Blank screen on program load - Audiosurf has worked before

[ZZTthePerson]

So Audiosurf was working earlier, right? But now I get a blank black screen when I start the program. If I alt-tab away and come back, it's gray. I can hear the sound of the main menu, but there's no visuals. What's up?

[BoltGSR]

First off, sup ZZT.

Second off, try any of these:

1. Restart.
2. Reinstall.
3. Remove any edits you did to the HOSTS file to play offline with the previous beta.

[ZZTthePerson]

I've already tried the first two; no joy. This weekend beta is actually the first time I've installed the program, so the third doesn't apply to me.

By "before", I meant it was working 2 or 3 hours ago when I first played it.

[BoltGSR]

Has your computer been on long? The graphics were starting to fragment for me, so I turned mine off and let it cool down and now it runs fine.

[aapZak]

Do you mean this by blank screen?

Because then I have the same problem as you.
I've tried uninstalling and then reinstalling but that didn't work for me.
What did work however was to start it as administrator, but before it worked as normal user too.

I really like to see this fixed as I don't want to run the game as administrator all the time.
My laptop crashed while playing audiosurf so I resetted my laptop and then this problem appeared.
I'm using Windows Vista SP1 RC, if that helps for you.

EDIT: I found the problem myself ,
deleting the folder C:\Users\$USERNAME$\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Audiosurf did the trick. However I suggest you back it up first in case this is'nt the fix. I lost all my offline scores and have to load all songs from start again, but at least I can play it again, withourt running as administrator!
I hope this works for you too!

[Dylan]

aapZak!

I think you've uncovered the problem with Vista!

When you played beta1 the installer elevated you to an administrator account. Then when it patched you were a regular user, so the patch was not allowed to overwrite the files in "program files". Instead the patch was applied to your virtual store and everything was great.

Now, you install beta2 to program files and the installer elevates you to an administrator as before. But then when you run the app you're a user again and it uses those old patch files out of your virtual store in favor of the new ones in the program files folder.

I think installing to Program Files\AudiosurfBetaWeekend2 (or any other folder name that's different than the last time you installed it) would also fix the problem.

[windsweptDemyx]

I'm getting the same blank screen on the Steam version, only I've got XP.  Is there any similar way to flush the problem out?

[Dylan]

You'll have to redownload, but you could right-click "Audiosurf" and select "Delete local content...".

Maybe that will help. Not sure yet.

[Pwntastic]

delete local content would force a redownload upon next launch

[windsweptDemyx]

No dice, getting the exact same problem after redownload/reinstall.  I'm up to date on all drivers, etc etc.

EDIT: Alternate driver for my gforce and/or Yet Another Restart seems to have fixed it.  Huh.

[Planet]

I never played the beta on this machine (beta ran on my old PC), played the game quite fine for a while. But since yesterday, I only get a blank white window, no matter what I tried. I rebooted, reinstalled, deleted the UserRegistry - nothing changed.

What "alternative" driver are you talking about? Just curious, since I am on Vista 64 and can't install beta forceware or something similar anyway.

EDIT: sorry, had a general driver problem, fixed that, works fine again!

[lebeth]

I never played the beta on this machine (beta ran on my old PC), played the game quite fine for a while. But since yesterday, I only get a blank white window, no matter what I tried. I rebooted, reinstalled, deleted the UserRegistry - nothing changed.

What "alternative" driver are you talking about? Just curious, since I am on Vista 64 and can't install beta forceware or something similar anyway.

EDIT: sorry, had a general driver problem, fixed that, works fine again!

Thanks for sharing that it's fixed--can you share what your driver problem was in case it helps others?

[Planet]

It was something rather unique I'd say, that's why i didn't share it, sorry I didn't make that clear. My card is from ASUS and they provide a tool named GamerOSD which is basically the full Fraps functionality for free. But when i installed it, Questviewer.exe crashed on every song - i guess it didn't work well with the generic driver from nvidia.com, i didn't want to install the specific one from Asus one.

When i deinstalled the GamerOSD, it seems to have damaged the display driver, i couldn't render any 3D graphics anymore, desktop was still fine though. I de- and reinstalled the driver and Audiosurf (and everything else) was fine again.

[lebeth]

Thanks so much--it seems like when the white screen bug comes up it tends to be a hardware issue.

[ivankio]

It would be very odd if it would be a hardware problem. I'm getting the same problem, and I can only play freeride. Even so, it never loads a music (I think it's using AudioSurf's default). And when I press ESC on the freeride, I have not many options (no AA, no Anisotropic...).

It seems like a previous release is being executed, but I couldn't tell for shure, since I never played any Beta neither the demo. I'm using WinXP 32bits, Geforce 7900 GS and the driver is up to date (forceware 169.21, downloaded 22/2/08).

Though I really enjoyed the 2 hours I got to play it. Nice design. I can't wait to play again.