27" iMac i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6970M - CK2 never displays main menu

[unmerged(319144)]

I purchased CK2 from Steam tonight and have uninstalled and reinstalled the game several times trying to resolve this issue.

The game launcher runs fine, but when I try to start the game itself (with or without DLCs enabled.)

Once the game is "running" all I see is a black screen. However, since I bought from Steam, I see the Steam UI show up. Normally this is displayed at the bottom of the screen, but in this case I see them in lower resolution than native attached to the top of the screen.

Suggestions?


iMac 27-inch, Mid-2011

Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB
Software Mac OS X Server Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)

 

[AndrewT]

That video card ought to run the game OK. Please go to Documents - Paradox Interactive - CK2 - logs, and zip up the whole contents of that directory. Post that and your settings.txt here please.

 

[unmerged(319144)]

Attached is the logs directory zipped up nice and clean.

I was unable to find a settings.txt file on my machine using either Spotlight or the unix find command inside my home directory.

 

[AndrewT]

It doesn't seem to have got far enough in the setup process to create the settings.txt file, not a good sign. The last thing that happens is the graphics

[/Users/olofbjork/Projects/CKII_1_06/../clausewitzII/clausewitzlib/graphics.cpp:203]: Done creating device.
[/Users/olofbjork/Projects/CKII_1_06/source/ck_application.cpp:634]: Done initializing graphics

So the issue appears to be around the graphics area. You are using

OpenGL Version: 2.0 ATI-1.6.36

whereas my Mac Pro with OS X 10.6.8 has

OpenGL Version: 2.1 ATI-7.18.18

It seems weird to me that you have a newer OS version but an older video driver. Can you confirm you really are on 10.7.4 ? (Apple menu - about this mac) All latest updates applied to that?

 

[unmerged(319144)]

I got the information I posted above from the about this Mac tool.

Just to be thorough, I've attached a screenshot. Also attached is a screenshot indicating I have no available software updates. Also, since Lion was purchased from the Mac App Store, I've attached a screenshot indicating I have no updates there either.

It is worth noting that both EU3 and CiM seem to run without any issues. These were also purchased through Steam.

 

[AndrewT]

Well that is weird, and no mistake. I don't suppose you're considering going to 10.8.1 soon?

That aside I'm short of ideas on this one, it really ought to work AFAICS. Try pasting the below into a new file settings.txt , and place it in your user's Documents-paradox-ck2 folder.

gui=
{
language=l_english
has_set_language=yes
}
graphics=
{
size=
{
	x=1024
	y=768
}

refreshRate=60
fullScreen=yes
shadows=no
shadowSize=2048
multi_sampling=0
anisotropic_filtering=0
gamma=52.000000
}
sound_fx_volume=100.000000
music_volume=58.000000
scroll_speed=50.000000
camera_rotation_speed=50.000000
zoom_speed=50.000000
mouse_speed=50.000000
master_volume=100.000000
ambient_volume=50.000000
mapRenderingOptions=
{
draw_terrain=no
draw_water=yes
draw_borders=yes
draw_trees=no
draw_rivers=yes
draw_postfx=yes
draw_sky=yes
draw_bloom=no
draw_tooltips=yes
draw_hires_terrain=no
draw_citysprawl=yes
}
camera_speed=50.000000
camera_tilt=100.000000
centered_zoom_in=yes
lastplayer=""
lasthost=""
serveradress="diplomacy.valkyrienet.com"
autosave="YEARLY"
difficulty="NORMAL"
outliner=
{
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 13 }
outliner_open=no
windowmovetime=0.200000
disable_wikipedia_links=yes
nudge_allowed=no
hints=no
disabled_hints=
{
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 }
autosaves_to_keep=0

 

[unmerged(319144)]

I do hope to upgrade to Mountain Lion soon, but probably not until later in the year when some of my important apps have been properly tested.

I would think this configuration would have been tested by Paradox since this game was released this year and this iMac was released in 2011.

Either way, the settings.txt file got me closer. What was just a black screen with Steam UI in what I feel is the inaccurate place... now has what I think could be CK2 UI of some kind.

A screenshot is attached.



Thanks for your help. If nothing else we should be able to dig to the bottom of this, I hope.

 

[AndrewT]

Jeez, OK. You did it exactly as I posted above, with draw_terrain=no ? If so, then maybe try it with draw_terrain=yes . I do have to admit I'm completely guessing here, I haven't seen any reports exactly like this one before, sorry.

I don't know how thoroughly Paradox went back through the back models of Macs to test; this is their first Mac game so they may have been under the impression that works in mine-works in all, and that's definitely turned out not to be so!

 

[unmerged(319144)]

Odd. I get music now.

I had simply copied and pasted what you had above into a black file and saved it as settings.txt in ~/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/

Attached are my latest two screenshots.

The first shows an odd while box where the UI typically will show up.


The second shows what I see once the UI shows up.

 

[AndrewT]

Wow, this gets weirder but no better. The only other thing I can think of to try is to set fullScreen=no . But I have to say it does seem this game doesn't work on this specific machine or video. I'll see if I can get some comment on it from the devs.

 

[unmerged(319144)]

Oddly that works. THough the graphics appear extremely slow, much like people have reported with the 3000M card in the MacBooks.

I bought this game at least hoping it wouldn't have those issues on my iMac. Shame I've run into them.

Any workarounds for the slowness? You'd think a 2GB graphics card could handle this game.

I tried uploading a screenshot, but I've hit my file-size limit.

 

[unmerged(319144)]

I should clarify, while running through the tutorial everything looks smooth.

I'll try sometime Wednesday to see if fullscreen works ok with my second display disconnected. It sure would suck to have to disconnect my second screen.

 

[unmerged(319144)]

After I upped the resolution to 1920x1200 things seem to run smoothly. Not sure why 1024x768 would be slower though.

Still doesn't work fullscreen.

I haven't tested disconnecting my other display yet.

 

[unmerged(319144)]

It seems to work just fine in window mode after sluggishly loading the main menu, but refuses to work properly fullscreen. Lower resolutions cause the main menu to load more slowly for some reason. The game runs very well at any resolution when windowed, even at the highest resolutions, just not fullscreen.

 

[AndrewT]

Very very strange indeed. We've had quite a few Mac issues, but this is the only report like this I'm aware of. I have asked the Devs to look at this thread but no luck yet it seems.