Black screen then exit?

#1 I don't think this will help you but it may be worth a shot. Three things in the past have given me the black screen of fate:

1) Video drivers - Try resorting to an older driver

2) Video resolution - Using the fps kit here as an example, go into example\starter.fps\client\prefs.cs and scroll down to the bottom where the '$pref::Video' section begins. Try changing resolution, maybe it's set too high for your monitor. Also, you might want to switch from OpenGl to directX to see if this solves the problem.

3) There's a bug in 1.4 which destroys the main game window if you alt-tab or another window takes focus. This can happen say if a firewall program pops up a message etc. There's a fix for it in the form of a resource and also there's a few posted around these forums.

#2 Also,
check the file "console.log" for anything suspicious,
and try compiling a debug build and running in debug and seeing where it bails.

#3 Hey, thanks for the quick replies guys, after looking at the console.log file it appears that its an issue with openal drivers (which means I posted this in the wrong forum to start with), here is the excerpt from the log file:

OpenAL Driver Init:
OpenAL
Missing OpenAL Extension function 'EAXSet'

Any ideas? I've already d/l the latest OpenAL redistributable and had no luck with that. Also deleted it entirely from my system32 folder in the hope that the local copy sitting in the same dir would take over but nothing yet.

#4 I'm pretty sure this will not stop the application.

is this the last thing in the log?

#5 I have the same problem re OpenAl and that is not the cause for the crash, well it doesn't cause a crash for me. The OpenAl.dll that comes with Torque, simply put sucks. I downloaded the OpenAl sdk produced my own dll and have had a much better time as far as audio is concerned.

Just fyi your last comment is entirely correct. Torque will look for the dll in the exe directory first and if it's not there will check system32.

As badguy said, what's the last thing in the log?

edit: You mentioned you have an amd. I know others have had various problems with Torque and amd which were solved by downloading the latest amd drivers, might be worth a try.

#6 It is indeed the last thing in the log file, to avoid cluttering the forum, I've uploaded it here:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/incognito/console.log

Tim - sound advice on the rebuilding of OpenAL, i'll do that, thanks!

#7 Some more info for ya, the OpenAl layer in Torque doesn't seem to like onboard sound cards - though usually this will result in no sound rather than a crash. It esp dislikes the c-media range due to a driver bug. What sound card do you use?

#8 Tim - I have onboard sound in the form of NVIDIA Soundstorm. Its funny I've written a couple of things using openal before and never had any problems.

#9 It's not so much OpenAl that's the problem, its Torque. I've been pushing for an audio rewrite for years to no avail. I guessed you had an onboard sound device as this seems to amplify the problem. Torque's audio is a major weakness of the engine. Everyones noticed it, GG (Garage Games) acknowledge the problem, there are 100's of posts detailing the seriousness of the problem and still nothing is done. The best attempt I saw was when a GG employee made a post stating that if an experienced progammer were to tackle the task, and succeed, they would be paid for their efforts. The wait continues...

#10 @Tim: Not correct--things are being "done". You know however that we don't talk about upcoming releases much, but we do recognize how outdated the Torque sound layer is right now.

#11 So does this OpenAL problem render any attempts that I might make in running anything created in Torque a non-starter? Surely I shouldn't have to change my hardware just to get it to work?

#12 Well that's very good news indeed Stephen, I look forward to seeing the results.

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I detect a bit of a narcy attitude. I'm not bitching, but if people don't speak up how do I know you are aware of problems or what / if there are any plans to fix them? There's no release notes distributed with the engine, bug related threads are often filled to the brim then deleted by admin(?) and this particular issue has been around since 2001. If I come across as rude to you you'll have to forgive me, I only want what's best for us all... an engine that's as good and stable as humanly possible. I make plenty of contributions to this community and I'm sure you've noticed so I would hope you don't hold me in contempt.

Peace

#13 No, I didn't mean to come across poorly, my fault! I did however want you, as well as the rest of the folks reading this to realize that we don't in any way blow you guys off as a community--we react as best we can given our resources and controlling factors...and sound is one that has finally been able to gain higher priority than it historically had.

#14 Thanks Stephen, I know it must be disheartening to always hear moaning and complaining given the amount of work you put in, just realise in my case, and most others, it comes from a good place. I agree with your comment about sound not having a high enough priority (rendering seems to dominate attention) and am glad something is being done about that. Afterall, sound is equally as important as visuals, it's just harder to show off (you can't post a screenshot of audio) and people seem to be more impressed by eye candy which in most cases servers little purpose in making a game fun or involving.

#15 Resolution seemed to be the problem for me when that happened. I suggest changing the resolution on you monitor to a higher setting. Mine was in 800 X 600, and my screen went black and crashed. So I changed my resolution to the lowest possible that is still in the thousands. It works now.

#16 Hello there, I also have the same problem,
"OpenAL Driver Init:
OpenAL
Missing OpenAL Extension function 'EAXSet' "

My sound card is a XFi Music edition. I ve tried installing the OpenAL SDK kit but still no luck. I also have an AMD 3500 64bit, with a geforce 7800 gtx.

If theres any workarounds that would be helpful as I just wanted to get it working on my new PC as soon as possible.

Many thanks.

#17 Right, I ve found a fix for my problem.

It seemed to be caused by upgrading my sound card to the X-fi. Alot of games would either crash/not run unless I did the following:

Use the Creative labs driver CD to remove all drivers (not just uninstalling them from control panel), then downloading the latest drivers and installing them (after the necessary prompts for rebooting).

I hope this helps anyone else.

#18 --Deleted--

#19

Quote:
"Error allocating memory. Shutting Down" or "trouble allocating virtual memory...".

This error has always been caused by someone not having the latest drivers from their video card manufacturer. In your case this would be nVidia.

#20 Hello All, I have Recently got the 1.4 version of the torque engine and Im getting the same issues described above. This is the last few lines in the console.log file:

Loading compiled script common/client/screenshot.cs.
Loading compiled script common/client/cursor.cs.
Loading compiled script common/client/help.cs.
Loading compiled script common/client/recordings.cs.

OpenAL Driver Init:
OpenAL
Missing OpenAL Extension function 'EAXSet'

When trying to run the demo .exe it creates a window then quickly closes down without displaying anything onscreen. I have tried installing the openAL runtime however it states that :
"Some OpenAL files were in use -- a reboot will be required to complete installation"

I was wondering if the OP ever found a solution to his problem? I will attempt to remove the audio drivers and install the latest ones to see if it makes any difference.

AMD 3000+
(Onboard sound) NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
ATI Radeon 9800XT (256MB)