Troubleshooting: AoD won't recognise my video card.

[mr_awesomeAl]

THe only options I can use are intel 4000 on board graphics or no video card. I have no troubles with any other games of mine, all my drivers are up to date. My video card is a laptop Gforce GT 650m. Not sure what could be the issue, has anyone else had this kind of problem?

[Tzimtzum Estebanos]

Yeah, it seems to be an ancient problem with AoE and Dead State (they share the game engine). During the last month I've tried almost all that people advised me on forums:
- reinstalled
- used new and old drivers
- deleting pref.cs file in My Documents after each launch
- tried to solve the problem with the nVidia tool (strangely enough, this particular executable is listed as 'launch with nVidia' in the in-tool menu, but remains 'launch with the integrated video' in the context right-click menu - I've never seen this kind of behaviour before)
- tried GOG-version to rule out Steam overlay issues. didn't help
- tried different system compatibilities (win 7 mainly, because that was suggested by dev in the main support thread here)
- tried to launch as admin (strangely enough, it seems to interfere with nVidia 'force a videocard manually' tool)
- finally, tried to turn 'Secure Boot' off in UEFI/BIOS

Then tried all of it in different combinations (not all, obviously)
Nothing helped. The oldest threads about 'GFX Null' go back to Aug 2014, it seems to be a very specialised and hard-to-detect issue. I don't think I would know what to do if I were in dev's shoes, especially considering the game engine isn't in-house.

But the game isn't very demanding, I guess, so I've almost resigned to play in with Intel HD

My system: ASUS N76VB-T4006H, Intel Core i5 3230M,, nVidia GeForce GT 740M, Windows 8.1

[tg]

Force nVidia control center -> 3D settings to use the nVidia card for this executable.

[Elhoim]

Originally posted by tg:

Force nVidia control center -> 3D settings to use the nVidia card for this executable.

This. From our forums:

"You should check out the NVIDIA Control Panel, because AoD is not recognised by default as an application that requires special handling (there is a chance that you have to add it manually to the list of applications) and the system decides that it uses the integrated graphic instead of the dedicated one."

[mr_awesomeAl]

I just wanted to say thank you for all of the help. I managed to get it working properly by going into the Nvidia control panel and setting my video card as the default device instead of the on board.

[Vince]

:salute:

[Elhoim]

You are welcome!

[Tzimtzum Estebanos]

hm, strangely enough, it doesn't work for me (

[Flashback]

Please do the next thing:
1) Switch to a test branch. Go to Steam Library -> right click AoD -> Properties -> Betas and enter the code: "blacksheepwall". Select a "test" branch from a drop down and make sure Steam downloads an update (you may want to exit Steam and launch it again to force it);
2) Launch the game, make it load the main menu and exit it. Post the contents of console.log file from your Documents/My Games/Age of Decadence.

[Tzimtzum Estebanos]

Thanks for the swift answer!

My console log is http://pastebin.com/de4Wf4ei
nVidia control settings screens are here http://imgur.com/a/hpr2Z

Maybe I should create a separate thread on the forum for my problem (I don't want to annoy the topic starter too much).

And I think the problem is with nVidia drivers/tools, not your game! The games looks great! :D
I'll try to download Dead State demo and see if it can be launched with nVidia in the meantime.

[Flashback]

At least we saw for sure from a new console.log what's the reason behind the game not seeing your videocard - it's what Direct3D feeds the engine:

Found 2 adapters:
0: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (D3D9)
1: GFX Null Device

I.e. not the game failing to use a valid device. Had to be confirmed, thanks.

[Ekskom]

Hi,
I have a 650m that the game wasn't recognizing until I booted in Admin mode but I am still having the same flickering problems as before when it was only registering my Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000. I reinstalled directX, my Geforce is the recent one, deleted prefs.cs, reinstalled the C++ runtime.

I'm playing the latest demo by the way

[Ekskom]

Really the screen is mostly blank and flickers when I move the camera, I am using the auto detect GFX settings

[Flashback]

Can you try manually selecting high or low GFX?

[Ekskom]

Ok, been playing around with the in-game GFX settings and the highest stable widescreen res is 1366-768, the settings that are on are: Fullscreen, Mesh Quality-Highest, Texture Quality-High, Shader Quality-Low, Anisotropic Filter-16X. Everything else is either on lowest or completely off, otherwise the screen starts flickering.

This is really strange, I would love to play at 1920-1080

[Ekskom]

Bumping, can anyone help me play this with higher settings, there's no reason that I shouldn't be able to at least play on max resolution of 1920 x 1080. I just want it to look a little less blocky that's all.
My specs are:
Win 7 64-bit
Geforce 650m
I7-3610QM @ 2.3Ghz
16 GB Ram
Drivers up to date, including DirectX, C++ Library, Geforce

I am also in the steam beta but I don't know if that should make any difference.

Max stable settings in-game are in the previous post above.