old games Settler 4 and another one.
Before the Update i had no issues, after it i was also facing a irritating bar at the right side.
At Settlers it is partly the desktop-screen partly black.
The other game is just black.
The bar-screen seem to be a display problem. The game is running infront and is in full resolution, as i can click the parts i can't see.

It seemed first to be the infocenter, but deactivating this didn't chance a thing.
Severel tries and errors left me pretty frustrated.
You seem to be the only post with a similar failure.

Did you manage to make the games running again?

Sorry for my bad english.

Best regards.

Thanks for your response!

I did find a crude workaround. If you start the game, detach the keyboard, tilt the tablet vertically so the screen rotates, then tilt it back horizontally so it rotates again, then re-attach the keyboard, the game looks normal and can be played. If you minimize the game and then re-maximize it, the gray bar will re-appear, but you can repeat these steps and it should work again.

This workaround works for some games, but not others. It works for Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3, (all from GOG) but not for Tradewinds Odyssey and Tradewinds Caravans (both from steam).

Games that have native support for 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions (like Age of Empires 2 HD Edition and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Enhanced Editions from Steam or the remastered version of the original Starcraft, all of which I highly recommend on this tablet) work normally without any workarounds.

I do NOT have this problem on any of my other fully-updated Windows 10 machines, like my old laptop with a Radeon HD 7670 or my desktop with a GTX 970, so I suspect that this is a video driver issue. For Intel Atom chips, the GPU driver must come from the computer manufacturer, not directly from Intel, and I think ASUS failed to update their drivers when the Windows 10 Creator's Update was released. Are you listening, ASUS? ARE YOU?

Your English is great btw. I couldn't tell that you aren't a native speaker. 🙂

EDITED TO ADD:

Might and Magic 8 had some compatibility modes enabled when I first installed the game. I had to disable all compatibility options for my "screen tilt" workaround to work, or the screen would be corrupted after tilting the screen.

[BanananaJoe]

Thanks MMFan798 for your fast response.

Your workaround works for one of the games.
For Settlers 4 sadly not.
While tilting the bar switches from side to bottom and then back.
Funny enough by doing this trick the desktopresolution will stay the same when closing the game.

As you stated it happened since the creators update and something seems to be missed out by Asus.
Very sad.
On other Computers it works fine.
I'm not sure if it is Asus or Intel graphic.

By the way did you encounter the issue of spontaneous connection loss to the keyboard? Reattaching works, but it is still an odd thing to happen.

Thank you and best regards.

[MMFan798]

Glad I could help! (at least a little)

Yes, the desktop resolution will stay at the game's resolution after quitting the game. If you right click anywhere on the desktop you'll get a menu that you can use to restore the resolution after quitting the game (but you probably already figured that out).

I haven't had much issue with the keyboard staying connected. That happens to me occasionally but not often enough for me to consider it a big problem. These machines are pretty cheap and this might be physical problem with the connector.