DX:IW, Ion Launcher.exe, BLACK SCREEN (i7-4770, GTX 770, Win7x64) - by drivetheory
drivetheory on 27/7/2013 at 05:41
put together a new PC (old mbd died...)
installed Windows 7 (x64) five days ago.
updated windows, installed drivers, installed DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010), Visual C++ Runtimes for 2005/8/10/12, etc...
installed Deus Ex Invisible War (Retail DVD version, if that matters).
Launched game (via dx2.exe), clicked new game from the menu,
watched intro movie, picked my portrait, clicked done, clicked checkmark to Start Game.
at this point the screen goes black...
ALT TAB does not un-focus the black screen/window
CTRL ALT DEL (or CTRL SHIFT ESC) can open the task manager however it is behind the black screen....
the only way i got back to the desktop was to use Sysinternals' pstools from another pc to remotely stop "Ion Launcher.exe" & "DX2Main.exe" on my desktop pc...
The command line for "Ion Launcher.exe" at the black screen is:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Deus Ex - Invisible War\System\Ion Launcher.exe" DX2MAIN.exe \\.\DISPLAY1 "dummy" M1_Seattle_Acorp_Lab.gmp?-LoadTravel
there's only 1 thread in "Ion Launcher.exe" at this time.
after waiting for a few minutes "Ion Launcher.exe" creates another instance of "DX2Main.exe" with the command line:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Deus Ex - Invisible War\System\DX2Main.EXE" -display \\.\DISPLAY1 1600x1200 M1_Seattle_Acorp_Lab.gmp?-LoadTravel
this second running instance of "DX2Main.exe" has a handful of threads and constantly sits at about 10% CPU usage- all the while the screen stays black and no sound is heard from the speakers...
i've tried numerous compatibility checkmark options on all three EXEs with no change in observed behavior.
I've even launched dx2.exe with an affinity of 1 (start /affinity 1 "dx2.exe") which in turn launched the child processes with the single affinity as well... made no difference
I did capture a Sysinternals Process Monitor trace for the above situation involving those 3 EXEs and can upload it as necessary
Feels like it's a hardware compatibility issue because I am not having this problem on another PC with the same OS (Win7x64) & video driver (nvidia 320.49) but different CPU (Core 2 E8400) and GPU (xfx 9600 GT)
The CPU of the affected system is an Intel Core i7-4770.
the GPU of the affected system is an nVidia GTX 770.
If i manually run the second command line listed above;
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Deus Ex - Invisible War\System\DX2Main.EXE" -display \\.\DISPLAY1 1600x1200 M1_Seattle_Acorp_Lab.gmp?-LoadTravel
the game will load but any transitioning (or loading of saved games) just does the black screen issue stated above
Also note that other games I've been playing on this system these past 2 days (Arma 2, Battlefield 3) work flawlessly...
any ideas?
I'm starting to get the feeling "Ion Launcher.exe" will need to be re-written by someone with programming skills (which i wish i had) if this is a matter of an old game not running under new technology...
Muzman on 27/7/2013 at 08:26
I had something similar happen. I tried to install it on a new machine and it never worked (Win 7 would eventually dump it by itself in my case). I had a feeling it might be a DRM thing so I tried to use the same NoCD I used before but I'm not sure I found it. Tried re-patching it. Tried every compatibility mode.
Nothing.
Others seem to have had the same thing happen but the problem clears itself up. None of the solutions offered elsewhere worked for me.
Luckily for me the other PC still existed. The only method I found that would get the game running was to copy the install from the old XP machine holus bolus to the new one. Ungainly but it worked first time without a hitch (so there were no shortcuts and command line additions)
Makes no damn sense at all. I tried for a time to have a new install and the copy side by side to see if there were any differences, but I couldn't see any. I didn't bother trying for very long however. So I don't know. But if you have an old install sitting around somewhere, try that
Volitions Advocate on 29/7/2013 at 03:17
I recently replayed this and I just installed from steam, and followed the tutorial on here.
(
http://www.wsgf.org/dr/deus-ex-invisible-war)
The only hiccup i had was having to re-edit the .ini file before each launch to reset the resolution because the game would overwrite my changes every time it exits.
It worked flawlessly. I don't know if thats much help but I really didn't have any problems. Are you running v1.2? Since you're running the retail version maybe it needs to be patched.
drivetheory on 30/7/2013 at 08:53
Thanks for the ideas but am running a standard UXGA resolution of 1600x1200 (4:3) so all the widescreen fixes are unrelated (had the same dual 20" LCD setup for about a decade now) and run every game i own at 1600x1200...
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Are you running v1.2? Since you're running the retail version maybe it needs to be patched.
Am running version 1.2...
I really feel it's a hardware compatibility problem... my HTPC (Win7x64, Core 2 Duo E8400, 9600GT) runs it fine, my old repurposed pc hardware (Win7x64, Core 2 Quad Q9550, GTX 280) runs it fine, but this PC (Win7x64, Core i7-4770, GTX 770) gives the black screen problem...
drivetheory on 31/7/2013 at 09:54
funny... this game worked fine for me for years, then i build a new pc and now it doesn't work... i tried running it again, let it sit there, finally a Viktoria Error window appeared about 3-5 minutes later....
turns out this is a known issue with the game other people have been having for years that i never got until now, lol, and there's no known 100% working solution...
drivetheory on 31/7/2013 at 11:00
*%$#&)*^%#$ Logitech "SetPoint.exe"
closed "Logitech Keyboard and Mouse" (SetPoint.exe process) and now DX:IW works fine...
