Windows 10 and Direct X

[VinylFly]

FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader Compilation?

Black Sand Drift Version 1.1 uses some cool new shaders to play with, but it seems that on a minority of Windows 10 machines, the game crashes and displays something like this:

###########################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shader0
D3DXCompile failed - result
at gml_Script_coolShader (line 52) - shader_set( _shader );
###########################################

This is due to some PCs not compiling the shaders correctly, but can be easily fixed by ensuring that your Direct X is up-to-date with this official Microsoft download (DirectX End-User Runtimes June 2010): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Instructions on how to install:

Download the file from that link above, and run it. It will ask you where to put these files, so make a new folder and choose that folder. Now, open the folder where all was placed, and among the files in the folder is an application that you will click on and run. This will install the files you are missing. After that, you can delete the folder or files you downloaded, because all is installed correctly. This may sound annoying, but it's an easy fix, actually.

This has worked in every instance I’ve seen, but speak up if things are not working for
you, or if you’re having any other problems!

[Patty ♫]

i get a black screen. just can hear the music...
pretty annoying and i dont want to download some ♥♥♥♥, create folders etc..game will be deleted and never ever started again...

[VinylFly]

Hello Patty,

It has come to my attention that the "Windows 10 Creator" update on Windows 10 is causing some issues with a slew of games, and Black Sand Drift is one of them. After the game loads and launches in full-screen--even though you can hear the sounds--the screen is completely black. The only immediate solution is to hit the "0" key to toggle windowed mode once the game launches and the sounds begin. Toggling back to full-screen will see the same black void appear again, so you will need to play in windowed mode for now. I say, "for now", because it's believed that Microsoft will patch whatever is going on eventually. But we're not waiting for Microsoft so we'll have an update soon that will fix it anyway. It's working for me now on our build, so it will be resolved publicly shortly.

Sorry that you had this experience with the game. I went to Steam to post just this, when I saw your post; sorry it took a while to get back. I will let you know when it's fixed for good, and is a slightly-less annoying experience ;)

Thanks for taking the time to report your experience. It helps!!

PS as to what's going on, the issue is fixed by turning virtual synchronization on. Unfortunetly there is no way to turn it on manully in Black Sand Drift, so we're going to set it to on by default so no one sees blackness no matter what. Then people can turn it off later if they choose. We're going to tweak a few other things too, but that for another time :)

[VinylFly]

Originally posted by Patty ♫:

i get a black screen. just can hear the music...
pretty annoying and i dont want to download some ♥♥♥♥, create folders etc..game will be deleted and never ever started again...

Hello again Patty,

Just wanted to make sure I let you know that the game's issues have been fixed in the newest release of the game.

There's a lot of content on Steam competing for players' time, but if you're still interestd in trying the game, I'd love to hear what you think, and if the game is functioning for you.

Best regards.