Black Screen with Games

S

Smair

New Member
Hi there,

I recently bought this new PC, which has vista on it. The specs are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Dual Core Processor
4GB Corsair DDR II Memory
ATI Radeon x1600 Series
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit.

I have tried installing many different games on my pc, which are quite new and have been released in the last few years. The installation goes fine, and everything is great. When it comes to launching the game, well, i double click the file to run the game, and i get a black screen. Nothing happens afterwards. It just stays black. 'Ctrl + Alt + Delete' does not work, and neither does 'Alt + Tab', or any other keyboard shortcuts. This results in me having to hold in the power button and turn my pc off like that.

Any idea's on what could be wrong? It is extremely frustrating, due to the fact that i've tried running about 3 - 5 games on my computer, and neither of them work, without a black screen coming up after trying to launch any of them. I've tried numerous things like 'Running as Administrator' and changing compatibillity modes and so on and so forth, but none of that works.
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Any suggestions/solutions will be greatly appreciated, thank you.
 

My Computer

System One

ATI Radeon x1600 Series
Click to expand...

low end video card, you will need to get a seperate video card for it.

is it a desktop or laptop?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    CUSTOM BUILT BY ME
    CPU
    AMD PHENOM II X3 710 2.6GHZ Overclocked to 3.25GHZ Stable
    Motherboard
    Ecs Gf8200a Phenom-2 X4 Quad Core Mboard
    Memory
    8BG PC5300 4 x 2GB OCZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    PCI-E ATI HD 4670 1GB Overclocked 4GB Total
    Sound Card
    Onboard 7.1 HD AUDIO
    Monitor(s) Displays
    55" Vizio LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1600 x 1200 HD
    Hard Drives
    1TB Seagate, 1TB Hitachi, 250GB Maxtor, 250GB Seagate
    PSU
    Kingwin ABT-610MM Maximum Power 610 Watt ATX 12V
    Case
    GENERIC
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS7500-AlCu LED Universal CPU Cooler, 4 CASE FANS
    Keyboard
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS KEYBOARD
    Mouse
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS MOUSE
    Internet Speed
    CABLE 15MBPS
Hi,

I currently own a desktop pc.

I have one working game, and only one, which is "UT2004' and i'm able to max out the settings. But that is the only game i can run.

All other games are non-runnable.

The GFX card (ATI Radeon) is a separate one i purchased quite some time ago.
 

My Computer

System One

If you go to this link, you will see the x1600 is a low end card: Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart - Review Tom's Hardware : Best Graphics Cards For The Money: Jan. '09

You'll still be able to play most games but on a low graphics settings. To get the most out of your graphics card download and install the CCC package from ATI:

Graphics Drivers & Software

Once that is installed download and install these two updates:

DirectX (You need this whether you running DirectX 9, 10 or 10.1)
C ++ for Vista 64 bit

Once the last one is installed, reboot your pc.
 

My Computer

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Hi stew2

I did what you said, installed the DirectX and C++ updates, and installed CCC. It didn't help the matter however.

Thing is, my brother used this Graphics Card before me, and he said it could run any game like BioShock, Call of Duty 4, UT3 and so on. So if the card could run those games on his pc, why won't the card run games on my pc?
 

My Computer

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Hi, Sorry for the late reply.

Anyways, I was trying to play BioShock, The Sims 2, World Of Warcraft, GTA: San Andreas.

This card worked fine on my brothers pc, and it could play the above games. My brother gave the card to me, and i put it in my pc, and now the above games aren't playable, so i'm assuming it must be my pc.
 

My Computer

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Ok i dont have any of those games listed but if you havent done this already then you can try it. Go to the folder where the game is installed. Its most likely installed in C:\Program Files (x86)

Open the game folder and look for the .exe files. So in the bioshock folder your looking for something like BioShock.exe. See if theres any other .exe files especially ones that say Launcher, Config etc and double left click on them. That will open a settings window for that game where you should set every graphics option to its lowest level and then try playing the game.
 

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Hi All,

I have exactly the same problem. Start a game and the screen goes black, no response from the keyboard until I turn it off and start again. I thought it might be the firewall (comodo) but it doesn´t seem to register anything, I managed to start BF2 in windows mode but it was full of problems. The only game that seems to work is TW:Empire and that had problems in the beginning. I hope anyway has any ideas?

Thx
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    AThlon 64 x2 6000+
    Motherboard
    Asus M3N72-D
    Memory
    6GB Corsair xms2
    Graphics Card(s)
    Palit nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB
    PSU
    Corsair TX 650W
try updating the game, i had the same problem with crysis, would not start, kept crashing out on me, update the game engine patch and it worked.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    CUSTOM BUILT BY ME
    CPU
    AMD PHENOM II X3 710 2.6GHZ Overclocked to 3.25GHZ Stable
    Motherboard
    Ecs Gf8200a Phenom-2 X4 Quad Core Mboard
    Memory
    8BG PC5300 4 x 2GB OCZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    PCI-E ATI HD 4670 1GB Overclocked 4GB Total
    Sound Card
    Onboard 7.1 HD AUDIO
    Monitor(s) Displays
    55" Vizio LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1600 x 1200 HD
    Hard Drives
    1TB Seagate, 1TB Hitachi, 250GB Maxtor, 250GB Seagate
    PSU
    Kingwin ABT-610MM Maximum Power 610 Watt ATX 12V
    Case
    GENERIC
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS7500-AlCu LED Universal CPU Cooler, 4 CASE FANS
    Keyboard
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS KEYBOARD
    Mouse
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS MOUSE
    Internet Speed
    CABLE 15MBPS
Thanks for that, I have just tried playing the demo to Arma 2 but the only way it can work is running it in windowed mode (adding -window to the startup bar in properties)
It works but you have to stay in that mode and the graphics don´t seam to be as good, does the same for BF2 but the graphics go very funky.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    AThlon 64 x2 6000+
    Motherboard
    Asus M3N72-D
    Memory
    6GB Corsair xms2
    Graphics Card(s)
    Palit nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB
    PSU
    Corsair TX 650W
worth the idea. crysis has been the only game i have had issues with, and i fixed that with the official patch for the game.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    CUSTOM BUILT BY ME
    CPU
    AMD PHENOM II X3 710 2.6GHZ Overclocked to 3.25GHZ Stable
    Motherboard
    Ecs Gf8200a Phenom-2 X4 Quad Core Mboard
    Memory
    8BG PC5300 4 x 2GB OCZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    PCI-E ATI HD 4670 1GB Overclocked 4GB Total
    Sound Card
    Onboard 7.1 HD AUDIO
    Monitor(s) Displays
    55" Vizio LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1600 x 1200 HD
    Hard Drives
    1TB Seagate, 1TB Hitachi, 250GB Maxtor, 250GB Seagate
    PSU
    Kingwin ABT-610MM Maximum Power 610 Watt ATX 12V
    Case
    GENERIC
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS7500-AlCu LED Universal CPU Cooler, 4 CASE FANS
    Keyboard
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS KEYBOARD
    Mouse
    MICROSOFT WIRELESS MOUSE
    Internet Speed
    CABLE 15MBPS
Stew2: I tried that, but some of the launchers do not seem to have graphic settings. All games are fully updated also. I honestly think it could be the computer. It's new, but i'm not too sure, because i don't know a lot about computers, but i still don't think it could be the graphics card, if the GFX Card worked previously with these games on a different system.
 

My Computer

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OK you should do this:

  1. Download, install and then run - - PerfectDisk - - to defrag all hard drives and partitions
  2. Once its completed the defrag, reboot your pc
  3. Check your hard drive for errors by clicking on the vista start orb and then clicking on Computer. You then right click on your hard drive and click Properties. Next go to the Tools tab and under Error Checking click on Check Now and tick both the boxes. Then click Start and reboot your pc
  4. Check you RAM for errors by clicking the vista start orb and typing in the search bar MdSched then hit enter then click on restart now.
I think it may be a problem with your RAM so it would be a good idea to do the above steps just to make sure there are no hard drive or RAM errors.
 

My Computer

System One

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