Hey guys,

Tired of using my CD, I decided to plop for the Steam version of WA. Apart from the annoyance of having all my desktop windows screwed with when the game is in menu (any fix to that I should know about, by the way? It gets annoying having to resize everything after) it works great. However, when I try to actually play or game (or finish one and try to get back into the menu) I get an error popup that basically tells me there was an error in the front end rendering, and the game crashes.

Using a 6950 2GB, and the rest of my PC specs are extremely high end. Just wondering what's happening here when everything was fine on the CD version?

The Steam version uses a new software renderer, which should fix some problems, but apparently introduces some others.

Can you post the exact error message?

The Steam version uses a new software renderer, which should fix some problems, but apparently introduces some others.

Can you post the exact error message?

**Error** : from Graphics Subsystem, Can't create video surfaces

I also noticed when playing in a small default map that the rendering was crazy. The particle effects in the background just smeared like some kind of mouse pointer effect, and the background itself was just all over the place, but only on the very top half.

Weird.

**Error** : from Graphics Subsystem, Can't create video surfaces

I also noticed when playing in a small default map that the rendering was crazy. The particle effects in the background just smeared like some kind of mouse pointer effect, and the background itself was just all over the place, but only on the very top half.

Weird.
I noticed the exact same rendering problem you described on my fairly high end system with GTX480 video card. Only when the background was enabled. I haven't tried to recreate the problem yet, and I don't even know if I was using the steam or the CD version. Probably steam because I haven't noticed this before. I'll edit this post later with some details. [/unhelpful]

We'll look into this. In the meantime, have you tried updating your video drivers?

We'll look into this. In the meantime, have you tried updating your video drivers?

Yep, on the latest ATI drivers.

Was the game recently updated and I missed it? Just wondering.

Tried WA again tonight as I was really bored and it works fine now. As a bonus, the game doesn't cause all my desktop windows (skype, chrome etc) to scale to horrifically small sizes anymore. I REALLY hated that.

I think I am in love.

Sorry about the delay. I tried this on both my CD version and Steam version. No graphical issues with the Steam one. But with the CD version (which I can't seem to load without ProjectX -- I rename the wkPX.dll and it complains the dll is not found when launching via WA.exe) it's the same issue OP described.

I play with the background off usually so it doesn't bother me. It's actually kind of fun to play around with. It smears the background debris around too if it's enabled.

Screenshot: http://www.sendspace.com/file/jvkzxj

Have you tried updating your drivers?