Screen goes black and locks up whole cpu after entry screen

[amsimmon]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 with the factory ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 video card. I'm running XP SP2 and I have installed the latest drivers from Dell for the video card. Darwinia loads the startup screen and appears to work ok but as soon as I click on Garden, the screen goes black(or Darwinia window in windowed mode) and the computer locks up. I have to kill the power on the laptop to restart, ALT-TAB and CTRL-ALT-DEL won't even work. I've tried numerous different settings including windowed and non-windowed, different resolutions, and even added the RenderLandscapeMode setting to the preferences and set it to 0, 1, and 2. Nothing works. In every case, Darwinia goes black and the computer completely locks up.

[NeoThermic]

Right, rather than Dell's drivers, nab ATi's drivers for your card. Since you've only got a 9000, you'll have to use the last supported driver:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/defa ... onID=22264

See if that makes any diffrence

NeoThermic

[amsimmon]

well, I tried. Attempting to install that driver it errors out in the install with "INF error. Video driver not found." followed by "Try to setup your display adapter with a standard VGA driver before running setup."

So I tried repeatedly to remove the Mobility Radeon 9000 driver that's installed. Every time it requires a restart to remove the driver and then plug and plays back the 9000 driver as soon as the OS boots. I even tried booting into safe mode with no better results. I googled around and people said the problem is that that driver is Radeon instead of Mobility Radeon and suggested the Mobility Catalyst but the Mobility Catalyst driver doesn't support my card. The ATI site just says over and over I have to go through Dell for drivers.

[NeoThermic]

Ahh, I forgot it was a laptop. Well, the first thing I would do is touch home with Dell to get a new battery ( https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/ ).

As for your exact problem, I can suggest the omega drivers: http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati/win2k_xp.php

They are compatable with mobility chipsets from M6 upwards (so that hopefully includes your chipset). Do tell how that fairs.

NeoThermic

[amsimmon]

I tried the omega drivers. That didn't go well. The machine blue screened on boot with them installed. Had to boot into safe mode and remove them to recover. So I'm stuck again. Any other ideas?
Thanks,
Andy

[NeoThermic]

I must say I'm rather perplexed. You've said to us that you've done the RenderLandscapeModes, and that you've tried the Omega drivers without much success. Normally either of them fix the problem, yet in your case both made it as bad. The fact that you're crashing in-level shows me that your Graphics card doesn't like something, which is normally solved using RenderLandScape options. However, I wish to have a quick peak at something.

Download this file, extract the exe, run it, and copy the text from the text file it creates and paste it in some [code] tags here:
http://www.neothermic.com/darwinia/Open ... ngDump.zip

(If it complains about missing DLL's, they are also in the same directory: http://www.neothermic.com/darwinia/OpenGL/glut32.dll )

We can then have a peak at what your card is supporting and why it breaks.

NeoThermic

[amsimmon]

Here ya go:

Code: Select all

Failed to get address of glBindBufferARB function
Failed to find GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object support


Supported Extensions:
GL_ARB_multitexture GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array GL_S3_s3tc GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_blend GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_window_pos GL_ATI_element_array GL_ATI_envmap_bumpmap GL_ATI_fragment_shader GL_ATI_map_object_buffer GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_ATI_vertex_array_object GL_ATI_vertex_attrib_array_object GL_ATI_vertex_streams GL_ATIX_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATIX_texture_env_route GL_ATIX_vertex_shader_output_point_size GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_texgen_reflection GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_cube_map GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_EXT_vertex_shader GL_HP_occlusion_test GL_KTX_buffer_region GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_blend_square GL_SGI_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_multitexture GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays GL_WIN_swap_hint WGL_EXT_extensions_string WGL_EXT_swap_control
Renderer:
Radeon 9000 DDR x86/SSE2
Version:
1.3.3446 WinXP Release
Vender:
ATI Technologies Inc.


You spelled Vendor wrong.

[NeoThermic]

Here ya go:

Code: Select all

Failed to get address of glBindBufferARB function
Failed to find GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object support

You're 100% sure that RenderLandscapeMode = 0 or RenderLandscapeMode = 1 didn't work? If not set, or set to #2, it will try use Vertex buffers, at which the text above shows you lack the support for them.

You spelled Vendor wrong.

Heh, so I did. I spelt it correctly the previous line:

Code: Select all

   q = (char *)glGetString(GL_VENDOR);
   myfile << "\nVender: \n" << q;

NeoThermic

[amsimmon]

I just tried it a couple more times with each mode to be sure. It's the exact same behavior either way. First the screen goes black, then a few seconds later the machine locks up completely and a white line appears at the bottom of the screen.

I'm running through steam so the preferences.txt file I'm editing is C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\amsimmon\darwinia\preferences.txt
I edited the difficulty in there to make sure the game is reading that file successfully and the difficulty changed like it should have.
Does the RenderLandscapeMode key need to be in a special location in the file or something? Or did I misspell it?
It seems to be getting ignored.

Here are the current contents of my preferences.txt:

Code: Select all

ServerAddress = 127.0.0.1
BypassNetwork = 0
IAmAServer = 1

TextLanguage = english
TextSpeed = 15
HelpEnabled = 1

SoundLibrary = dsound
SoundMixFreq = 22050
SoundMasterVolume = 255
SoundChannels = 32
SoundHW3D = 0
SoundSwapStereo = 0
SoundMemoryUsage = 1
SoundBufferSize = 512
SoundDSP = 1

ScreenWidth = 1680
ScreenHeight = 1050
ScreenWindowed = 0
ScreenZDepth = 24
ScreenColourDepth = 32
ScreenRefresh = 60

RenderLandscapeDetail = 1
RenderWaterDetail = 1
RenderBuildingDetail = 1
RenderEntityDetail = 1
RenderCloudDetail = 1
RenderPixelShader = 0

ControlMouseButtons = 3
ControlMethod = 1
BootLoader = random
UserProfile = NewUser
RenderSpecialLighting = 0
Difficulty = 1
RenderLandscapeMode = 1


[NeoThermic]

I would advise, for testing, to put the RenderLandscapeMode in the middle somewhere. I would also suggest to try 640x480 to start with (you won't get 1680x1050 from a 9000 anyway).

Lets see where that gets us.

NeoThermic

[amsimmon]

I have tried putting RenderLandscapeMode in the middle too with no better results. I had it where the RenderLandscapeDetail line is.

The reason I've been going with 1680X1050 is I get an error message when I run in a different mode. Something like you have a flat panel LCD that likes to run in it's native mode so please only use 1680X1050.

I'll try 640X480 after work today.

[xander]

I have tried putting RenderLandscapeMode in the middle too with no better results. I had it where the RenderLandscapeDetail line is.

The reason I've been going with 1680X1050 is I get an error message when I run in a different mode. Something like you have a flat panel LCD that likes to run in it's native mode so please only use 1680X1050.

I'll try 640X480 after work today.

When you do that, you might try changing this line:

Code: Select all

ScreenWindowed = 0

to this:

Code: Select all

ScreenWindowed = 1

xander

[Adam Black]

I'm having exactly the same problem, and it isn't the first time this has happened either, as my video card is also integrated.

If I wait a while after the black screen, the desktop returns (albeit with a non-responding Darwinia window open) and Windows tells me that the display driver has stopped responding. If amsimmon isn't waiting very long before rebooting I think the same message might appear.

I am, in fact, typing this post using the backup display driver in 256 colours. How garish.

The Steam demo ran fine, and RenderLandscapeMode ain't giving me crap, so what's the problem?

[amsimmon]

I tried 640X480 windowed mode with the same results. I did get a display driver is in an infinite loop error once but it usually just stays locked up.