Black Screen issue and how to fix it

[Pandoron]

Some people experienced a so called black screen effect in the game - the graphics turn to black but the game is still running, switching to desktop closes the program immediately.

I had the same issue and digged through the forum for a working solution. There are many different ideas how to solve it. However, only one of them seem to work (for me and probably others). So I decided to repost an explanation how to fix this issue, marking the working solution in first place amongst others.

The possible solution I found in this forum implies that there are some compatibility issues of GRID 2 with DX11. The workaround excludes them by forcing the game to DX10.

Update: Solution 2 seems to work well.

Howto:

Solution 1:

- Navigate to Users/Documents/my games/GRID 2/hardwaresettings/
- Open "hardware_settings_config.xml" (Make a backup of this file prior to the following steps)
- Browse to <directx forcedx10="false" />
- Alter the boolean value to <directx forcedx10="true" />
- Save the file (replace the old one)
- Run the game

Solution 2:

- Force the graphics driver to vsync=on in the graphic driver settings and set the detail level ingame to high (Tried this solution and it seems to be more stable. The black screen issue only occurs rarely)

Alternatives that might work:

- deleting the .../hardwaresettings/ folder and let GRID 2 recheck the graphic card (didn't work for me. Might work though)

- Start an integrity check of the GRID 2 installation

- Update to the most recent graphics driver (might work)

- Downgrade the Driver to the last known working version (not recommended)

- more alternatives can be found, browsing this forum but most of them are very unlikely to work

Maybe someone can make this post sticky to help people, solving this issue fast. The issue still exists and I assume a patch for this issue will not be released.

edit1: 1st. Thanks for the sticky. 2nd unfortunately after a longer playtime, this issue occured again. I assume, it might be a problem with the Steam overlay. I disable it for now and inform you about the results.

edit2: Update. Black screen bug is not related to the Steam overlay. However, there might be some correlation between the driver and the game since it runs a lot more stable using forced DX10 than using DX11.

edit3: Since Solution 2 seem to work well, the issue might be correlated to one of the graphic settings. This needs more investigation and time to check (every advanced graphic setting needs to be checked individually)

edit4: Some users verify the black screen issue as an graphics driver issue (Driver stop and recovery). A reduced core clock speed helped out for them to play GRID 2 for several hours without any issue. The core clock speed can be adjusted, using 3rd party tools like MSI Afterburner which can be obtained in the web for free. The core clock speed was reduced by approx. 30Mhz in order to get the game running more stable. Please keep in mind, using tools to alter the core clock speed may cause damage to the hardware and should only be used with care and some knowledge about tweaking hardware values. I'll test this method on my own and edit this post afterwards, providing a more detailed guide, how to alter the core clock.

edit5: changed NVidia to all graphic drivers since this issue also might occur on AMD based cards.

edit6: Added integrity check suggestion

@Codemasters: It might be useful for users with this issue that you get in touch with NVidia/AMD in order to analyse and fix this issue. Thank you.

Thank you CoDa for providing more suggestions from Codemasters directly. Here's the post from Codemasters regarding this issue:

"Can you ensure that any anti-virus software on your PC is disabled. If you right click on your anti-virus icon in your system tray, you should get an option allowing you to disable it (or exit). Make sure that you do not run any other programs whilst it is disabled and re-enable it once you have finished trying this procedure.

Please also ensure that any CD tools that may install virtual drives - e.g. Nero, Clone CD, Alcohol 120, Daemon Tools are uninstalled. You should also disable any CD tools that check for disk insertion.

Any other background programs, where possible, should also be shutdown.

Now try running the game again.

Kind regards
Rob
Codemasters Customer Services"

Maybe this works. On the other hand, most products work just fine when utilizing AV-Software and/or CD Emulation parallel to them. So it is still a bad code in the CM product in my opinion.

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New solution found by SpoodBeest (thank you for providing this method):

Spoodbeest figured out, that the issue is most likely caused by the hyperthreading of Intel I7/Xeon CPU's. To fix this issue, the Grid 2 Config-file has to be altered.

I copied an abridged version SpoodBeests post below as explanation:

- Open C:\Users\<user>\Documents\my games\GRID 2\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.

- Modify the line "workerMapFile="system/workerMap12Core.xml" to indicate the number of physical and hyperthreaded cores you have. For example, I have a 6 core i7, so 12. (the number in the workerMapFile may change depending on the cores (incl the vcores) your CPU has)

- Then modify the lines forceFeedbackProcessor="a", dvdStorageProcessor="b", dataSetMonitorProcessor="c", renderProcessor="d", updateProcessor="e", fileStreamProcessor="f". In place of a,b,c,d,e, and f, use the numbers which refer to your physical cores, i.e., 0,2,4,6,8,10. Luckily for me, I have 6 physical cores and can dedicate one to each of these processes. If you have less, I guess try assigning the same core to several. I think the key here is to not assign a hyperthreaded core."

I checked this method and it worked so far.


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The issue also might be related to the length or brand of the HDMI or Display Port cables. Using a shorter cable or using a different brand/quality might help to get rid of the random blackscreen issue. It seems that some cables are not able to transport the signal stable enough to keep the video signal running (but this issue is only known on Codemasters games so far and is still an engine issue on Codemasters side). Also, if no different cable is available, a reduction of the framerate and/or the resolution might help to keep the video signal stable.

Thank you Hebespunk for providing this information :)

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Btw GRID Autosport seem to have the same issue as a friend of mine showed me on his rig. Maybe this solution might work also for all other Codemasters products having this issue.

[[BF] Cos]

Thanks for the effort mate, but whatever i do, fails. Black screen, flickering graphics, amd crash and recovery, lock ups, not a happy comsumer. :(

[Otto Giftmacher]

thanks for your commitment, but nothing will help and cm will never fix it. think it's a prob with my gtx660ti. can't play this game without a blackscreen every 20mins, except online...online the game will run for an hour...changed ALL my pc components except the gtx, tried all out of this and other forums, enabled dx10, deleted the folders...and so on and so on... blackscreen again and again. all other games are running well only grid2 and...surprise, surprise...f12013 will not run on my system. support and cm...we all know it ^^ very frustrating!

[[BF] Cos]

I get 2 mins max online. Eveything else including f1 2013 runs fine. Reakon ur on the right track with direct x.

[[BF] Cos]

ps.cant change settings in settings config.

[Pandoron]

So it seems not to be a NVidia-specific issue but a common driver issue. I wish Codemasters would look after this problem but since it exists for several month now, I don't set my expectations to get a patch for that soon :(

Anyway, I try my best to get some working solution for this black screen issue. Maybe it helps to reduce the settings even more to prevent certain commands from the game to the graphics driver which causes the graphic crash (the game seems not to crash since audio and the game engine itself is still running). Unfortunately, I cannot test for AMD cards though.

Did you guys tried out the underclock suggestion? I had the opportunity to play GRID 2 at least for a while now without and black screen. I know, the MSI Afterburner is not the best solution but it might actually help. When using Afterburner, I recommend to uncheck the Afterburner fan control in the settings unless you love to have a loud and noisy PC right next to you. Then lower the core clock. As said, this could help (it seems to work for some people).

Maybe another solution suggestion will pop up which could work. Until then, we are have to deal with the fact, that we paid for a product that actually doesn't work properly and CM is not willing to fix this (seems like that :( )

[[BF] Cos]

Not just Nvidia, i have a radeon 7950, same issue. Just reset my bios to default as i reakon dx effects bios. Deleted all my hardware files. I'll let you know how it go's. ;)

[Pandoron]

Changed my post to all graphic cards now. Please let us know, if one of your attempts worked well for you. I'll edit that into the 1st post. Thanks :)

[[BF] Cos]

No joy mate. Even happens in single player. The next obviouse path is de dust, surprizing how much damage piece of dust can do, especially with prossecor hungry apps.

[Pandoron]

That's true indeed. It always makes sense to clean up the PC from time to time :) High temperatures can also cause stability issues. But usually they are not that "picky" regarding the software. Instability due temperature occurs with many apps and not only one or two.

[[BF] Cos]

I'm getting hardware crash's. Lock ups and driver crash's.

[Pandoron]

But that sounds like a more generic issue with your PC rig. Do you have these crashes also in other programs?

[[BF] Cos]

Sorted. As i suspected.Overheating. Cleaned out my rig this morning. Just played nearly 2 hours of Grid online, 12 man server, hosted a server. Not one glitch or stutter. ;)

[Pandoron]

That's great news, mate :) So the AMD crash and recovery might not caused by GRID 2 but from overheating. I'll note that down since then again, it seems to be a NVidia specific problem (unless another user with AMD has the same black screen issue).

[[BF] Cos]

Cheers mate. Hope you get yours sorted soon. I guess Grid is very resource hungry. Only happens in grid. F1 2013, BF4, flat out, no problem.

[Pandoron]

Actually Codemasters should sort out that problem, not me. I just got sick of searching the forum everytime and collected the information to provide them to other users :)