Help! black screen after movie+logos (retail)

[AloN]

I installed the game, patched it to 1.2, and when I start the game I see the logos, the movie and after that I hear a "klik" from my monitor and the screen goes black, I hear music but can't see the menu.. I tryed the 45.54 driver set, I tryed to change the game menu resoulotion manually, I tryed to lower my monitor to 800*600.. but nothing worked..

I have geforce mx440, 71.20 driver set..

[Keith]

You may want to uninstall your latest Nvidia drivers and then install the 61.77 version from July 2004. This has proven to be the least problematic driver.

Also, you have a integrated audio card that has 4 year old sound drivers. See if you can find updated drivers or get yourself a new sound card.

[AloN]

You may want to uninstall your latest Nvidia drivers and then install the 61.77 version from July 2004. This has proven to be the least problematic driver.

Also, you have a integrated audio card that has 4 year old sound drivers. See if you can find updated drivers or get yourself a new sound card.

I tryed to uninstall the 71.20 driver set, and then I used the "Driver Cleaner 3"
to completly remove it, And then I installed the 61.77 but It's still the same problem as before.. Logos,Movie, Black screen + music..

Maybe it could be because the very old audio drivers?
I tryed to look for new drivers but I can't find..

EDIT: I uploaded the new dxdiag..

[Keith]

We seem to have eliminated the video card and driver as the problem, so, yes, your audio drivers may be the problem.

I had reports of similar problems when Lords of the Realm III was first released. In some cases old audio drivers were causing the same sort of black screen.

Just as an experiment, you may want to try deleting the files in the game's \DATA\MOVIES folder on your hard drive.

Then start the game, and before it reaches the black screen open the drive bay that has the game CD in it to prevent the the CD being read.

What we are trying to do is to see if skipping past the opening videos for Myelin and TM will allow you to accesss the game's main menu.

If you know the model number of your motherboard the Intel site has a list of motherboard types for P4s and from there you may be able to find a driver update for your Intel Integrated Audio chipset.

http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/ (http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/)

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[AloN]

No, still black screen in the main menu.. So now it's skipping the movie and jump right to the black screen menu..

And I don't know the modal number.. How can I check?

edit: I forgot to mention that I tryed to reinstall the game (after I did what you said about the movies and the CD) and when I open it now (I didn't patched it to 1.2) the logo and the movie are really small, like 1/3 of the screen, but just centered.. could it be that the game is using a resoloution that is above my monitor's resoloution?

[Keith]

Possibly it has to do with the resolution. Normally those splash screens are full screen.

I'm still more inclined to think that it's your audio setup. I'm not sure what to tell you about finding out what model your motherboard is. If you bought your system ready to run you should talk with the people that sold it to you.

[AloN]

haha, I entered the CotN.ini and start doing thing from 1 to 0 and from 0 to 1.. I started the game and it's working..

I see the Menu, but I found out that I'm playing in a window mode and not a full screen.. :P

So now I can see the menu and the options and I even entered the tutorial..
But It's hard to play in window mode.. The game is moving really slow and the cursor often get "lost"..

So now I know that this is not audio problem.. It's something with the video card and the refresh rates, because that in the window mode I think the refresh rate is low.. so my really old monitor can support it.

[Manni]

@Alon

you can get a free version of a tool called EVEREST HOME EDITION from LAVALYS here:

http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en

when installed it`ll show you all the hardware-details including motherboard/type/chipset in a nice window
which is inside your pc

Have a try!

[AloN]

Thanks for trying to help but I manage to finally solve the problem..

It was in front of my eyes all the time.. In the dxdiag window I entered the "Additional help" and then to the DirectDraw's refresh rate, and I changed it to 60.. and now the game working in full screen and everything is fine, I gonne patch it now.

Thank you very much Keith for the help.

oh btw I saw this in the windows XP help center.. ^^

[Keith]

Cool. I'm glad you got it worked out. ;)

[NumakNatut III]

Good job! Now you're cooking.

[wp5200]

Thanks AloN!! I also had the same problem. I also have geforce mx440, 71.20 driver set..

After the videos my screen went black, but I did hear the sound. Tried to replace the NVIDEA driver but it did not work out, changed the .ini file as you said and the screened display worked fine.
Then forced the resolution to 60 as you said and now everyting is working fine.

AGAIN, thanks for your great work!!

[Lovnmthrhd]

I've seen this problem entered several times on this forum, but can you please check my system and see if you can see a problem?? I can play the tutorial, but when it loads a campain or scenerio, it kicks me back out to desktop. Thanks!! :)

[mouse]

Your video card driver is too old it's dated 2001. You'll need to uninstall the video driver and install a driver date July 2004 or later.

[Lovnmthrhd]

Ummm....sorry but how do I go about that? I'm not the most computer savy gal in the world :o

[imhotep3147]

You have a couple of problems actually. First off your video card doesn't support some of the features of the game.
http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34204&postcount=6

Also, this could be causing a problem with more than just the game (taken from your dxdiag): Page File: 642MB used, 604MB available You need to change the page file availability to something higher than what your using. If your not sure how to do that I'm sure one of these guys will be chiming in to help you as I am not 100% confident instructing anyone on that as I've only done it once. (quite frankly, I've forgotten how :D ) Hope you get it all worked out.

[Keith]

Yep, I'm afraid your TNT2 card is not supported. You'll need a newer card.

Also your Soundmax audio driver is old, dated 2001, and should be updated.

[Lovnmthrhd]

How do I find the update for my sound card? <snarl> and what is a tnt or whatever card? I really am an average computer user, but when it comes to this stuff I apparently have ALOT to learn! Thanks for any help you can give me :) oh and the page availability thing makes no sense to me either <sigh> Sorry!

[Keith]

In your case I would probably recommend that you have a computer tech do the video card upgrade for you, and also update your audio drivers.

Your current video card is as per your dxdiag.txt file:

Card name: NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 (HP)

I would recommend a newer Nvidia model Geforce FX series card or a ATI Radeon series card.

Your SoundMax audio drivers are going to be a little trickier to find, because ADI doesn't supply drivers for its SoundMax audio systems, and instead refers you to the maker of your comptuer for support. I checked HP's downloads and they do not have a sound driver update for SoundMax. There are SoundMax driver update files at Opendriver.com that can be downloaded free.

Analog Devices SoundMAX 4 XL AC97 WDM Driver 5.12.5170 Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 download (http://www.opendrivers.com/driver/217904/analog-devices-soundmax-4-xl-ac97-wdm-driver-5.12.5170-windows-2000-xp-server-2003-free-download.html)
Analog Devices SoundMAX 4 XL AC97 WDM Driver 5.12.5170 Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003. Supports CODECs: AD188x, AD189x, AD198x.
FileName:ad_smax45125170.zip

BestBuy used to have tech people that would upgrad your computer for you. You may want to check with them or a local computer shop.

You may even want to consider a newer sound card such as a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. Something that has more current support and drivers available for it.