New Graphics Card, NC2 refuses to run

[Opiate]

This weekend I started having random lockups of my PC, which could later be explained by the fact that the fan on my graphics card had stopped working and the thing overheated to the point where it crashed. Instead of wasting money on trying to fix an old graphics card, I decided to go ahead and buy me a brand spanking new one. Unfortunately, Neocron refuses to run with this card at any setting, it keeps booting me back to the desktop at the time that I would expect to see the login screen. The few other games that I run are working just fine (Oblivion for example), it's only Neocron that refuses to run.

I re-installed the latest drivers for my graphics card, DirectX, ran Windows Update and reinstalled Neocron itself, to no avail (yes, I rebooted several times as well).

I've tried just about every graphics mode, 32 and 16 bit colors at a lot of different resolutions but none works. Windowed mode doesn't appear in the list for me anymore and when I attempt to set this directly in the ini file, it just refuses to use this.

My new card is a Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro, it's an AGP card with 512Mb ram. I use ATI's Catalyst driver version 6.12 (the latest).

Here are the logfiles

Error.log:

free memory: 1429 MB physical, 2839 MB virtual (70%)
File Check complete: 1139 files checked
Exception created Begin Frame Failed
Error: Begin Frame Failed

Init.log:

=================================================================
Neocron Intitialization Logfile
=================================================================

Current Time: 18:22:14
Current Date: 01-09-2007

WinMain: Creating window . . .

WinMain: Current server connection: 62.140.29.50:7000

WinMain: Window created!
Host: Current language: ENG
Host: Console initialized.
Init Engine . . .
Init Driver . . .
Enumerating display modes . . .
-> Valid modes found: 70
Enumerating sound and mixer modes . . .
Selecting drivers and modes . . .
-> Display: (D3D9) Radeon X1650 Series Secondary (driver)
-> Display: 1600x1200x32 (mode)
-> Sound: Generic DirectSound Driver (driver)
-> Sound: Generic DirectSound Mixer (mixer)
Creating file system . . .
Setup for display driver . . .
-> Mode: 1600 x 1200
Creating camera . . .
Creating sound manager . . .
Creating actor manager . . .
Creating genesis world manager . . .
Creating font . . .
Initialization completed!

Host: Creating controller . . .
Basehost: Initialize resources . . .
-> TextureManager . . . complete
-> ActorManager . . . complete
-> SoundManager . . . complete
-> TextManager . . . complete
-> Fractions . . . complete
-> ScriptManager . . . complete
-> ParticleManager . . . complete
Basehost: Resources initialized!
Host: Comleted.
Host: Creating netmanager . . .
. . . world loaded.
Creating FX-System for worlds . . .
Creating FX-System for actors . . .
Creating other FX-Systems . . .
. . . FX-Systems created.
. . . Initialization of WorldManager completed!
WorldManager: Shutting down . . .
-> Terrain
-> ParticleSystem
-> PolyFXSystem
-> ChangeWorld (NULL) for resources
-> Players (DelPlayerList)
-> Players (PlayerList)
-> WorldGFX
-> GFXCreationSystem and PHFXCreationSystem
-> Subworlds
-> WorldBSP
Shutdown complete!
Host: Starting shutdown procedure . . .
-> Exit TextureManager
-> Exit ActorManager
-> Exit SoundManager
-> Exit TextManager
-> Exit ShotInfo
-> Exit NetManager
-> Exit NetBuffer
-> Exit ScriptBase
-> Exit InputManager
-> Exit MouseCtrl
-> Exit Console
-> Exit GenesisManager
-> Exit Parser
Host: Shutting down complete!
WinMain: Window creation failed!
Begin Frame Failed

D3D9Drv.log:

Processing driver hook
Init D3D object
Init D3DEnum object

--------------------
Start enumeration
--------------------

Driver: ati2dvag.dll (Radeon X1650 Series Secondary )
Driver: supports shader versions VS=3.0 PS=3.0
Driver: best desktop format D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Driver: best depthstencil format D3DFMT_D24S8
Driver: best texture format D3DFMT_R5G6B5
Driver: best alpha texture format D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4
Driver: best compressed texture format Unknown
Driver: best compressed alpha texture format Unknown
Driver: best lightmap format D3DFMT_R5G6B5
Mode: D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Mode: D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8
Mode: D3DFMT_A2R10G10B10
Mode: D3DFMT_X1R5G5B5
Mode: D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5
Mode: D3DFMT_R5G6B5

--------------------
End enumeration
--------------------

Init D3D object
Init D3DEnum object
Shutdown driver
Shutdown driver
Processing driver hook

--------------------
DrvInit() started
--------------------

Init D3D object
Init D3DEnum object

--------------------
Start enumeration
--------------------

Driver: ati2dvag.dll (Radeon X1650 Series Secondary )
Driver: supports shader versions VS=3.0 PS=3.0
Driver: best desktop format D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Driver: best depthstencil format D3DFMT_D24S8
Driver: best texture format D3DFMT_R5G6B5
Driver: best alpha texture format D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4
Driver: best compressed texture format Unknown
Driver: best compressed alpha texture format Unknown
Driver: best lightmap format D3DFMT_R5G6B5
Mode: D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Mode: D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8
Mode: D3DFMT_A2R10G10B10
Mode: D3DFMT_X1R5G5B5
Mode: D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5
Mode: D3DFMT_R5G6B5

--------------------
End enumeration
--------------------

Fullscreen: Yes
Window size: 1600x1200
Driver: Radeon X1650 Series Secondary
Format BackBuffer: D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8
Format DepthStencil: D3DFMT_D24S8
Format Textures: D3DFMT_R5G6B5
Format Textures w/alpha: D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4
Format Textures compressed: Unknown
Format Textures compressed w/alpha: Unknown
Format Lightmaps: D3DFMT_R5G6B5

--------------------
Create device
--------------------

Device: maxbones=60

--------------------
Create device done.
--------------------

Window depth: 4 bpp
Create render caches
Create dummy texture
Create dummy texture #2
Create lightmap pool
Supported shader versions: VS=3.0 PS=3.0
Create water FX buffers

--------------------
DrvInit() done.
--------------------

Shutdown driver
Device: shutdown
Shutdown driver

Anyone have any suggestions? :(

[a4nic8er]

Try running NC2 in D3D7 mode.


Driver: best compressed texture format Unknown
Driver: best compressed alpha texture format Unknown

Format Textures compressed: Unknown
Format Textures compressed w/alpha: Unknown

[Opiate]

I've tried different settings under both D3D9 and D3D7, all fail with the same result :(

[SnowCrash]

Please try a re-install of the Neocron 2.1 client.

[Doc Holliday]

Op have u tried older drivers than the absolute latest ones? Snow he said he has reinstalled the client already.

[Opiate]

Yes, I had already re-installed the client ;)

I am running the latest version of the ATI drivers (6.12), which is the same version that I was running with my old graphics card.

So I know Neocron can run with this driver, and I know my card is just fine because it runs other games fine, but for some reason the combination isn't working :(

[Glok]

Have you tried changing any card settings? Such as forced AA, AF, etc?

[vices]

Have you tried third-party drivers?

[Carnage]

please check if you really have installed your graphic and DX Drivers correctly.

The error

Exception created Begin Frame Failed
Error: Begin Frame Failed

says that something with your graphic drivers/card isnt correct.
In most cases the DX Drivers are the problem, but the videocard drivers can solve it too. Maybe you have disabled any feature of your card, which is highly recommend for DirectX games.



Driver: best compressed texture format Unknown
Driver: best compressed alpha texture format Unknown

Format Textures compressed: Unknown
Format Textures compressed w/alpha: Unknown


Neocron is using DXT compressed textures, dont know if this is the reason for your problems, but maybe.

[H00ver]

Try to run dxdiag (START -> RUN), its possible that D3D is deactivated, check the right tab.

Try to delete following lines in your NEOCRON.INI and start the game again. (It works when the driver selection window pops up):



PREFDRIVER
PREFMODENAME
PREFWINDOWSIZE


I hope it works.

[Safunte]

After purchasing a x1950 pro, I've noticed a few changes. I cant run in window mode, that just lags it to all hell... possibly what you're doing?

Also, i'm incapable of alt tabbing back into game as it causes a restart.... strange i know...

dunno if thats beneficial at all... but w/e

[Zheo]

Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro <---- That's your problem right there. I had two Radeons, had a few problems with a few games, now I use Geforce, no problems :)

Things to remember:

Compatability - Had a problem with one graphics card (Radeon) went to their website and they listed games it didnt work with/had an issue with, and fixes.

Contact - Radeon bitch to them that it's their problem, see if that helps :)

Drives - Are touchy things sometimes the lastest drives can just screw up everything!

Google - Do a search in groups or post in the groups might find an answer there!

If all else fails - Take the card back saying it's broken since it doesn't work, and get something else like errr a Geforce!

[Opiate]

Thanks for the help all, reverting to the older 6.11 drivers seems to have solved the issue (after reinstalling these drivers twice). Windows mode still isn't available though, which is rather annoying.

I have had some previous problems with ATI's drivers (and some still remain), I'm gonna blame this problem on them as well. ATI seems to be able to make some fine hardware, but making proper drivers for them ... Weird enough, my experiences with NVidia are just the other way around, :lol:

@Safunte: Alt tabbing while running fullscreen always crashed on my old graphics card as well ... at least when I was out in the wastelands, in the cities this seemed to work fine O_o

[Serah Logan]

First of all, before all the nVidia kiddies get in here and start telling you that you made a mistake, and that nVidia is SOOOOOO much better than ATI, remember this.

If ATI were shite, they'd be out of business. ATI cards are perfectly fine. Often the problems with ALL video cards lie in the system configurations of the boxes they get put into.

PS. Try the 6.07 drivers(I believe that's correct - can't remember what he said he was using).