Main Menu Flickering

[starchitect]

On loading the game, the main menu flickers with all of the interface elements disappearing except for the background image and the first option (single player). Taking a screenshot temporarily stops the flickering so that text is legible, but it is still incredibly difficult to get in to the multiplayer lobby for example. Once I load a save, the issue goes away entirely and seems to play normally.

Imperator ran just fine for me 2 days ago. I have deleted my mods folder, deleted my saves, verified steam cache, reinstalled the game, updated my video drivers... nothing seems to help. This occurs both on 1.0.1 and the beta 1.0.2.

 

[AndrewT]

Please try deleting the contents of the Documents/paradox/imperator folder (except any values save games).

If that doesn't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from a command prompt or the Windows start menu 'run' dialog box (or 'search programs' in Windows 7 or later). After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach your Documents/Paradox/Imperator/pdx_settings.txt.
From your Documents/Paradox/Imperator/logs/ folder, attach system.log .

 

[starchitect]

That did not help (if anything it got worse, but that is because deleting the setting seems to have re-enabled vsync, and turning off vsync is the only thing that seems to help the flicking, albiet only marginally). Settings, logs, and dxdiag attached.

 

[AndrewT]

I see you are on the latest and last ever driver for thet GeForce GT 440, so there's nothing to be done there.

That made me check the requirements for this game, the minimum is the GTX 460. I would have though your GT 440 was pretty close, but no:
https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-460-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-GT-440/2167vsm7783

As you can see there the GT 440 is less than 1/3 of the GPU power of the minimum requirement GTX460, so I'm afraid that's almost certainly the problem here. Sorry about that!

 

[starchitect]

Well fair, but the game does actually run, Its literally only a flickering issue in the start menu. In addition I had no problems when I first loaded up the game, including on the main menu. It appears to be a problem introduced in 1.0.2. How is my graphics card not good enough to handle the main menu but does just fine generating the map, units, and every other menu in game!? Beyond this, there are several people in my MP group that were experiencing the exact same issue, to varying degrees. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, not just written off as oh the bug reporter doesnt meet sys requirements.

 

[AndrewT]

Well fair, but the game does actually run, Its literally only a flickering issue in the start menu. In addition I had no problems when I first loaded up the game, including on the main menu. It appears to be a problem introduced in 1.0.2. How is my graphics card not good enough to handle the main menu but does just fine generating the map, units, and every other menu in game!? Beyond this, there are several people in my MP group that were experiencing the exact same issue, to varying degrees. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, not just written off as oh the bug reporter doesnt meet sys requirements.

If you feel this is a game bug, please post it in the Bug Reports forum.

If the others in your MP group seeing this have supported hardware, it would be best if they made or added to that thread, so the report does not get derailed into an unsupported-hardware direction.

All the best!