Please help! No graphics displaying, yet I can hear audio!

[Chaotic Visions]

Hi..

I've been away from the Doom modding scene for several years and have recently come back to find all sorts of new and wonderful tools, GZDOOM being one the best sounding thus far...

So, as to be expected, I anxiously downloaded the port and extracted it to the doom2 folder, but much to my dismay, when I ran the program I got a blank screen. I could hear the audio running, and was able to quit the program so I know that it was definitely running. I saw a similar post about this problem on these forums, and the solution was to upgrade their video card drivers. I did a check and found that my drivers were already completely up to date. So I'm bummed!!!

Anyway, my system specs are as follows:

I'm running Windows XP on a Celeron CPU 2.93 GHZ with 2 GB of RAM. My video card is a Geforce FX 5500 256 MB (PCI as my PC doesn't have any PCI-e slots ) Not sure if this info will help, but if I could get this running it would be very cool. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much, guys.

Edit - And for what it's worth, I've ran many GL applications on my PC, so I know my video card is capable of working with it.

[Gez]

I'm running Windows XP on a Celeron CPU 2.93 GHZ with 2 MB of RAM.

I'll assume it's a typo and you really meant 2 GB of RAM. 2 MB... My 386DX40 had four time as much back in the early 90's!

Have you tried ZDoom instead? It uses a software renderer, not a hardware one.

[Chaotic Visions]

Yes, I did mean 2 GB. Oops!

Anyway, yes; When I left the modding scene I was using Zdoom regularly and now that I'm back, Zdoom is still functioning as normal. It was the 3D floors and dynamic lighting that really got me excited about GZDoom. Imagine that! ACS scripting with 3D floors!! What's not to be excited about? I guess if there's nothing that can be done, regular ZDoom will have to be used. Boooooo!! No disrespect to Randy, of course. ZDoom still rocks.

[Graf Zahl]

It may just be that your monitor is not properly reporting its refresh rates. In that case the graphics driver may become confused and set a video mode your monitor can't display.
Try starting GZDoom with a command line parameter '+gl_vid_refreshHz 60' and see if that helps.

[Chaotic Visions]

No luck. Just curious - is there anyway you can force GZDoom to run in software mode on startup? To be honest, I'd be happy without the GL features if I could just make 3D floors and maybe update my PC later. Though, on that same note, I've run graphically heavy programs like Everquest 2 on it's highest possible settings, and albeit lag, it looked perfect. So I know my VC is capable of handling things like this; I won't pretend to understand the mechanics of it, though. So I'm clueless.

[Enjay]

To be honest, I'd be happy without the GL features if I could just make 3D floors and maybe update my PC later.

Unfortunately, 3D floors are a GL feature. If you disable OpenGL, you won't see the 3D floors (although they will be there).

[Chaotic Visions]

Well, for what it's worth...

If anyone has any other suggestions at all, I would love to hear and try them. It's always been like a pipe dream of mine to be able to use ZDoom (as opposed to other source ports) and also have 3D floors .. with slopes to boot! I really need this to work!

Like I said, I've run graphic intensive programs of all sorts on my computer, and while it does slow it down a tad, it never has any trouble displaying them. I guess if it can't happen right now, then it can't happen but if anyone has any kind of suggestions I'm all ears.

Thanks again for all your time, guys.

[NeoHippo]

It is certainly peculiar that you just see a blank screen. According to the specs for your video card you should have no problem running GZDoom.

Try running GZDoom from the command line
gzdoom.exe +logfile startup.txt
which will create a file startup.txt. Then look through it to check for something that seems amiss.

You should get something like this:

[spoiler]Log started: Mon Jun 30 21:32:13 2008

W_Init: Init WADfiles.
adding K:/DOOM/GZDoomR129/gzdoom.pk3
adding K:/DOOM/IWADS/doom2.wad (2919 lumps)
adding K:/DOOM/GZDoomR129/skins/lights.wad (4 lumps)
I_Init: Setting up machine state.
CPU Speed: 2210.100850 MHz
CPU Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
Name: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
Family 15 (15), Model 43, Stepping 1
Features: MMX MMX+ SSE SSE2 SSE3 3DNow! 3DNow!+
I_InitSound: Initializing FMOD
FMOD Sound System, copyright © Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd., 1994-2008.
V_Init: allocate screen.
S_Init: Setting up sound.
ST_Init: Init startup screen.
P_Init: Checking cmd-line parameters...
G_ParseMapInfo: Load map definitions.
S_InitData: Load sound definitions.
TEAMINFO_Init: Load team definitions.
LoadDecorations: Load external actors.
R_Init: Init Doom refresh subsystem.
DecalLibrary: Load decals.
M_Init: Init miscellaneous info.
P_Init: Init Playloop state.
ParseSBarInfo: Loading custom status bar definition.
D_CheckNetGame: Checking network game status.
player 1 of 1 (1 nodes)
I_InitInput
I_StartupMouse
I_StartupJoystick
I_StartupKeyboard
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation
GL_RENDERER: GeForce 7800 GT/PCI/SSE2
GL_VERSION: 2.0.3
GL_EXTENSIONS: GL_ARB_color_buffer_float GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_fragment_shader GL_ARB_half_float_pixel GL_ARB_imaging GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_shader_objects GL_ARB_shading_language_100 GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_float GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_vertex_shader GL_ARB_window_pos GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_ATI_texture_float GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_S3_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array GL_EXT_Cg_shader GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_cube_map GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_lod GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_sRGB GL_EXT_timer_query GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_KTX_buffer_region GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_fence GL_NV_float_buffer GL_NV_fog_distance GL_NV_fragment_program GL_NV_fragment_program_option GL_NV_fragment_program2 GL_NV_half_float GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint GL_NV_occlusion_query GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil GL_NV_pixel_data_range GL_NV_point_sprite GL_NV_primitive_restart GL_NV_register_combiners GL_NV_register_combiners2 GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_expand_normal GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_NV_texture_shader GL_NV_texture_shader2 GL_NV_texture_shader3 GL_NV_vertex_array_range GL_NV_vertex_array_range2 GL_NV_vertex_program GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 GL_NV_vertex_program2 GL_NV_vertex_program2_option GL_NV_vertex_program3 GL_NVX_conditional_render GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SGIX_depth_texture GL_SGIX_shadow GL_SUN_slice_accum GL_WIN_swap_hint WGL_EXT_swap_control
Support for non power 2 textures enabled.
Occlusion query enabled.
Resolution: 1680 x 1050



MAP01 - entryway[/spoiler]

Other than that, look through the zdoom-xxyyzz.ini file for something odd.
Possibly, your iwad file could be corrupted.
Try version R129M from Nash's site.

[Chaotic Visions]

Woot. I got it working. When you mentioned something about a corrupt wadfile, I simply pulled the doom2.wad out of that folder and moved it to a new one, putting only that file plus a fresh install of gzdoom and it worked. Very nice. Thank you all very much for the assistance. Much appreciated!!! Now, time to have some fun.