AS won't start in Win7 - frozen black window

[briandamage]

Hi all,

AS has worked great for me for months on Windows 7 (32 bit, build 7100) but recently does not load anymore.  When I run the game from Steam a questviewer window appears with nothing but solid black inside the frame.  I can't close this window normally - I have to kill questviewer from the task manager.

I've tried defragmenting the game files, verifying the cache, and reinstalling the game (after deleting the directory in steamapps/common) but I still get the same problem.  I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling my video and sound drivers but still get the same issue.  And of course, I read all the stickies and went through 10 pages of the troubleshooting forum before posting.  No joy.

What's most annoying is that the game worked better in Win7 than in any other OS, using the exact same hardware, but as of a couple of weeks ago it refuses to load at all!  I haven't made any major changes, though I think I updated my video drivers once or twice since then.  Haven't tried an older driver yet, but I'm using the stable drivers and not beta.

Here's my system specs:
Windows 7 Ultimate RC (fully updated)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.66GHz (stock speed)
4GB DDR@ @ 1066GHz (stock speed, 3.25GB usable in Windows)
NVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB (latest stable driver)
Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (latest stable driver)

Thanks in advance for your suggestions! 

[briandamage]

P.s., to my surprise I can successfully run the demos on the QuestViewer3d site (http://www.quest3d.com/index.php?id=15) so it seems the issue is with the game, not the engine.

[Passerby]

it's not a win7 issue iv been useing it since rc1 with audiosurf fine

[briandamage]

Yeah, it worked for me in Win7 for at least 2 months.  It just stopped working for me the other day.

[Passerby]

right click on it in steam got to properties than on the local files tabs click verify files.

[Passerby]

if that doesn't work delete it from steam than go in your steam folder and delete audiosurfs folder and reinstall it.

[Lyshkhan]

I haven't made any major changes, though I think I updated my video drivers once or twice since then.  Haven't tried an older driver yet, but I'm using the stable drivers and not beta.

Could be graphics drivers that are interfering with the game somehow, see if you can roll them back.
Other than that, you've done just about every other possible method I can think of. No clue what else it could be.

[briandamage]

Lyshkan, thanks I'll give that a try, though I'm skeptical.

Passerby thanks for the reply but please read my original post more carefully.

[briandamage]

No luck.  I tried drivers from 2 months ago but I get the same issue.

[Lyshkhan]

I've occasionally gotten stuck before the game even loads and just restarted it to get it working again.
Sounds like you can't load it at all though, so the window just loads up as "questviewer.exe" and gets stuck I assume?

You might try this--
go to the audiosurf folder under steamapps
open up config.ini
and change it to runfullscreen: false

[briandamage]

I used to get that questviewer freezing issue where the window would be white, and restarting it once or twice would fix it.  Now the window is black and never starts correctly.

The config file is already set to fullscreen:false.  It reverted to that when I deleted the game and reinstalled.

[briandamage]

Oh well.. if nobody has any other suggestions then I'll put it off for now.  The final build of Win7 comes out in a few weeks so I'll reinstall and try again at that time.  I'll report my results in case anyone else is having this issue.

[briandamage]

Update:

A couple of other games stopped working that used to work fine, so I decided to reinstall my OS.  Audiosurf as well as my other games all work fine now.  Guess it was a problem with my drivers or maybe with Steam.

Thanks to those who replied to me!