Black screen during start up

[The Iguana]

Majramos, I have tried all of the tweaks in these forums and elsewhere plus everything else I have gathered in my 20+ years of working in IT. This one has me absolutely stumped. I still have a few ideas as mentioned above so crossing my fingers. I have the AGP version which may make a difference since the specs you mentioned had the PCIe version.

[The Iguana]

Well, it appears I have resolved my issues but unfortunately it probably will not help the rest of you. I re-checked everything on my system and discovered that the molex connector to my 7600GT was not making a good connection. I fixed the pins, reattached the connector and have played last night and today with no problems. Travis, you have the same card so you might want to check the molex connector on yours if you have not already. I have all advanced graphics settings on 4 and playing smooth - might bump them up one more notch to max to see how I fare. Anyway, I can report that on my P4 3.0 Gig processor, 7600GT AGP card and 1GB RAM all is working pretty well. I just ordered more memory to bump me to 2GB for better PC performance overall. I will be watching the thread and hope everyone else is working soon. Any hints I find I will pass on to you. Good luck to all.

[TPROBOT2]

Hey,
Well I had the same problem as all of you, I have a 7600GT AGP with 512MB.

Game installed OK, it ran for about 20 minutes then the screen went black and my computer crashed. I had the NV4 driver error problem (infinate loop thing).

After this point, the game never worked again, I can get as far as the splash screen then monitor turn's off and the computer hangs.

Fix
I first uninstalled my driver (163.75), ran driver cleaner, rebooted, then reinstalled the 163.75 driver.

Then I applied the tweak to the .ini file.

bInitializeSshadersOnDemand=False to bInitializeSshadersOnDemand=True

Rebooted.

THE GAME NEVER CRASHED AGAIN.

I play at 1024 by 768 with world and textures at 3, with 95% screen size.

After each new map load, the system is a bit choppy for about 30 seconds until the whole map loads. After that I get good play at around 50 FPS in most maps. In heavy action the FPS does drop. Play at 800x600 is very good.

So I dont thinK there is a problem with 7600's, it's just a very buggy game release. Hopefully nvidia and epic will fix these problems soon.

[The Iguana]

Cheers TPROBOT and glad you are up and running. I see the occasional loading choppiness too. My new memory should be in mid-week and going from 1GB to 2 should help a great deal. I will post how this goes. Also once I exit the game it takes awhile for my system to recover from running the game! Otherwise I am happy that my PC performs as well with UT3 without major upgrades although more fixes will be welcome.

[TPROBOT2]

Let us know how the mem upgrade goes Iguana. If it improves things then I will do the same.

[Ultron]

Iguana look at the tips in my thread to see if those can help you. I've been compiling them for a month here on the forums.

[The Iguana]

Thanks Ultron. TPROBOT, the memory upgrade helped tremendously. I have wanted to add more for quite awhile since 1 GB of memory is not the best scenario these days for games and demanding applications. The 7600GT card and added memory have bought me much more time with my current build. UT3 and other new games perform brilliantly so far. Unlike a few years back, a larger family keeps me a bit behind the technology and upgrade curve these days! No freezes or issues now and my only problems are learning the new features and nuances of Warfare and hoping more people start playing CTF.