Black screen upon game startup Thread - Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos

Hi there!
Every time I start up the game I simply get a black screen (the entire monitor goes black (but with the lighting)). If there is an error message, I have no way of seeing it because I cannot alt+tab, ctrl+alt+delete or use esc to exit the black screen. The only way to get rid of it is to shut down the computer itself and restart it. Even though no sound is generated by the black screen, and it makes most other programs silent (like my browsers (youtube)), I can still keep a conversation going over Skype perfectly fine though. And yes, I waited for more than 30 minutes in the hopes that the game might start anyways... But it didn't XP

What I have tried:
Updating my graphics card. Reinstalling the game, downloading the program outside Desura, starting the program WITH Desura...

Other occurances:
When Prison Architect did exactly the same thing, I expected that it might be my PC. But since I can still run other games PERFECTLY FINE (like Minecraft, FTL, Star Trek Online and Kerbal Space Program), I honestely have no idea XP

Computer Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i4 CPU M50 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
I have 4 GB of RAM
Card thingy: NVIDIA NVS 3100M

(I have no idea what I'm saying. Please let me know if you need anything specified)

THANK YOU! =)

Edited by: Cetamint

Hey,
Can you check if you've got this folder: c:\users\yourusername\appdata\roaming\soccc

Also, what happens if you press F7 when the game is black like that?

@aheydeck

I do indeed have this folder! It contains two empty folders; ErrorLogs and SaveGames.

And pressing F7 during the black screen did nothing. (I pressed it every 2 minutes for 10 minutes before I gave up)

Edited by: Cetamint

Ok. Try this.
Directly in the SOCCC folder, create a file and name it "settings". Make sure that it does not have a file ending.

In that file, save this information:
0
0
False

Then start the game again, and let me know what happens.

@aheydeck

Sorry, but I am not entirely sure how to do that (I am by no means a computer expert)... I created text document, called it "settings", copy-pasted the information and saved it... The file type is still a TXT, but I'm not sure how to change that. The black screen of death still appars unchanged, and I can't find anything changed in the SOCCC folders when I restarted.

Give me your email address and i'll send you the file directly instead.

There. Sent.
Place it directly in your SOCCC folder.
Let me know what happens.

@aheydeck

The file I recieved was exactly identical to the one I created, and in the same place... But I did try to launch it again, and the results were the same; black screen. (I don't think all these forced shut downs are healthy for my computer )

I looked up your graphics card, and this is the information i found:
"The Nvidia NVS 3100M or Nvidia Quadro NVS 3100M is a business graphics card that is based on the GT218 core (e.g. GeForce G210M / 310M) but with drivers that are optimized for stability and compatibility in business applications)."

This MIGHT mean that your card doesn't support XNA HiDef Profile, which it needs to do in order to run the game.
I'm working on trying to remove that dependency, and hopefully will have a patch ready in a couple of days.

Alright, so I saw the update! ... Now how do I get it? ):

I tried re-downloading the game both with and without Desura... But I still get a black screen when launching either one... But I'm not even sure if that's how to get the update at all(?) XP

The installer isnt updated yet. If you installed with the client then you should get a message that theres an update. ?

I looked at the changelog in the client and it said: 1.1 ... But when I launch it I still get the black screen. I'm completely blank. I've spent so long on Google to find people with a simular problem, but so far it seems like it's only me.

There's actually two of you!

Can you check c:\users\yourusername\appdata\roaming\soccc\errorlogs if there are any files in there?

Nope, the folder is empty.

This might sound weird, but what sound device do you have, and is it working?

When I look in the device manager I see two names:

IDT High Defininition Audio CODEC
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

I've never had any issues with them. Games work fine, Skype works fine and Youtube works fine. Etc.

Also I've tried launching the game without any devices plugged in, later with my headset and later with my speakers. All resulted in the black screen.

hmmm..

Well.. i must admit that i dont know what to make of this, or what might be causing it. Especially when your errorlogs folder is empty.
Can you try to reinstall xna framework 4.0 manually?

... Uh... This? Microsoft.com
Should I just run that installer?

I'm a little afraid that this might influence other things that are working perfectly fine ):

Edited by: Cetamint

Having the same problem.

Running on an Intel Q6600 @ 2.4GHz
4GB of Ram
AMD Radeon 5850
Win 7 Ultimate

Warpeddevotion: Try the same as above, manually installing the xna 4.0 framework from ms.

Didn't work. Starting to get fed up.

Can you check c:\users\yourusername\appdata\roaming\soccc\errorlogs if there are any files in there?

Nope, empty.

Here is some extra info on my system.

Using AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta3 drivers.
AVAST Anti-Virus.
Comodo Firewall.

Edited by: warpeddevotion

Alright. So the game doesnt execute any code at all. Either you dont have the correct version of xna installed,or there is some kind of conflict with Another software or your sound drivers are dodgy. I'm assumng you got the game through the groupees bundle? Dd Bleed work for you?

No I bought it right from Desura, no bundle.

If my sound drivers are buggy I'm SOL because Creative rarly updates them.

What software could be causing a conflict?

It could be any other software. However, if you are using an old creative sound card with very old drivers then that might be it. I've seen it once before.
Thing is, if anything in the game goes haywire, then you should have at least one file in the errorlogs folder, but it's not, so there is something outside of the game causing the game to not even execute.

You could try one last time to manually install xna framework 4.0, and you can also check your windows logs to see if that would give you any more light on the problem.
But if that doesn't give you a possible solution, then i'm sorry but we're at a point where i can't come up with something else that might, and you should ask desura for a refund.
If you own an iOS device, then i can set you up with a copy for it when it becomes available in a couple of weeks.