What's up with the display?

[maverick_manhim]

hello everyone,

I am a new player for BVE4. My notebook is using Vista but I can run the main program of BVE4 after doing some modification of system. My problem is found while running the route as I can get a totally white screen, no contraol panel, no outside view but only the sound. What's going on?

My computer details are:

Hp dv1950 notebook
platform: Windows Vista 32-bit
display: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Resolution: 1280X800 32-bit

 

[rob s]

My laptop has similar specs (Vista, Nvidia)....


and it doesn't work unfortunately! I get the white screen too.

 

[D306]

It could be to do with your graphics cards, but I am unsure of this

 

[LabRatAndy]

It could be to do with your graphics cards, but I am unsure of this

Yeah it's your graphics cards that are the problem here. Unfortunately it appears that BVE is largely incompatible with nividia 8XXX series cards and ATI 2xxx and 3xxx series cards. See these threads over on TSC for more info
http://http://www.trainsimcentral.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1753

http://http://www.trainsimcentral.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1791

 

[P156KWJ]

my solution... don't buy Vista

 

[Guinness]

my solution... don't buy Vista

Unfortunately, it's the norm for all new computers now, I've seen some sold on Dell with the option for XP Home/Pro but it's becoming increasingly rare.

I've still not got BVE to work on this Vista Laptop, although it's the Gfx Card from Satan (Integrated SiS) I manage to load the game up but it comes up with a bunch of Permission Errors and Corrupt Memory etc.

Luckily it's still on my 5 year old XP PC!

 

[LabRatAndy]

my solution... don't buy Vista

It's not just Vista really, it's the newer graphics cards themselves that cause BVE problems.

 

[LondonBVE]

So it is not recommended to buy nVidia 8xxx series and 9xxx series and ATI 2xxx series and 3xxx series cards? Have anyone been sucessfully able to run BVE on those series of graphics card?

 

[LabRatAndy]

Don't know about 9xxx series, not seen any reported problems but that could be just because nobody has got one yet. As for if BVE can run on any of these series of cards with out problems. All I can say is that no one has posted on any of the TSC threads about them to say, they haven't had problems with them.

 

[Nym]

You can get whatever you want off Dell or IBM if you ring them

IBM still have XP as the norm because the CFO doesn't like vista at Lenovo, and if you go to Dell Business then it's easy to get hold of XP, I still prefer Windoze2000 though

 

[g0fhm]

I've recently gotten into BVE4....

I'm having problems with graphics too... and guess what? I have an Nvidia GeForce FX5200!

Basically, all is well, but at some random point in the game (doesnt matter what route, what train etc), the graphics will just freeze.. sound and controls etc still work ok (you can hear revs etc going on when you open the throttle, and you get the AWS etc).

Sometimes you can right click, and exit, and when you I get a Microshaft .NET framework error box, telling me an unhandled exception has occurred....

Other times, there is no way to exit things.... even giving it the "3 fingered salute" will fail, and the graphics "switch off", with my monitor telling me "no signal". The only way to get back, is to basically hit the "missus button" and reboot....

I'm running a sempron 3000+ with 512MB RAM, so system resources shouldnt be an issue here.... my HDD failed a few weeks back, and I have performed a complete re install of XP, and have the relevant updates etc, and it's still happening!

Is this a graphics card related issue or a Microsoft error here... can anybody tell?

Cheers,

James

 

[rob s]

That happened to me with the most recent Nvidia graphics drivers.

anything before 84.21 is recommended but 163.75 are the best recent drivers. Anything newer doesn't work properly.

 

[EmergencyBrake]

After some analysis and talks with my gamer friends and Games technology teacher at uni; The theory that we come up with is that the BVE game engine is incompatable with new graphics card's architecture.

In the old days (before Geforce 8 series), the GPU contains different fixed number shader units to process different aspects of the game, these are known as pixel and vertex shaders. However new graphics cards untilises a new shader unit known as unified shaders. Unified shaders takes over the job of the previous pixel and vertex shaders and will automatically allocate more or less units to both pixels and shaders, whatever needs them more.

Most users who reported problems with BVE are using the Geforce 8 series cards. Before Geforce 8 came out, there was no reported problems of BVE failing to run on Nvidia cards. Since the line of Geforce 8 graphics cards, Nvidia has built its cards with unified shaders, doing away with the former separate shader units. This may be the reason why BVE doesnt work with the new cards.

Also, LondonBVE said that it doesnt run on ATI 2xxx series and 3xxx series cards. These cards area also using unified shaders! This further proves the theory that its the unified shaders which are causing problems.

Information here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_shader_model
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060418170458.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2053309,00.asp

 

[mbonwick]

Thanks for that piece of detailed research Kelvin, I bet it took you a while!
So what you'e basically saying is that there is no hope for anyone with a card which utilises unified shaders?

 

[laseandre]

I think that's the gist of it, yes.

 

[EmergencyBrake]

If my theory is right, then unless the BVE game engine is rewritten, there is nothing much we could do.

It is worth noting that the only major change in technology with newer cards is the use of unified shaders, which takes care of both pixel and vertex processing in one unit.

 

[LondonBVE]

Well so the conclusion is that sticking with GeForce 7 will not have any problem while going for GeForce 8 and above is impossible to run BVE. Than there is a 99% chance that the GeForce 9 will have even more problems more working since they are far more newer compared to GeForce 8. So the graphics card may be unable to work is nVidia 8xxx series, 9xxxx series and beyond, ATI 2xxx series, 3xxx series and beyond, Intel i965 GMA 3xxx series, 4xxx series and beyond.

 

[Chris]

Well so the conclusion is that sticking with GeForce 7 will not have any problem while going for GeForce 8 and above is impossible to run BVE. Than there is a 99% chance that the GeForce 9 will have even more problems more working since they are far more newer compared to GeForce 8. So the graphics card may be unable to work is nVidia 8xxx series, 9xxxx series and beyond, ATI 2xxx series, 3xxx series and beyond, Intel i965 GMA 3xxx series, 4xxx series and beyond.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just got a ATI HD 3450 card and found that BVE only works with the driver on the disk and not the latest updated driver.

Chris

 

[Gareth Hale]

I also tested a NVIDIA 9600GT and 9800GTX+ and a Radeon HD4850 for everyone, and can confirm that they both will not work with the latest downloaded drivers, or drivers from a CD

 

[I'm Insane]

Ive got a Nvidia geforce 9400gt, bve runs for a bit but the fra,erate gradually decreases and after closing the game i get the blue screen,the only rout i seem to be able to run is the jubilee line.

 

[dennis63uk]

I'm using Nvidia Geoforce 8400gs here and have no problems with BVE 4