Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

[MojoFlow]

I know there are many threads on this (I think I have read them all).

I have tried everything in http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showt...ighlight=black

Here is my h/w:
Athlon 2800XP, 1024MB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

I had BF2 running fine on this PC for about a week. Last week, I did a Windows XP update, and something buggered on my PC. Lots of problems, one of them this issue with BF2.

Decided to blow away harddrive, reinstall windows from scratch. Did that, and patched. Installed BF2, got this problem, crash to desktop.

To date, I have tried the following:
- Different Cat drivers (5.10, 5.8, 4.8)
- Update VIA all-in-ones
-changed desktop to different resolutions and refresh rates (note: one time when I changed to 800x600@60Hz, BF2 started, so I thought it was fixed, haven't been able to get it to go again).
- deleted the BF2 folder in 'my docs'
- edited the video.con file for many different res settings (1024x768@75Hz, etc.)
- Uninstalled and reinstalled BF2, deleting the BF2 mydocs folder at the same time.
- tried both new installs, and patched 1.03 installs
- changed AGP speed to 4x from 8x
- disabled 'Fast writes' in AGP settings
- i think some other things, but can't remember.

I have a support question in to EA, but they are pretty slow at each response, their two suggestions were: updating Cat drivers (which I did), and trying to set desktop res to 1024x768@75Hz and 32bit colour depth (which I did).

I am getting really desparate here, and really need some help.

If you need any more info to help me out, please let me know.

Thanks!!

[Gunny Highway]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

When updating drivers do you remember to uninstall the old display drivers??

A good idea is to totally clean out old drivers using drivercleaner, look here on how to:

http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showpost.php?p=230016&postcount=3

[MojoFlow]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

I used the CAT uninstaller tool to clean out my drivers.

I will this method as well tonight when I get home.

Thanks!!

Any additional ideas from anyone?

[virussnt]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

Turn off windows firewall or any other internet security software.

[MojoFlow]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

Ok,

Just finished another batch of trying to get this working.

Gunny, I used your procedure to install 5.10 Cat driver.

Still same problem.

Tried temporarily disabling windows firewall... same result.

Did an uninstall and reinstall of BF2 again, still no go.

I am getting real discouraged here. Seems like EA answers my questions every day at around 4:00AM (my time), so hopefully they have some more suggestions for me to try.

Does anyone else have any other ideas for me??

Cheers!

[1Cruiser1]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

Hi,

I have had a great many experiences with this crash problem. Apparently it is caused by the game video setting not matching with what you have setup on your video card. The trick is to try and get it to start at 800x600@60hz with your setting on card the same. Once you have done it and entered the game once you can then change it in the game and it will work. The tirck is to actually get the game to start.

info can be found about this on: www.tweakguides.com/BF2_3.html about half way down the page.

Also another way to see what it is trying to launch at is to right click on the BF2 icon, properties and change the last number on the target line to 0. It will then try to launch in a smaller area and if it does not start will give you a message at what resolution it is trying to start at.

You need to make sure you have you card set a that rate.

See how it goes.

[MojoFlow]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

Thanks for the reply cruiser.

I have actually tried that as well, and was able to get in the one time (and never again), using that method.

Last night I did more testing and I may have a more serious problem.

I tried some other games and these ones worked:

- Halflife 2
- COD 2 demo

And these ones crashed to desktop:

- Falcon 4: Allied Force
- IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles

So, I am going to try to get these ones working first to see what is going on.

F4 has a crash log, and this part is somewhat interesting:

Last recorded LOD 0 number 0
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address: 6CE26324 01:00015324 C:\WINDOWS\system32\DINPUT8.dll
Write to location 006dc508 caused an access violation.

Access violation in the DINPUT8.dll, I notice when I run DXDiag, it tells me that the direct input failed and if you want to skip that part. I will try to correct that problem first and report back.

Thanks again for everyone's input so far.

Cheers!

[MojoFlow]

Re: Yet another: Black screen then Desktop at start

Ok,

I'm back after a fun day.

I figured out it was a problem with DirectInput part of DirectX. I couldn't fix it, so I did a reinstall of Windows and it seems like BF2 is working now, I will be sure after I am finished patching everything.

In case anyone is curious, I think I know why this happened. People with this problem said it was to do with a bad or problem USB device. I had connected an x-10 controller to my USB port without installing the software first, and I think that buggered things. Although, only a reinstall of Windows has helped.

Hope to see you guys on the Battlefield!

Cheers!