1 Topic by Nemo (edited by Nemo 2012-04-11 15:13:24)

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Topic: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Fairly often, when I undock, the entire top bar of the interface-- the one with the menu pulldown buttons at the left and right-- simply becomes a black bar.  Occasionally it has a scattering of gibberish symbols across it.

If I mouse over the correct positions for a pulldown or button-- say the Map, or Search, or Enter for a structure-- I still get the pulldown or effect.  So the game is playable but inconvenient.

The bottom of the screen also has a small black band, so I cannot see the lag meter.

Occasionally the correct image will flicker in place of the black, but it will then disappear again.

Constructive advice/a fix would be appreciated.

2 Reply by Annihilator (edited by Annihilator 2012-04-11 18:13:52)

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

buy a new geforce card wink

now the serious answer: your install could be corrupt - delete the "perpetuum.gbf" in your install folder, defrag your HD and start your client again after that. It will then load the ~800MB file again while maintaining your screen and window settings..

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Thanks, will try that.  My drive was almost 0% fragmented anyway, but there's always the possibilty of a corrupted file.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

No joy. sad  Same problem still exists.  Thanks for the idea anyway.

Devs?  Any ideas?

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Nemo wrote:

No joy. sad  Same problem still exists.  Thanks for the idea anyway.

Devs?  Any ideas?

Do you see anything like this when you play any other game?

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Sounds to me like bad graphic card drivers or card could be over heating. Changed anything lately?

RIP PERPETUUM
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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

No overheating and no problems in any other games.  Checked drivers recently, but I'll check them again.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

I reinstalled the drivers.  At the moment, that seems to have worked.  I'll see if it remains stable tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice, all. smile

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

I got ocassonally funky colors, BSOD (nv4_disp.dll), failing grafical elements on second screen or total system freezes (infinite loop in same dll).

thats a not so rare hardware conflict within my GForce or inbetween the GFX card and other components of my PC -> and its also just happening with perpetuum.

With a good bit of google searches, i found out that my GFX card ist not defect, but replacing it would solve these issues... New drivers helped me just a few days, then the issues start to reoccuring.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

I have done this and it works.

Instead of copy pasting the game into other folders, download each client independantly and it Helps tremendously!  I was studdering with 7 clients open at one time but now it is seamless.

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http://www.perp-kill.net/kill/239407
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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Sadly, the problem is back again now.  Drivers are up to date and I am having no other card issues and I did reload that gbf file, so I am stumped.  The effect comes and goes.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Does this happen in fullscreen mode? If so, can you try whether it appears when windowed?

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Nemo, are you using 64bit OS?. Just curious from past problems I've heard people encounter more problems with 64bit than 32bit. Though I am still using 32bit with no problems since.. forever, and I dare not to upgrade just to get that extra 500mb Ram.

RIP PERPETUUM
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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

DEV Zoom wrote:

Does this happen in fullscreen mode? If so, can you try whether it appears when windowed?

Yes it was in fullscreen-- I'll try it windowed, though I prefer not to play windowed.

The effect comes and goes, and varies with the time of day.

Will get back to this thread as sonn as I have pllayed windowed for a few hours.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Celebro wrote:

Nemo, are you using 64bit OS?. Just curious from past problems I've heard people encounter more problems with 64bit than 32bit. Though I am still using 32bit with no problems since.. forever, and I dare not to upgrade just to get that extra 500mb Ram.

32 bit.  However, I will be switching to a new 64 bit computer in about a week, with a rather titanic increase in processor power, RAM, VRAM, etc.  I'll see if that makes a difference.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Nemo wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Does this happen in fullscreen mode? If so, can you try whether it appears when windowed?

Yes it was in fullscreen-- I'll try it windowed, though I prefer not to play windowed.

The effect comes and goes, and varies with the time of day.

Will get back to this thread as soon as I have pllayed windowed for a few hours.

OK, I went to windowed and the bars were normal, but I could not stay in windowed to confirm if they would be stable for hours at a time.  The game performance went right through the floor in windowed mode, and became much better again once I went back to full screen.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Well, I just got hooked up to my new ISP-- fibre optic and much greater bandwidth and download/upload.  Of course that won't affect packet loss in transit through hubs between here and Hungary.

Anyway, no change-- the top and bottom bars still occcasionally go black, and the top one sometimes fills with garbage symbols.

I should have a new top-end computer and NVidia 690 card in a week or so.  I'll see if that makes any difference and update again.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

TS3 Overlay can cause such problem. Probably, something similar can too. Try to dig in that way.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

TS3 Overlay, indeed?  I didn't know that.  Any specifics?  Ideas how to fix?

Thanks for the head's-up, anyway.  The problem is still there, but it's sporadic, and happens even if overlay is not active.  So, unless merely having overlay installed is a problem (shared .dll?  Something synergistic?), I don't see how it would cause th eproblem even if it's not running.

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

One of possible solutions - is to change overlay window coordinates, or settings at all - or not to use overlay. Try to make overlay window-style, not a bar style. And change coords of window/bar, ofc.

All you've described tells that it's definitely not a GPU or ISP or hardware problem at all - check the software you're running or installed that may use DirectX and can place something over your active window (like TS3 Overlay). It seems Perpetuum doesn't like when something disturbing it's full-screen mode big_smile

21 Reply by Burial (edited by Burial 2012-05-27 08:33:22)

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Celebro wrote:

Sounds to me like bad graphic card drivers or card could be over heating. Changed anything lately?

This is probably it.


Playing from SSD by any chance?

// What happens when its black and you use the /hidegui command to toggle it?

22 Reply by Nemo (edited by Nemo 2012-05-27 22:55:50)

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Re: Top of Interface blacks out. Not sure if it's a bug, or lag-related.

Graphics card and drivers are fine.  No overheating.  I just started up Perp with a new client, on  anew computer: 64-bit Windows 7 Nvidia 680, 16 gigs of RAM, 1 gig of dedicated VRAM, on a fibre optic ISP.

No SSD.

Perp runs smoothly with everything cranked up to max (and I'd rather hope that it would, on this system).

The black bars happen less often-- but they still happen.

I'll try the /hidegui command-- never even knew it existed; folks have been telling me all sorts of command console stuff was necessary to hide the gui.