My bizarre video problem

[HBK]

OK, I bought the game the day it came out. I installed with 0 problems. I played it, finished it, loaded games, all settings on high, 1024x(whatever) size, played lots of MP, done everything with 0 problems. All of a sudden, yesterday, I have problems.

 

I start it like I usually do and come to the screen to select SP or MP, etc... I select SP(it does the same thing in MP) and it starts to load. Then, nothing. All I get is my desktop. But, there is starwars JKII in an icon in the task bar at the bottom of the screen. Also, I do notice the brightness increase a little as I had increased it in game. So I figure it started but is just minimized, so I click in the task bar. Well, now I can hear the game and my mouse pointer dissappears. I can hear the sounds of the Lucas arts logo and the Raven logos, but I'm still at the desktop. I click like I usually do to pass the 'introductions' and then my pointer returns and I lose sound. The icon is still in the task bar. So I click on it again and back comes the sound, this time of the main menu, and the pointer goes away. I can press TAB and hear it cycle through selections, I can press ESC and hear the sound of the lightsabre shutting down to exit the game, etc...

 

If I left or right click from here it brings me back to the desktop. Note that wherever I move the pointer, it always ends up by the clock when I 'return to the desktop'.

 

Anyone have any ideas? What the heck happened to my JK outcast? everything else is fine.

 

My important specs:

1.4 athlon, 640MB pc-133, creativ labs annihilator geforce 2 GTS, Aureal Vortex 2, 20GB westernDigital 7200RPM, MSI K7t-turbo 2.

 

 

HBK

[HBK]

UPDATE:

I did the display tests in the directx diagnostic. All failed. I got no fullscreen w/ a bouncing box in Direct draw accleration. I got no spinning cubes in direct 3d acceleration. And I could not see the spinning directx logo in AGP texture acceleration.

 

I removed and reinstalled my graphics card drivers: no help.

 

I tried to reinstall directx. No help. I uninstalled direct x and reinstalled and no help.

 

I went to the microsoft knowledge base, followed that, and ended up setting my refresh rate on my monitor to default setting and the direct x tests work.

 

However, I still get no video from Outcast.

 

Since my original post, my screen, on occasion, has gone from the desktop to a black screen when I try to play. But it's the monitor, it shut off.

 

This is crazy.

[WhiteChedda]

Originally posted by HBK

UPDATE:

I did the display tests in the directx diagnostic. All failed. I got no fullscreen w/ a bouncing box in Direct draw accleration. I got no spinning cubes in direct 3d acceleration. And I could not see the spinning directx logo in AGP texture acceleration.

 

I removed and reinstalled my graphics card drivers: no help.

 

I tried to reinstall directx. No help. I uninstalled direct x and reinstalled and no help.

 

I went to the microsoft knowledge base, followed that, and ended up setting my refresh rate on my monitor to default setting and the direct x tests work.

 

However, I still get no video from Outcast.

 

Since my original post, my screen, on occasion, has gone from the desktop to a black screen when I try to play. But it's the monitor, it shut off.

 

This is crazy.

 

Get ready to kick yourself, outcast uses Opengl, not Direct3D.

 

Make sure you REMOVE all backgroup aps such as a virus check etc......

 

Update your motherboard drivers [you'll have to figure out which chipset you have, but you can link the various ones here http://www.afn.org/~afn03257/driver.html ] once you do.

[HBK]

Thanks for the tip. I updated the VIA chipset drivers and now SP works, but MP acts the same. Halfway home....

[HBK]

UPDATE: well for no particular reason(I haven't done anythig new) when I launch MP it gets pass the desktop to a black screen and stops, all the time now. Still, only the video stops as I can hear the sounds of the main menu. In fact, my screen goes black for a few seconds and my monitor shuts off.

 

I heard the launcher could be bad, so i tried launching from the START menu, no help. I went to th eLucas Arts folder and tried those .exe files, nothing. I tried SAFE MODE and still nothing.

 

Any more ideas out there?

[HBK]

I believe I found a solution, at least it worked for me!

 

Little back story: A few weeks ago I wiped my drives and was reloading everything. It wasn't broke or anything, but it was getting slow, I wanted to clean out some stuff I didn't need and I wanted to prep for Outcast. Before I did this, I of course made sure I had all the current drivers d-loaded and burned to disc. Well, when it came to video drivers, I found that Creative( I have an Anihilator 2 GTS) put out there own drivers, and there were of course the detonators. I e-mailed Creative and asked them the difference between the two. Basically they said 1 or the other will do. So I stuck with the detonators since I alrady had them and they never gave me a problem.

 

Loaded them up, bought Outcast, and had 0 problems. All of a sudden it craps out and I'm stuck on a black screen trying to load MP. So I'm trying for a couple of days to fix this. I read back about 5 pages in the Tech Help section and come across a statement made by someone(sorry can't remember the name) offering help to a problem such as ours. It was something like this "remove the nvidia drivers and any trace of them in the regestry". Then I remembered that Creative put out their own drivers.

 

So I went to my control panel and removed the nvidia drivers(didn't go into the regestry). Rebooted. Installed the Creative drivers. Re-booted. Started a JKO MP game, it worked. closed JKO down and tried again. It worked. Closed it down and re-started it, it worked. Shut down the computer, turned it on, started JKO in MP and IT WORKED!!!

 

So maybe ditch the nvidia drivers and dload the card makers drivers. Why the detonators would go bad after a couple of weeks (in my case) I don't know, but the Creative ones work (for now).

 

Good Luck

 

HBK

Playing MP by the time you read this...