Why oh Why???

[Dubee]

Hello everybody,

please help me.

I bought a new laptop recently and installed Grid on it.
Before it worked fine on my old laptop which ran Windows XP.
Now i have Vista.

My Laptop: Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3400 @2.16 GHZ
3GB Ram
Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family 1309MB

Well the game works fine i guess...
Its just that all i see is a black screen.
The intro video works fine but when i enter the game where i have to enter my profile i see a black screen. However the sound is working just fine.

So first thing i did was to download the patch. That didnt work.
Then i updated my graphics driver to the latest. That didnt work.
Then i reinstalled directx. That didnt work.
Then i reinstalled the whole game plus patch. That didnt work.
Then i tried to run Grid with WindowsXP compatibility mode,
i tried to run Grid as admin.
I literally tried everything.
I looked on the internet for information about this problem before posting here.

But nothing helped.
I am really speechless.

So this is my last attempt to get it running.
Either somebody on here can help or i seriously will give up on Grid.
...


So thanks in advance to anybody helping me out.

[Purple44]

Have you tried running GRID in safe mode?

My guess your graphic settings are set to high for this laptop and Vista. GRID not laptop friendly.

Also if you got any step down options running that can very the speed of CPU to save power, you should disable this kind of option. GRID like CPU running at same speed all the time. You may have to go to the BIOS to disable this option.

[Dubee]

no chance...
even safemode wont work...
maybe i made a mistake. i put in the path like C:\games\grid\grid.exe -safemode
and i get the same thing.
maybe you could upload a "hardware settings config.xml" with the lowest settings for me?
i could try to replace with the one i have now.
that should be my last attempt.

honestly. my nerves are finished... im tired of trying all kinds of IT tricks to get a game running... what the hell???
since a week already....

[Purple44]

OK I made a hardware_settings_config.xml with all the settings ( even all advance options ) set to their lowest settings, like 640x480 resolution. Here link to file:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?24nbznm3ovt

Be warn that you may need to use Notepad to change this part of the file to match what your hardware_settings_config.xml file says. And this is a patch v1.3 and v1.2 file. A stock v1.0 one would say "38".


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<hardware_settings_config version="39">
<cpu>
<threadStrategy parallelUpdateRender="true" workerMapFile="system/workerMap4Core.xml" forceFeedbackProcessor="3" dvdStorageProcessor="3" dataSetMonitorProcessor="1" renderProcessor="0" updateProcessor="2" fileStreamProcessor="3" />
</cpu>
<audio_card>
<audio mixing="default" reverbs="1" voices="120" creation="auto" />
</audio_card>


Here the rest of the code, if you just want to paste it into config file:

<graphics_card>
<resolution width="640" height="480" aspect="normal" fullscreen="true" vsync="0" oldWidth="640" oldHeight="480">
<refreshRate rate="75" />
</resolution>
<gamma level="1.0" />
<multisampling option="off">
<back_buffer level="0" />
<colour_target level="0" />
<minimap level="0" />
<dynamic_envmap level="0" />
<static_envmap level="0" />
<rear_view_mirror level="0" />
</multisampling>
<textures lod="0" />
</graphics_card>
<graphics_detail level="medium" />
<wind particles="false" groundcover="false" />
<shadows enabled="false" size="1024" maskQuality="1" />
<headlights headlightQuality="0" />
<particles enabled="false" collisions="false" max="500" />
<crowd enabled="false" />
<cloth enabled="false" />
<postprocess enabled="true" blur="false" />
<groundcover enabled="false" layers="1" />
<trees visibility="500" low="180" high="60" lodQuality="1" />
<vehicles characterQuality="0" lodQuality="0" />
<reflections faces="0" size="256" forceBilinear="true" />
<mirrors enabled="false" forceBilinear="true" width="512" height="128" />
<skidmarks enabled="false" />
<dynamic_ambient_occ enabled="false" />
<track_reflections enabled="false" />
<physics environmentalDamage="false" vehicleDamage="false" />
<input device_type="auto" />
<motion enabled="false" ip="127.0.0.1" port="20777" delay="1" extradata="0" />
</hardware_settings_config>

[Dubee]

this is just ridiculous....

First, thank you so much for your help.

But now im even more frustrated then i was before....

Now with these settings i can see the "toolbar" that is at the bottom of the screen. Besides that the screen is still black.
I managed to get into the first race by guessing...
So i was at the race and i saw my speedometer,the map and all that.
But the actual game was still black.

Im just confused... I played this game on my 3 year old Dell Laptop around a year ago when i first got the game.
Now that i upgraded to a new laptop i wanted to play Grid with better graphics and everything. But its not working...
I mean it cant be that the laptop isnt good enough to play it or what?
Like i said it worked on my old Dell Laptop without any problems.
On low details of course but still very playable.

I just dont get it...
Any help is much appreciated.

I cant accept the fact that it ran on a 3 year old XP Laptop and wont run on the laptop i have right now... it cant be...

[Purple44]

I did some Google searching and the x4500 graphic chip is on the wimpy side for playing 3D games:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2327142,00.asp

GRID one of the toughest PC games to run graphic wise.

I bet your Dell had a better video card than this new laptop.

[BlinkMe]

Maybe your graphics card isnt powerfull enough in your new laptop.

[Dubee]

What?
How in this world can a 3 year old Dell outrun my new laptop?

Damn, if this is right, its really bad.
I think there will be no way for me then to get the game running...

Thanks for your help and effort.
I really appreciate it.

Its just too bad Grid wont run....

[Dubee]

I remember that my old system had 1GbRam, a single CPU running at 1.92GHZ
and it also had a Intel Chip graphics card.
And Grid was running just fine on this system.
I dont think, no im sure that the Intel graphics card was worse than the one i have now.
I mean there is a difference of around 2 years between them.
So Grid should run on my system now.

I really dont get it. I mean i could run the game at lowest config with maybe 20FPS which was really playable.
And now i cant? Either Intel's new graphics card suck or the problem is caused by Vista or something else.

I dont want to install XP on my system now just to see if its working.

Any last suggestions guys?

[131]

I would try windows 7, you prolly have a free upgrade with the vista laptop.

I did struggle to get the demo to run on my old desktop though with xp and that had a msi 8400GS 512MB card in, 2G ddr400, athlon64_3200 @ 2ghz.