I only get 1/2 a screen. The bottom half. Unplayable. SOLVED!!

[KaZAamM]

I used to play this game quiite a bit. So I come back to the game ready for another round, and I only get 1/2 a game. Top half is black. Nice...

[One3rd]

Weird. I'm seeing the same thing after just finishing up Gunslinger and I wanted to see what BiB was like again. What's strange is that I was actually able to play it earlier today with that half screen showing for all movies but the actual game was rendering properly. Now all I get a black screen at start up and nothing works. I'll let you know if I figure out the cause on my end...I did just upgrade drivers the other day.

[One3rd]

Say this in another thread and it looks like this was part of my problem. I can now start the game in windowed mode with 2 monitors enabled or fullscreen with one enabled. I still have some cutsceens showing only the bottom half of the scene though...but at least it seems to be rendering the game correctly. See below.

Originally posted by xNFiltr8x:

Originally posted by mattig89ch:

Hello all,

I'm not sure whats happening, Every Time I fire up the game the screen goes black and...nothing.

This is the first time I've ever had this with steam.

My hardware goes above and beyond the requirements of this game.

The problem is most likely you have dual monitor setup. Disable one of the monitors and load the game. Game should load. go to options and run in "windowed mode" select your desired resolution. After this is done you can save the settings and re-enable your monitor. Dead Island also has this exact same problem. Hope this helps.

[KaZAamM]

This is the answer:

A recent Windows update has caused this issue with several games, including this one. Fortunately, it's a pretty painless fix.

1) Control Panel
2) Programs and Features
3) Top left, View installed updates
4) Let them load, may take a minute
5) Under Microsoft Windows
6) Uninstall KB2803821 update

Works perfectly now.

btw, I only have one monitor.

[One3rd]

Good stuff. Thanks for letting me know, I'll see if I have that KB installed.

[One3rd]

Looks like I didn't have this installed but it is in my available updates. I won't be installing it.

[KaZAamM]

It also effects other games I own... that is how I found out about this solution. For whatever reason, Microsoft created this update that messes up certain games, and they have known about this direct link to the problem some games face, for some time now, and chose not to fix the update.

After researching for reasons to the half-screen problem I was facing wiith Call of Juarez, I did a search for half-screen problems that effected other games. I then found out that Sniper: Ghost Warrior and MotoGP (which I don't have) Darksiders (which i also have) that directly relates to the KB2803821 update.

Here is a tiny arcticle that is placed within softpedia... Check it out.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-KB2803821-Update-Causes-Trouble-to-Steam-Users-368164.shtml

So the question must be asked: "Why?" It may be a one word question, but the context of that one word is huge.

"Why did you release a bugged update?"
"After knowing about the flawed update, why didn't you fix this update with the same version so you could uninstall the update, and allow it to update that same file that fixes the problems gamers are facing at this moment?"
"Why is a multi-billion dollar company that most of the computing world relies upon for service and reliability allowed to continue releasing an update that has a major flaw in the programing? Where users are left to uninstall the update and are continually bugged from that point onwards to install that one flawed update with every update that Microsoft does?"

Things that make you scratch your head in wonder.

[One3rd]

Good questions. I think the answer is "because they can".

[KaZAamM]

I'm not certain that is the answer I'd be satisfied with if it lend itself to any basis of truth. The only thing that would come close to a satisfying answer would be, "That update fixes a problem that is directly related to a security hole that unfortunately adresses the security problem, but creates problems that effect certain DirectX titles that use a certain version of DirectX..."

But I don't believe that is trully the real reason, anyways. It would just sound nice if it was actually true. It would have been good protocol to release some kind of public information that is readily available that answers the questions I posted before this one. I haven't found one comment yet. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think its available.