Sovereign03
25th May 2012, 03:18 AM
Hi,
I have reinstalled my old copy of Sims3. I don't have any custom content, or any of the stuff packs or expansions. My computer is an Acer Aspire X3400 featuring an AMD Phenom II X4 810 processor, 4Gb of Ram and an ATI Radeon HD5570 graphics card so I know the machine is powerful enough to run the game. Oh, I'm running Windows 7.
When I run the game it runs, the sound is good and I can hear the EA logo, the intro movie and then on to the load screen etc. I can not however see anything. All I get is a black screen. I've also noticed that I can't alt-tab out of the game as it seems to hijack the graphics for the whole computer. The only way to get out is to open the task manager using Ctrl-Shift-Esc and terminate the process. Ending the task just pops up a program has stopped working message and that's the end of that.
So I have gone through the FAQs and I should point out that most of them deal with crashes, graphics glitches etc and I don't believe that that is what I'm experiencing. I'd also like to note that I have had this with other games but was always able to work around it with an update to graphics drivers, DirectX, windows updates, etc.
I have now gone and done all those things with no luck. So I went through the FAQs and tried clearing the cache, though I didn't really expect that to work since I haven't actually done anything since the fresh install. The rest of the FAQs dealt with crashes so I didn't go into that because the game doesn't crash it runs fine. I just can't see it :)
I'd really like to play the game. It's been years, but my graphics just seem to wish me harm :(
Any thoughts on what else I might try would be greatly appreciated. I'm out of ideas.
Also I should point out that I'm sure I'm missing something horribly obvious and will eventually feel like a moron... So I apologize if my issue ends up being something really simple.
I have attached a dxdiag if you want more info about my system.
Thanks in advance.
______________________
So another thing I've tried, just to be extra sure that all my drivers are good and up to date is I downloaded DriverTuner, that's that free program that will scan your computer for any and all drivers and check if they're up to date etc. (you then have to pay a subscription if you want the program to download the appropriate drivers for you) but you can just go and get them manually for free. I scanned the computer and while I do have some drivers that are out of date they are mostly for USB, and peripheral devices like my mouse, etc. I can't see that being the issue. So as far as drivers are concerned I think I should be good.
Again, I'm out of ideas as to what could be causing it. I've even tried running it in compatibility mode for all sorts of stuff. At this point I'm just having more or less random ideas that I dont realistically expect will fix the issue but hey, its worth a try :)
:help:
______________________
This must be an issue with older games, because I reinstalled my copy of Rome Total War yesterday and Im having exactly the same issue. I can hear the game running. I even hear interaction with the menu when i use the arrow keys or enter, but the screen is just black, as if I turned my monitor off (I should point out that yes I double checked :) It was not off) I assume that if it is a problem that will be persistent with older games, then whatever graphics driver that is causing the problem could be reverted to an older version. My only worry is that then the newer stuff I have installed will begin to suffer.
Does anyone know a way around this at all
_______________________
I also just remembered that I had this same issue with a steam game, Sim City 4 Deluxe. When I tried to run it, it ran but screen was black. After trying all sorts of things I found an entry on some message board saying to set the launch options by entering the following: -l:english -Intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32. I have no clue if there would be a similar place to enter something like this in a non-steam game. If anyone has any experience with setting launch options please help. Im just not sure how to go about it even if I knew where to put it because the icon on the desktop runs the launcher and not the game itself, and without being able to see the game to change resolutions, Im out of luck :(
Another edit: I tried to enter those launch options with the Rome Total War game which I also have through steam and it just crashes and says it can not find steam. Im not even going to go into that one. I think my computer is just trying to get me to buy a new game like diablo 3, but Im resisting :)
_______________________
So I thought about that edit in the launch options that made the difference in SimCitys case. If the games try to run by default in the resolution set for the monitor, which I didnt think they did, but if they do then I could see the older games having an issue with my HD monitor and the desktop set to 1080. So in that spirit I tried setting the monitor down to a lower setting, one that would have been supported in the day when the games were released. No luck.
Honestly, any thoughts what so ever would be great folks. :blink:
I have reinstalled my old copy of Sims3. I don't have any custom content, or any of the stuff packs or expansions. My computer is an Acer Aspire X3400 featuring an AMD Phenom II X4 810 processor, 4Gb of Ram and an ATI Radeon HD5570 graphics card so I know the machine is powerful enough to run the game. Oh, I'm running Windows 7.
When I run the game it runs, the sound is good and I can hear the EA logo, the intro movie and then on to the load screen etc. I can not however see anything. All I get is a black screen. I've also noticed that I can't alt-tab out of the game as it seems to hijack the graphics for the whole computer. The only way to get out is to open the task manager using Ctrl-Shift-Esc and terminate the process. Ending the task just pops up a program has stopped working message and that's the end of that.
So I have gone through the FAQs and I should point out that most of them deal with crashes, graphics glitches etc and I don't believe that that is what I'm experiencing. I'd also like to note that I have had this with other games but was always able to work around it with an update to graphics drivers, DirectX, windows updates, etc.
I have now gone and done all those things with no luck. So I went through the FAQs and tried clearing the cache, though I didn't really expect that to work since I haven't actually done anything since the fresh install. The rest of the FAQs dealt with crashes so I didn't go into that because the game doesn't crash it runs fine. I just can't see it :)
I'd really like to play the game. It's been years, but my graphics just seem to wish me harm :(
Any thoughts on what else I might try would be greatly appreciated. I'm out of ideas.
Also I should point out that I'm sure I'm missing something horribly obvious and will eventually feel like a moron... So I apologize if my issue ends up being something really simple.
I have attached a dxdiag if you want more info about my system.
Thanks in advance.
______________________
So another thing I've tried, just to be extra sure that all my drivers are good and up to date is I downloaded DriverTuner, that's that free program that will scan your computer for any and all drivers and check if they're up to date etc. (you then have to pay a subscription if you want the program to download the appropriate drivers for you) but you can just go and get them manually for free. I scanned the computer and while I do have some drivers that are out of date they are mostly for USB, and peripheral devices like my mouse, etc. I can't see that being the issue. So as far as drivers are concerned I think I should be good.
Again, I'm out of ideas as to what could be causing it. I've even tried running it in compatibility mode for all sorts of stuff. At this point I'm just having more or less random ideas that I dont realistically expect will fix the issue but hey, its worth a try :)
:help:
______________________
This must be an issue with older games, because I reinstalled my copy of Rome Total War yesterday and Im having exactly the same issue. I can hear the game running. I even hear interaction with the menu when i use the arrow keys or enter, but the screen is just black, as if I turned my monitor off (I should point out that yes I double checked :) It was not off) I assume that if it is a problem that will be persistent with older games, then whatever graphics driver that is causing the problem could be reverted to an older version. My only worry is that then the newer stuff I have installed will begin to suffer.
Does anyone know a way around this at all
_______________________
I also just remembered that I had this same issue with a steam game, Sim City 4 Deluxe. When I tried to run it, it ran but screen was black. After trying all sorts of things I found an entry on some message board saying to set the launch options by entering the following: -l:english -Intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32. I have no clue if there would be a similar place to enter something like this in a non-steam game. If anyone has any experience with setting launch options please help. Im just not sure how to go about it even if I knew where to put it because the icon on the desktop runs the launcher and not the game itself, and without being able to see the game to change resolutions, Im out of luck :(
Another edit: I tried to enter those launch options with the Rome Total War game which I also have through steam and it just crashes and says it can not find steam. Im not even going to go into that one. I think my computer is just trying to get me to buy a new game like diablo 3, but Im resisting :)
_______________________
So I thought about that edit in the launch options that made the difference in SimCitys case. If the games try to run by default in the resolution set for the monitor, which I didnt think they did, but if they do then I could see the older games having an issue with my HD monitor and the desktop set to 1080. So in that spirit I tried setting the monitor down to a lower setting, one that would have been supported in the day when the games were released. No luck.
Honestly, any thoughts what so ever would be great folks. :blink: