forum.EE2.eu

Temporary fix for the missing text problem in Empire Earth II.
(And for Crashes on Nvidia Optimus computers with Intel 12th / 13th Gen CPUs)

Players who bought new computers with the Intel Iris Xe / Intel Arc graphics card will experience a problem where the text is not displaying in Empire Earth II.
Additionally, if the computer uses Nvidia Optimus (has the second graphics card from NVIDIA), the game process might crash with Unhandled Exception on start.


Why this problem occurs?

The new Intel graphics cards do not support the DirectX 9 (and older) versions of DirectX natively. The company is cutting costs and punishes the customers who actually paid money for their products. In order to run old games, Intel's drivers use the Microsoft's D3D9On12 mapping layer.

After my efforts in researching the problem and creating a GitHub issue: Text is not displaying in Empire Earth II #57 - a very nice and helpful Microsoft developer focused on this problem and didn't leave our community in need. The problem was fully fixed.

Unfortunately, the fix will most likely arrive to all users in one of the next "big" yearly Windows 11 / 10 updates. Therefore players who want to play their favorite game still have to wait. Fortunately, Unofficial Patch 1.6 doesn't leave players in need, and I prepared a temporary fix for this problem.


How does the Unofficial Patch 1.6 Temporary Fix work?

Unofficial Patch 1.6 includes the Open Soruce version of D3D9On12, compiled by Dr.MonaLisa. When the fix is active, it loads the fix DLLs from "Unofficial Patch Files" folder, instead of the ones that come with Windows. Unfortunately, as explained by vdwtanner the open-source version of D3D9On12 is different. It provides a lower performance (FPS) than the version that comes with Windows. This is why you might notice a reduced performance.

Attempt 1: Enable fullscreen optimizations

Click to read: Enable fullscreen optimizations

In some cases the game crashing problem can be fixed by enabling fullscreen optimizations.
1. Start the game normally, and keep it running.
2. In the "Maximization Helper & Game Tweaker" window uncheck option: "Disable fullscreen optimizations".

Disable-fullscreen-optimizations.png (194.06 KiB) Viewed 9861 times

3. Click "YES" when the Launcher asks you to restart itself.

If it doesn't work, follow next steps.

Attempt 2: Activate the Temporary Fix

Click to read: How to activate the Temporary Fix?

1. Make sure you have got the newest version of Unofficial Patch 1.6 installed. Dr.MonaLisa's fix was added in version 1.5.9.005 (December 2022).
2. Copy and paste the following text to your Internet browser address bar and hit enter:
empireearth2://[CONF]FixMissingTextOnIntelIrisOrArcUseCustomD3D9On12WorsePerformanceVersion[/CONF][VALUE]1[/VALUE]
it should ask you to open the EE2 ver. 1.6 Launcher and automatically set the custom configuration command. If it doesn't work, please follow the steps below:

2b. In the UP1.6 Launcher, please click on the "Change UP1.6 Settings" button in order to open the Configuration Utility.
3. In the "Insert a custom configuration command" field, paste the following text:
FixMissingTextOnIntelIrisOrArcUseCustomD3D9On12WorsePerformanceVersion=1
4. Click "Submit" / "OK - Save Changes" and restart your game.
5. Enjoy game with the fixed text or fixed crash.
* In new versions of Unofficial Patch 1.6 you can check option "Missing Font/Text Fix" instead of typing the custom configuration command:

MissingTextFix.png (452.27 KiB) Viewed 6641 times

Attempt 3: If it still doesn't work, use the "UseWorkingDirectoryWorkaround":

Click to read: I activated the fix, but it still doesn't work?

In rare cases, the "UseWorkingDirectoryWorkaround" fix is also needed.
1. Copy and paste the following text to your Internet browser address bar and hit enter:
empireearth2://[CONF]UseWorkingDirectoryWorkaround[/CONF][VALUE]1[/VALUE]
it should ask you to open the EE2 ver. 1.6 Launcher and automatically set the custom configuration command. If it doesn't work, please follow the steps below:
2b. In the UP1.6 Launcher, please click on the "Change UP1.6 Settings" button in order to open the Configuration Utility.
3. In the "Insert a custom configuration command" field, paste the following text:
UseWorkingDirectoryWorkaround=1
4. Click "Submit" / "OK - Save Changes" and restart your game.

Solution for the low FPS problem after activating this fix:

Click to read: Solution for the low FPS problem after activating this fix

* These steps are not required after Unofficial Patch Update 1.5.9.006 (January 2023), because V-Sync gets automatically disabled.
1. In the UP1.6 Launcher, please click on the "Change UP1.6 Settings" button in order to open the Configuration Utility.
2. Check option "Disable V-Sync in DirectX 9".
3*. Optionally, check option "Remove 100 (or 64) FPS limit".
4. Click "OK - Save Changes" and restart your game.

You can still (and should) force the V-Sync using your Graphics Card configuration panel (for example NVIDIA Control Panel).

WARNING!

This fix doesn't work with the full-screen mode. The Launcher starts the game in the Borderless Windowed Mode whenever this fix was activated.

Do not click the ALT+ENTER hotkey during the game, or the game will crash.
After Unofficial Patch Update 1.5.9.006 (January 2023) the ALT+ENTER hotkey has been blocked when this fix is active.


If you have additional questions about this fix, please feel free to post in this topic.

I have tried this and still no text

I'm sorry JPKEA7, I wrote this tutorial in order to have a link for the changes log, but I didn't release the update 1.5.9.005 yet. I will try to release it today (maybe in a few hours). Then it will start working.

JPKEA7, can you try it now?

After applying this patch, the program runs very slowly. Is there any configuration that has not been set up properly?

------ my environment ----

win11
RTX 3070
32G RAM

Do you mean that you enabled the "No Text / Font Fix" in UP1.6 Settings?

It's possible that you disabled some other options when you were trying to resolve the issue. In this case click on the "Restore Default Config" button on the right panel of UP1.6 Settings, and then check the No Text Fix again.

Dr.MonaLisa wrote: ↑26 Aug 2024, 14:06 Do you mean that you enabled the "No Text / Font Fix" in UP1.6 Settings?

It's possible that you disabled some other options when you were trying to resolve the issue. In this case click on the "Restore Default Config" button on the right panel of UP1.6 Settings, and then check the No Text Fix again.

No, I just use the default configuration from UP1.6 installation.

Also, it seems that cheat codes not work yet since the text window can not be opened during the game.

I would try again later today, thanks for answering.

anqin wrote: ↑27 Aug 2024, 03:27 Also, it seems that cheat codes not work yet since the text window can not be opened during the game.

You can open the chat using the button on the top bar, without using ENTER.