Been back only a week and dropped about $70 already in the game and Video as I am playing will go totally black screen. I can hear game still running and I can use my hotkeys and hear them react, but I can not get video back when this happens.

 

So I am forced to close the game by using alt tab and Xing the window closed. This is happening several times a day. Sometimes while I am in battle and other times doing nothing but on fleet.

 

About to just quit cause I have tried various things from the web and nothing works. Also did a fresh clean install of game again today and that did not help either. \

 

Nvidia GTX 980 FTW card

Windows 10 Home

I7 4790 CPU 4.0

64 Bit

16 GB Ram

 

No other game I have played does this.

 

So I am hoping someone here knows what to do cause doing FP and even Warzones are not a option with this going on and yes I put in a ticket also.

Waiting for it to happen again and will try the Alt+Enter trick I read about and see if that fixes it.

I've heard ugly things about the very latest NVidia drivers - you might need to downgrade them.

I've heard ugly things about the very latest NVidia drivers - you might need to downgrade them.

 

Yeah might have to try that, thx.

Tried Alt+Enter when it happened and it does nothing.

 

Going to downgrade the Nvidia Driver and see how that goes.

368.xx not one ff the 370+

368.xx not one ff the 370+

 

okay, I am using 372.70 right now, about to change it down as I am typing this.

I deleted the Bitraider folder in the swtor folder. And then it reinstalled when launching game.

 

Was told to try this also. No idea what that folder does.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Trilella

Switched back to the 368.81 Nvidia driver, hope this one fixes the Black Screen Problems

I deleted the Bitraider folder in the swtor folder. And then it reinstalled when launching game.

 

Was told to try this also. No idea what that folder does.

Bitraider is the "streaming" downloader. It is supposed (when it works) to do progressive downloads that let you play while it is downloading. The key is that "when it works" part. It is notorious for causing ... problems. search the forums for "disable bitraider" to see how to get rid of it permanently.

k thx will do that.

Hmm, I got rid of Bitraider by following the instructions on the net and now my download speed is so slow for the game.

 

I am running right around 3 to 4 MB/s and was much faster before unless something else is going on, cause my internet speed is 150 Mbps.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Trilella

Paused and Un-paused the patcher a few times and finally got it back up to 14-15 MB/s, will see if it stays up that high.

 

Got that from a post about slow swtor download speeds, did not know you could do that to get it back up. Been 10 minutes and still holding around 15 MB/s

 

After it installed one section of the patch and started re downloading more it went back to under 3 MB/s, paused and unpaused a few times again and it was back to 15 MB/s. Just an FYI if others read this and are getting slow speeds it might fix theirs to. I had to pause and unpause like 10 times to get it back up the first time.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Trilella

Make sure ALL your drivers are up to date - audio, chipset, LAN, etc.. Driver conflicts can often be the cause of these sorts of problems.

Also, make sure Windows is up to date.

Make sure ALL your drivers are up to date - audio, chipset, LAN, etc.. Driver conflicts can often be the cause of these sorts of problems.

Also, make sure Windows is up to date.

 

thanks, but I did all that to make sure and they was all up to date, Java, Flash, Win 10, audio, MB etc... Also downgraded Nvidia driver to the July one 368.81 and someone told me to go all way back to March driver which I might do.

 

I am playing in Full screen windowed mode and it's still doing that Black Screen garbage but at least now after about 10 secs the video does come back.

Have you tried Full screen (not windowed), just to isolate it?

Have you tried Full screen (not windowed), just to isolate it?

 

When I was doing that before I tried the other stuff I was in Full Screen not windowed and when it went Black Screen I had no choice but to force close the game, and in the middle of battles or WZs and that sucked.

 

I just rolled back to the late March Driver 364.72 and will see how that goes. I was told by someone else to use the march drivers. Might try the Full Screen not windowed again and see also what happens. And no other games I play do this so it's a swtor feature I guess

Edited September 19, 2016 by Trilella

Have you opened the system up and cleaned the dust out? Also, make sure the various fans are running. It could simply be overheating.

Or, it could be a thermal fault that only shows up when the system heats up.

Since SWTOR uses a lot of CPU and GPU power, it could be that either the CPU or the GPU is overheating, or both are contributing to the interior of the system getting too hot.

 

Try turning on vsync (if it's not already on), to limit the fps of the game to see if it runs cooler and/or longer.

 

If you are using an HDMI connection, try a new cable.

Yeh dunno if it was mentioned but it was a clash between Nvidias drivers and for me, the new windows 10 build Updating both the drivers and the build fixed for me.

Have you opened the system up and cleaned the dust out? Also, make sure the various fans are running. It could simply be overheating.

Or, it could be a thermal fault that only shows up when the system heats up.

Since SWTOR uses a lot of CPU and GPU power, it could be that either the CPU or the GPU is overheating, or both are contributing to the interior of the system getting too hot.

 

Try turning on vsync (if it's not already on), to limit the fps of the game to see if it runs cooler and/or longer.

 

If you are using an HDMI connection, try a new cable.

 

Checked dust in case and blew it out again but was hardly anything in it.

 

I am using a GTX 980 FTW card on a I 4790 4.0 cpu.

 

Ran Valley Benchmark program and Card went no higher then 77c and no problems with the card at all, ran it many times and still no issues.

 

SWTOR never gets the card hotter then about 49c so doubt it's a heat issue and I have High settings turned on in swtor. There is no choppy screen effects when running around game even on a crowded station. When this black screen happens it just instantly does it, no warning at all. H append yesterday at least 10 times, all in WZs or SF Battles.

 

It has been recovering though after about 10 seconds of seeing a black screen back to full video till yesterday inside a WZ it hard crashed and I had to restart PC.

Yeh dunno if it was mentioned but it was a clash between Nvidias drivers and for me, the new windows 10 build Updating both the drivers and the build fixed for me.

 

Windows 10 is fully updated and was before I started rolling back the Nvidia drivers. I was told to roll back to the March 2016 Drivers, but that did not help either as I am still having trouble if it did not make it worse.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Trilella

Was on the phone with swtor support for about an hour and they could not find a specific problem that might be causing the issue through reviewing the Diagnostic I sent.

 

They suggested I try lowering the resolution to 1920x1080, presently I am running 2560x1440 and reducing to that resolution on my nice monitor is just not going to cut it for me. But I might try it for a bit just to see if I have the Black Screen again.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Trilella

I had a similar problem until recently. It'd hang for a bit transitioning from cutscenes to gameplay, and also the Splash screen would vanish to black and hang until i hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and then cancel. Then it'd kick back on and run normally.

 

I had my computer's default resolution to 1920x1080 and the slider to change text size to 125% (under display settings). I set it to 1600x900, set the game to match, and left the text size at 100%. No problems since, in this or any other game.

 

SWTOR has some real issues with display settings, so try those settings, and if it still happens, try the CTRL-ALT-DEL>Cancel trick. And welcome back!

Some Notes on what system I am running:

Windows 10

i7 4790 4.0 cpu

16 GB ram

GTX 980 FTW vid card

 

Well since rolling back the Nvidia drivers to the March update did not work I am reinstalling the current ones again.

 

But I noticed something odd today, why is the game set to run in Windows Compatibility mode for Windows 7? I just reinstalled the game a few days back cause of all these problems and for some reason the game installed with the Windows 7 compatibility box checked.

 

Also yesterday when it did one of the black screen things it moved all my Icons on the desktop crunched up to the left side. Nvidia when it installed new drivers does this also at times cause it's changing the resolution as it's installing I guess.

 

So I am wondering if Windows is trying to force something else to show that's under the game like a notification (but I have all of them already turned off cause they are annoying).

 

I did have User account control set to Notify me when programs try to make changes to my computer which is the default. I changed this all way down to Never show me cause I am thinking Win 10 is trying to do something and causing this problem. I never see a notification when this happens though when running the game.

 

Just trying whatever I can cause getting to the point where I will be forced to quit playing the game again cause all this trouble for one game is just not worth it. All other games work just fine, just swtor is doing this.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Trilella

Have you installed DX9.0c or is Win10 emulating it under DX12? (installing it does seem to improve performance)

 

Dont reinstall any of the 370+ drivers, there is a known issue with them and SWTOR (and a few other games), and they only fix issues with No Mans Sky and Battlefield 1 (iirk)

 

SWTOR does not need to run emulation an older version of Windows under Win10

 

have you checked/removed and let it recreate client.ini?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=498597#4

Edited September 21, 2016 by GythralSWTOR