Black Screen of Death

[bitchen frizzy]

Been playing CM for a couple of years - got 'em all: BO, BB, AK. I've done a few playtests over at the Proving Grounds.

Just got a new computer - AMD Athlon 64, 1 GB ram, Radeon 9550 w/ 256M.

Made sure there was no video preferences file for CMAK each time before trying it.

When I start the game up, I reach the map screen, which displays, then immediately freezes. After a few seconds, the monitor goes black. Sometimes it comes back briefly, sometimes not, but either way the monitor then shuts off and will not come back. Computer is running, but I need to reboot because I can't see anything. If I try to start the game again, it goes through the video setup again - it did not create the prefs file the previous time.

Monitor has been shutting off with other applications, too. I think it may be graphics-intensive applications that does it, but not enough evidence for sure yet.

I probably have multiple problems. The first is the anti-aliasing vs. Radeon thing, which I know about but I can't find the toggle for anti-aliasing. I don't have an icon or folder for an ATI graphics control screen, and the toggle isn't on the "Display" control panel. Can someone please direct me to the location of the anti-aliasing toggle?

Next, I need to solve the problem of my display crashing. The monitor itself works fine. It is an NEC Multisync 95. I installed the correct driver. It seems unlikely to me (what do I know?) but could the monitor be too old and slow for my graphics card?

Monitor settings: 1280x1024, 32bit, 85 hz.

Could my power supply be a problem? It's an Austin, 300W. That seems low for my rig. Could a power shortage cause my symptoms?

The graphics card is new, but maybe it has something wrong with it? What's the best way to tell?

I'm running CMAK on my second (non-OS) hard drive. I don't think that would matter, but I'll mention it.

I've been without my Combat Mission for over a week now, so I'm getting kind of desperate. Any pointers?

[Hpt. Lisse]

Is this your own build? Or is it a complete box? Power Supply does sound suspect... though that 9550 can't be drawing much... I see that listed as an AGP card, is this a NForce3 mobo then?

[Schrullenhaft]

As Hpt. Lisse pointed out, we'll probably need a few more details on your hardware (motherboard model, videocard manufacturer, etc.).

The Radeon 9550 256Mb models I've seen don't require an additional power connector (connected to the videocard), so you should be fine in that regard. Your power supply seems somewhat underpowered, but I'm under the impression here that it's new. I'm not familiar with the "Austin" brand; a Google search turns it up in a 'Supercase PC-166' case. Typically with newer CPUs and videocards its the +12V that gets stressed and its possible that the power supply in this case isn't providing enough. However a Radeon 9550 probably isn't pushing the 12V line that hard (since it doesn't require the extra power connector to supply it).

The monitor shutting off suggests to me that the videocard has stopped putting out a signal and the monitor is going into a power saving state (the amber power LED). Since this is happening in a number of graphics-intensive applications (I assume that they're 3D games or image editors) I'd guess that there is either an incompatibility between your videocard and motherboard or that the videocard itself is flaky/defective.

If you purchased this system from a local dealer you may want to take it back and bring this particular issue to their attention. Hopefully they can reproduce it and swap out whatever component is defective or incompatible. If this is a partial/incremental upgrade to a previous system and you purchased the items separately, you may want to return the videocard (being the most likely culprit) and either exchange it for the same or get a different model (which may cost more). The other component to possibly swap/upgrade would be the power supply; get an antec, enermax or other decent name-brand of 400W or more.

While I don't have a Radeon 9550, I wouldn't expect it to be any less compatible than other AGP Radeons with CM. However some manufacturers (since ATI isn't the only one anymore) may have differing quality standards that can result in an incompatibility or a plainly defective product.

Regarding anti-aliasing for the Radeon, the newest Catalyst drivers utilize the CCC - Catalyst Control Center application - to control the settings. Within the CCC go to the '3D' section in the left-hand menu and within there you'll see the 'anti-aliasing' setting, which is normally defaulted to 'application controlled' ('off' for CM's purposes). Do you know which Catalyst driver you have installed ? You may want to download the latest driver ( 6.4) with the Catalyst Control Center in order to get access to the settings. ATI typically doesn't offer the standard 'control panel' settings anymore (they haven't since Catalyst 5.8 or earlier).

[ April 13, 2006, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[bitchen frizzy]

Thanks for all the information so far.

Motherboard is a VIA K8MM-V Series (MS-7142 v1.X). The manual it came with assures me that it's AGP 3.0 compliant, FWIW.

No hint of a Catalyst Control Center application anywhere on my machine. My driver version is 8.193.0.0. Thanks for the link.

The build is by a local shop. All new parts except for a block of RAM and the hard drive (now a second drive) from the old machine.

I want to replace the power supply regardless. I lost my last machine to a crappy power supply, and I'm willing to spend the money (Antec sounds good) to get a reliable and reputable PSU.

[Schrullenhaft]

It looks like you probably have a 6.x series Catalyst driver based on your driver version. I'm guessing that you may have downloaded the 'Driver Only' instead of the package that includes the Catalyst Control Center. If you decide to download 6.4, I'd suggest getting the 34+Mb one with the Catalyst Control Center (uninstall your current video driver first, just to make things cleaner if you decide to install 6.4). If you want to stick with your current driver, you could just download the Catalyst Control Center package alone (about 17+Mb); I don't believe that they're fixed to one particular version of the driver.

The latest BIOS I see for the MSI K8MM-V is 1.5. However you most likely have it if your motherboard is fairly new and it doesn't really address any problems that your having (unless you have v. 1.0). If it hasn't already been done already, you may want to download the VIA Hyperion Pro drivers. I would not recommend installing the IDE drivers (unless you're using RAID, which I doubt) since the Microsoft ones tend to have fewer issues or compatibility problems (though the VIA ones may result in a tiny performance boost, but at the possible sacrifice of stability). The Hyperion drivers have an AGP driver, which may help a little with your videocard issues.

I took a look through the manual, but it is very limited on BIOS setting info. I guess one thing to make sure is that the AGP voltage is at Auto or 1.5V. A higher voltage may lockup the card.

The first thing to try though is the power supply replacement (as you've planned). This will at least eliminate it as a potential source of problems due to low wattage.

Among Antec power supplies this SmartPower 2.0 SP-450 seems like a good deal that is mildly future-proof (it has a 20+4 ATX power connector which will make it a little easier for any socket 939 or M2 motherboard upgrades in the future). If you plan to purchase from a local dealer, Newegg is still handy to checkout what some people's experience has been with certain units (though not all opinions are equally valid).

[bitchen frizzy]

OK, I've done a lot in the last week with this problem.

1st, replaced the power supply with an Antec 450W. Didn't solve the problem - I didn't think it would, but I wanted a better power supply anyway.

Installed the latest driver for the video card. That helped a little: the game would at least initialize the video settings after that. It would end up going to a black screen shortly after loading the map, though.

Downloaded the Catalyst Control Center. In attempting to adjust the 3D display settings, I got something interesting. The demo video in the CCC would cause the display lockup, but then I'd get a message, something like "The Catalyst graphics recovery software has reset the graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands" or something like that. If I try to go back to the CCC 3D settings dialog box without rebooting, I get a Windows dialog box saying "Warning. The currently used OpenGL driver does not support the required extensions to run the 3D preview."

[actually, after rebooting, I can get a variety of errors. Sometimes the 3D graphics in the CCC crashes to a blue screen of death. It doesn't fail in any consistent way.]

So its crashing while trying to run 3D accelerated graphics, and the software for that gets temporarily disabled or something.

So, I've got a problem that's very specific to the 3D acceleration software or to the graphics card itself. Is it possible that my current motherboard and chipset cannot support a card with 3D acceleration (seems hard to believe)? Is it more likely a software or a hardware problem? I'm inclined to try a new graphics card, but I'll take any advice before spending more money.

[ April 23, 2006, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: bitchen frizzy ]

[Schrullenhaft]

I'd suggest completely uninstalling the driver and Catalyst Control Center (with the required reboots to do this). On reboot do not install the ATI drivers, just accept whatever Windows can install automatically (which might not be anything beyond a default VGA).

Is your Windows XP install Service Pack 2 ? Do you have DirectX 9.0c installed (you will if you have Service Pack 2 installed) ? If this is correct, then install the above linked VIA drivers, reboot, and then reinstall the 6.4 Catalyst drivers and the Catalyst Control Center (with the required reboots).

Hopefully the SmartGART can detect the appropriate settings for your videocard and AGP slot. Within the Catalyst Control Center I would recommend disabling the VPU Recover option.

[bitchen frizzy]

OK.

I do have XP Service Pack 2.

Uninstalled drivers and CCC. On reboot, Windows found a version of the Radeon 9550 driver, which was replaced by a slightly later version of the same driver when I reinstalled the CCC. Before reinstalling CCC, I installed the VIA drivers you suggested.

Disabled the VPU Recover option. Now, when I go to the 3D Preview screen in the CCC, which comes up automatically when I go to the 3D settings tab, the system will reliably lock up then crash to a blue screen with writing before rebooting. Combat Mission comes up with some text missing and some bitmaps garbled into a hash of colors, then locks up and goes dark. The monitor doesn't shut off anymore, but I still have to reboot to get out.

The blue screen that comes up flashes by too fast to read it all, but one part of it says, "The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates problems with the device itself or the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly." (Have you (or anyone) ever seen this blue screen before? What was the fix, if you have?)

With all the software updates, my display is now as clean and steady as I've ever seen it. Everything runs smoothly - video, non-3D games, etc. - except when I try to run something with 3D graphics.

Should I try preventing the Windows install of the Radeon driver (allowing a default VGA instead), so that the version that comes with the CCC installs without overwriting? Would that be worthwhile to try?

[Schrullenhaft]

Well it definitely sounds like your videocard is having problems running 3D apps. The "device driver in an infinite loop error" is something that happened to a number of videocards running on VIA chipsets. You can read through this VIA Arena article

The first things to check would be to go to the Catalyst Control Center and within there go to the SMARTGART portion. What are your settings in here ? You may need to change some of these settings such as a lower AGP speed, AGP Fast Writes Off, etc. If none of these makes the videocard more stable, then you may need to change some CMOS/BIOS settings for the motherboard (the VIA Arena article mentions some of them). Also make sure that your aren't overclocking your videocard. You have to turn this feature on within the Catalyst Control Center and then manually make the changes for an overclock to actually occur (with ATI's software).

And finally your videocard may have a hardware defect requiring replacement. At this point you should contact whoever built your computer and find out what process they go through for a RMA (Return Material Authorization). They may require that your whole computer be brought into them for diagnostics or they may just require the videocard alone (you would have to connect to the onboard S3 Unichrome video and install drivers for it in order to run without your Radeon). When you do this you'll want to document what you've done and the exact problem that you're seeing. Otherwise if the tech sees that you have a 2D screen they may say that the card is working fine.

[TufenHuden]

Here's another place for ATI drivers better

then ATI themslves:

http://www.tweaksrus.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&Itemid=41&gid=127&orderby=dmdate_published&ascdesc=DESC

[bitchen frizzy]

Update:

Really needed to get back to my games, so I yanked the video card out of the case and plugged the monitor into the on-board connection.

CMAK works - "workaround" successful.

Now I decide what to do with the &^%*%$ card, after resisting the urge to pound it with a hammer.

Thanks to all, esp. Schrullenhaft, for the help so far. When I get another card, I'll be back...

[JasonC]

I've had less severe, but similar problems, with a rig with some similarities. Also Athlon, also AGP, also specific to 3D accelerated graphics. I am running a 19 inch LCD with 8 ms vertical refresh rate. I had problems with a Radeon card, replaced it with a GeForce card with twice the memory. Still have problems, not quite as often though.

I suspect in my case that it is software related, that some calls exceed allowed bandwidth limits giving out of range errors. Anyone who thinks this stuff "just works" hasn't been banging on it lately. I've looked around the web and I've found thousands of hits for Athlon specific graphics related crashes.