Black Screen (No Crash)

[Alurial]

Hello:

I've seen threads similar but not quiet describing the problems I'm experincing lately. My client worked fine shortly before the guild ship addition, I havent played again until now. However when I play now either in fullscreen or windowed DDO will randomly cause my video drivers to crash, once my card recovers the client is still running but with no graphics. Voice communication works and players verify that I can move my character and use abilities still. I can recover by closing the client and relaunching. This has occurred with in 10 minutes to 4 hours and is very random.

Thank You for any help you can provide.

[TheDearLeader]

Hello:

I've seen threads similar but not quiet describing the problems I'm experincing lately. My client worked fine shortly before the guild ship addition, I havent played again until now. However when I play now either in fullscreen or windowed DDO will randomly cause my video drivers to crash, once my card recovers the client is still running but with no graphics. Voice communication works and players verify that I can move my character and use abilities still. I can recover by closing the client and relaunching. This has occurred with in 10 minutes to 4 hours and is very random.

Thank You for any help you can provide.

Known Issue: Black Screen With Visible UI: Some Intel users may find that when DirectX 10 is enabled, only their UI is visible and the rest of their screen is black. If this occurs, we recommend you disable DX10, enable DX9, and restart the game client.

That's at the top of these forums as a notice.

It may be what you're experiencing. Disable DX10, Enable DX9.

Check for newer graphics drivers.

Otherwise, uninstall your graphics drivers, uninstall Direct X, Uninstall DDO. Reinstall graphic drivers, Direct X, DDO in that order. See what happens.

[Alurial]

Non intel build, no ui visible.

Using ATI Radeon HD 3870.

[TheDearLeader]

Using ATI Radeon HD 3870.

Which.. says it should Support DX 10.

I'd still recommend a full uninstall-reinstall to see what happens.

How old's the card? 3870's have been out a while. Maybe its overheating?

[Alurial]

Nah, I thought of that and watched heat, didnt go over 55-60.. I play games like Rift, Fallout NV and Borderlands just fine. DDO played fine until the guild ship update game out.

Plus it's happened right at launch or up to four hours in, completely random.

[Mirthgar]

Try opening up “My Documents” (XP) or “Documents” (Vista/Win7) > “Dungeons and Dragons Online" folder and look for "Userpreferences.ini" and rename that to "OldUserpreferences.ini" and relaunch and on the main launcher at the “server select” list click the first button in the row in the upper-right corner (the one with the single down arrow on it) and choose "Options". In there under "Repair" click to enable the "Reset game display settings" option, click ok, then log in again to test.

For testing purposes when you log in after this, if you get the prompt to enable DX10 or 11 Graphics choose no at least initially to see what the full reset and dx9 mode results in.

Also post your “dxdiag” data (the steps how are in the “how to get help..” sticky linked in my sig) when you get a chance.

[Smitey]

The dxdiag would have been helpful to more accurately advise.

I would suggest uninstalling your current drivers, reboot and install cleanly version 10.12 for your operating system.

Windows XP drivers for your graphics card:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...12_xp32_dd.exe

Vista 32bit drivers:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...win7_32_dd.exe

WIndows 7 32bit:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...win7_32_dd.exe

WIndows 7 64-bit:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...win7_64_dd.exe

[Alurial]

Thanks for the links, but I've tried basic stuff like driver reinstall (before someone says it, yes I've cleaned the old drivers) currently I'm using a specific driver for Rift support (game doesnt like ATI cards.)

No difference in DX 9 or 10.

I'll post DX Diag later.

[rahubby]

Try loading speedfan and check the temperature track for your video card. That should at least tell you if it's a card overheating problem. DDO is notoiously tough on mid-to-lower level video cards, temperature wise...