Frozen Black Screen

[Vetis]

So recently during my trip through disc 3 content, the screen will sometimes freeze black while loading in enemy encounters. Never had this issue before, not sure if it's from the update or just the new content. Audio works fine but I can't even Alt+F4 out, I have to use task manager to close the application. Anyone else having this problem?

[Vetis]

Most of us in the thread mentioned it only occured after the latest patch though. That's why I'm trying to figure out if we can revert the patch and use the older stable version. Like Shaizan said, pain in the ♥♥♥♥ when you're out in the field and lose all the progress you made since last save or city/dungeon exit. I don't want to use quicksaves, but if it doesn't affect my trophy hunt I guess I can. I'm always cautious about using the port benefits in case they prevent achievement gain.

EDIT: Oh, I saw Shaizan mention computer specs briefly. For the record, my PC is far beyond the requirements for this game. I can play DS3 and the like on max settings effortlessly, no concerns there.

[Shaizan]

Ha. I just meant when I see people complain about "bugs" in a game on steam, yet I have no issues with the game, and their computer is woefully inadequate, I usually feel like saying something. I would hope that no one is actually running this game on a 8600GTS, the min.

It'd be nice to roll back the game, but no way really through steam We'll have to hope for a patch.

[Shaizan]

I still don't know what your role is yet in this post. Rabid fanboy, troll, angry at life?

[migaDbr]

I came here looking for a solution to this problem, but I couldn't find it in the post. I got my game working again, though, so I thought I'd share what I did. My Steam is not in English, though, so excuse me if every term isn't 100% accurate.
Go to your Library and right click on FF9. Click on Properties. Head to the 3rd tab--it should be called "Local files" or something similar. There, click on the 4th option: verify files. Steam will check the game and notice that some files are missing. Let it download them again. They're about 8MB worth of files, so you'll be done in seconds.
And that's it! I hope it helps you guys--it sure helped me!

[SpookySunday]

Originally posted by migaDbr:

I came here looking for a solution to this problem, but I couldn't find it in the post. I got my game working again, though, so I thought I'd share what I did. My Steam is not in English, though, so excuse me if every term isn't 100% accurate.
Go to your Library and right click on FF9. Click on Properties. Head to the 3rd tab--it should be called "Local files" or something similar. There, click on the 4th option: verify files. Steam will check the game and notice that some files are missing. Let it download them again. They're about 8MB worth of files, so you'll be done in seconds.
And that's it! I hope it helps you guys--it sure helped me!

Verifying the game data is the first thing one should do, if a problem occurs in a game (not only FF IX). Unfortunately, this did not fix the problem. Still getting black screens. :(

[Vetis]

Originally posted by migaDbr:

There, click on the 4th option: verify files. Steam will check the game and notice that some files are missing. Let it download them again. They're about 8MB worth of files, so you'll be done in seconds.
And that's it! I hope it helps you guys--it sure helped me!

Unfortunately, like Spooky, this didn't help me either. I did get one file replaced during the verification and it ran smooth for a few hours, so I almost thought it worked, but it was just a tease. Still searching for a solution.

[CptCookiediet]

really need this fixed too for that dumb 10,000 enemies achievement. Hopefully someone will figure out a fix for this...

[TotalBlank]

Funny I didn't notice this thread before but as of 2 days ago I got to Ipsen's Castle and I've noticed no matter what I do the game feels like it's about to lock up intermitently. Flying in the Hilda Garde, encounters, loading screens all freeze up and drop to 1 FPS for a few seconds and then out of nowhere unfreezes back to 30fps and the game goes on.. I monitored the CPU usage of the game and it stays at sub 25 and never really goes higher.. I'm thinking it must've been some little update that messed with this because I never had this occur before.

[Vetis]

Originally posted by Blank:

Funny I didn't notice this thread before but as of 2 days ago I got to Ipsen's Castle and I've noticed no matter what I do the game feels like it's about to lock up intermitently. Flying in the Hilda Garde, encounters, loading screens all freeze up and drop to 1 FPS for a few seconds and then out of nowhere unfreezes back to 30fps and the game goes on.. I monitored the CPU usage of the game and it stays at sub 25 and never really goes higher.. I'm thinking it must've been some little update that messed with this because I never had this occur before.

Strange, I can fly around just fine, I've not experienced any FPS dropped. My only issue is it freezes on the black screen when loading enemy encounters. Nobody else mentioned the FPS issue, have you tried verifying the file integrity? Didn't help the freezing but it might help you.

[TotalBlank]

Well I got around to verifying my game files and I do notice a slight change in performance, it's not much but now my FPS drops from 30 to a near fixed 20 while flying my gold chocobo and the Hilda Garde and occasionally pops down to 15 flying over dense areas for some reason. The battles though seems like they are still taking long to load. I understand the each loading screen for a battle is supposed to be 4-5 seconds long if I remember correctly but I still find my game hanging a lot and completely unresponsive (it says Not Responding in Task Manager) and then suddenly it loads the battle. It's very strange because this did not occur a single time before I reached the halfway point through Disc 3.

[Shaizan]

Blank. Not sure this is the same problem as others in this topic. I have no fps problems, other than it is caped at 30 and it literally strains my eyes.

Battle animation swirl goes up, black screen with the grey bars on side, music still plays, the enemy never comes up and it stays at a black screen. I have to ctl-alt-del at that point and shut down the process.

First thing I did before posting was to verify the game.

[Vetis]

Originally posted by Blank:

It's very strange because this did not occur a single time before I reached the halfway point through Disc 3.

Yeah, man, you're having a very different issue than ours. I highly recommend starting your own topic in hopes of attracting others who had a similar issue, and hope they can help. I was gonna suggest you may not have the right specs if you're encountering this issue, but if it only recently began it's probably another patch issue. Best of luck, man, but I have no idea how to help. We're still stuck frozen in black screens of death.

[TotalBlank]

Originally posted by Shaizan:

Blank. Not sure this is the same problem as others in this topic. I have no fps problems, other than it is caped at 30 and it literally strains my eyes.

Battle animation swirl goes up, black screen with the grey bars on side, music still plays, the enemy never comes up and it stays at a black screen. I have to ctl-alt-del at that point and shut down the process.

First thing I did before posting was to verify the game.

I don't see how the 30fps cap would bug your eyes, it might be just because you're more picky about the quality of games than I am. I grew up playing these old games that were mostly capped under 30 for the most part and it does not affect me at all.

Regarding the freezing/hanging, I don't actually need to force close the game because it just hangs a few seconds longer than it should and then loads like normal.

[Vetis]

Originally posted by Blank:

Regarding the freezing/hanging, I don't actually need to force close the game because it just hangs a few seconds longer than it should and then loads like normal.

Never goes back to normal for me. I left to get a drink once, came back and it was still black. ALT+F4 didn't even work like I usually use to exit, had to CTRL+ALT+DEL out just like him.

[Shaizan]

Originally posted by Blank:

I don't see how the 30fps cap would bug your eyes, it might be just because you're more picky about the quality of games than I am. I grew up playing these old games that were mostly capped under 30 for the most part and it does not affect me at all.

It's different if you are playing on a console where the tv is across the room. Im sitting at my desk with the monitor right in front of me. The 30fps of this game and most of the other locked FF games all gave me headaches when I played them on PC. Doesnt happen with anything at 60fps.