Black Screen With Cursor

[Whiterussian]

Hello all

I haven't played much lately but wanted to try again with the new patch. So i can't say for sure after which patch or hotfix my issues started.

The thing is, i repeatedly get some sort of graphic crash, meaning i get a black screen with nothing left except the cursor which i can move around. My Task Manager says that CiV is still running.
I can also Alt-Tab as much as i want but the CiV screen stays Black...
When this happens i can clearly hear how my GPU cooler is slowing down significantly so i guess its a graphic issue.
I never had that when the game came out (played about 140 hours without any tech issues).
I tried turning down the graphics setting, did not help anything.

Is this a know problem? Any ideas about how to solve it?

Here are my PC stats:

MB Asus Sabertooth X58
CPU I7 950 (at Stock speed at the moment)
6GB of Mushkin Redline
GPU Gainward GTX-460 GLH 1GB

Thanks

 

[chriguhose]

With 1.0.1.217 I am having the same issues as you describe. During game play the screen suddenly turns black with game cursor still visible and music in the background. Happens quite frequently every 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Running DX11, 1920x1080/50Hz, 8x MSAA, All on "HIGH", V-Sync enabled. These are not the default settings.

Have a ZOTAC GTX 460 1GB (Driver version 266.58), 12GB RAM, Windows 7/64bit.

Anyone having a solution for this? I'm going to try running with default settings...

 

[chriguhose]

With 1.0.1.217 I am having the same issues as you describe. During game play the screen suddenly turns black with game cursor still visible and music in the background. Happens quite frequently every 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Running DX11, 1920x1080/50Hz, 8x MSAA, All on "HIGH", V-Sync enabled. These are not the default settings.

Have a ZOTAC GTX 460 1GB (Driver version 266.58), 12GB RAM, Windows 7/64bit.

Anyone having a solution for this? I'm going to try running with default settings...

After resetting to defaults, i have been playing 5 hours straight without black screen. Maybe my custom settings were just too stressfull for the graphics card.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

I have the same issue, but mine is sometimes mixed with crashes. I don't think having settings too high will cause crashes unless your card is overheating, but I know mine didn't overheat since I'm checking the temps...

I tried both the beta 272.24 and WHQL 266.58 and it seems like 266.58 is even more unstable, as I got to play the with the beta driver for 8 hours straight til this issue.

 

[Whiterussian]

I tried it with even lower graphic settings last night. And it worked for me as well!
So i guess it was a overheating problem after all...

Surprising how much the Graphic card has to work, the graphics aren't that good after all.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

It's not overheating.. my card didn't even go beyond 65c when this crash happened. To give you a reference it's quite normal for cards to go little beyond 70c when it's running in full capacity.

More likely the game has issues with video memory loadout and whatnot.

Edit: I only get this crash when the game is trying to load in leader screen on high setting... so I'll see if it stops once I lower leader detail into medium.

 

[Clammo]

I just logged in to see if anyone was getting this since the last patch. Prior to this I wasn't really getting any technical problems. I get a black screen, and task manager takes forever to close the programme. This is happening every time I play the game, yet doesn't happen on any other game.

This is the technical blurb I get on the problem when task manager finally manages to close the programme (after numerous attempts):

Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: CivilizationV_DX11.exe
Application Version: 1.0.1.217
Application Timestamp: 4d68cb49
Hang Signature: 78f1
Hang Type: 6144
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Hang Signature 1: c3234848544a68c6587ac5d80f8d5d39
Additional Hang Signature 2: b85a
Additional Hang Signature 3: fe193780cb16314e4f1500b67608b230
Additional Hang Signature 4: 78f1
Additional Hang Signature 5: c3234848544a68c6587ac5d80f8d5d39
Additional Hang Signature 6: b85a
Additional Hang Signature 7: fe193780cb16314e4f1500b67608b230

 

[azuil]

I've got the same problem recently.

Using win7sp1 x64, intel core i7 and GeForce GTX470 1280MB card and playing with dx11. I'll try lowering my settings tonight, but imho i think my specs should be able to run the game on quite high settings (i used te same settings before the latest patch with no problems at all...)

Searching across the internets i found this topic:
So download the latest nvidia drivers. extract them, restart in safe mode, open driver folder, open drivers subfolder, select setup, check physx and drivers only, select clean install, run.

Windows likes to install it's own version of hardware drivers, even if you don't know they're there. Conflict=nvidia driver failure and recovery. civ does not recover with the drivers so black screen. clean install in safe mode will remove any and all drivers associated with video hardware, I think.
It worked for me.

I'll give it a try too, let you know if it helps. Maybe it's a gtx related problem.

 

[Clammo]

I've got the same problem recently.

Using win7sp1 x64, intel core i7 and GeForce GTX470 1280MB card and playing with dx11. I'll try lowering my settings tonight, but imho i think my specs should be able to run the game on quite high settings (i used te same settings before the latest patch with no problems at all...)

Searching across the internets i found this topic:
So download the latest nvidia drivers. extract them, restart in safe mode, open driver folder, open drivers subfolder, select setup, check physx and drivers only, select clean install, run.

Windows likes to install it's own version of hardware drivers, even if you don't know they're there. Conflict=nvidia driver failure and recovery. civ does not recover with the drivers so black screen. clean install in safe mode will remove any and all drivers associated with video hardware, I think.
It worked for me.

I'll give it a try too, let you know if it helps. Maybe it's a gtx related problem.

Thanks for that, so far the problem seems to be fixed. And yes, I use a GTX card also, so maybe it is/was a problem with them specifically.

 

[azuil]

I've got the same problem recently.
Searching across the internets i found this topic:
So download the latest nvidia drivers. extract them, restart in safe mode, open driver folder, open drivers subfolder, select setup, check physx and drivers only, select clean install, run.

I'll give it a try too, let you know if it helps. Maybe it's a gtx related problem.

Sorry for the late reply, but I can confirm this works.
CiV runs A LOT better now!

 

[Clammo]

Sorry for the late reply, but I can confirm this works.
CiV runs A LOT better now!

Just got the black screen with cursor twice within an hour of each other, so unfortunately it doesn't appear to have fixed things for me, despite what I said previously. I did post on 2K's official support forum but nobody from tech support replied.

 

[azuil]

Hm... Bummer.

I played 5+ hours yesterday without the issue.

Please keep me informed about updates on your post on 2k's forum

 

[Clammo]

Hm... Bummer.

I played 5+ hours yesterday without the issue.

Please keep me informed about updates on your post on 2k's forum

I did a fresh clean install, seems to be working properly now which is great, so thanks for the help.

Edit: No, my mistake, it's still doing it. Very frustrating as this only started with the last patch.

 

[Liborio]

I'm getting a similar version of this crash too, only in my case the screen doesn't go black, with the image freezing instead. I can still move the cursor like you guys and i can hear the game still working (i can hear units fortifying when i press F, other times i can hear other civs speaking), but no image.

Only when i try alt tabbing will the screen go completely black with only the mouse cursor visible (and responsive). This only happens after i press end turn by the way.

Will try to do the 'fix' suggested above but i've never had this problem before installing the latest patch, which leads me to think this might be a bug. A very annoying bug as the game takes ages to load .

 

[Clammo]

I'm getting a similar version of this crash too, only in my case the screen doesn't go black, with the image freezing instead. I can still move the cursor like you guys and i can hear the game still working (i can hear units fortifying when i press F, other times i can hear other civs speaking), but no image.

Only when i try alt tabbing will the screen go completely black with only the mouse cursor visible (and responsive). This only happens after i press end turn by the way.

Will try to do the 'fix' suggested above but i've never had this problem before installing the latest patch, which leads me to think this might be a bug. A very annoying bug as the game takes ages to load .

Are you using an Nvidia card? So far seems to be happening only to those of us who are.

 

[Liborio]

Are you using an Nvidia card? So far seems to be happening only to those of us who are.

Yes i am, 9800GT to be more precise.

 

[Clammo]

Well, I have a tech support thread going on the official forum and one of the tech guys has seen it, so hopefully they'll be able to find out what's causing it:

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?105965-Black-screen

Might be worthwhile posting your dxdiag for them over there on that thread. Did you try the clean install of drivers? Just tried again, but no luck here so I guess I'm waiting for an official fix now.

 

[Liborio]

Well, I have a tech support thread going on the official forum and one of the tech guys has seen it, so hopefully they'll be able to find out what's causing it:

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?105965-Black-screen

Might be worthwhile posting your dxdiag for them over there on that thread. Did you try the clean install of drivers? Just tried again, but no luck here so I guess I'm waiting for an official fix now.

I haven't yet as i'm not too confident on that working out. Going to post that dxdiag now

 

[Clammo]

Well I think I've found the solution, you need to verify the integrity of your files with steam.

Never having used Steam before I didn't know this could be a problem. If you don't know how then go to your Steam Library, find Civ 5, right click on it, click "properties", then click "local files" and click "verify integrity of game cache". A file was wrong for me, and since it fixed it then the crashes so far have gone.

I've just played 6 hours straight with no crash, and I haven't been able to play more than a couple of hours at most, and usually around half an hour prior to this since the new patch.