Basically, every time I load up the game, this is what I get
(http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad304/madandysims/CW1_zpsrvy7jluf.png)
(http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad304/madandysims/CW2_zpso39tb9xj.png)
(http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad304/madandysims/CW3_zpsilswwc8x.png)
Not sure what that's about.
If you need any info about my computer, graphics setup, etc..., I'll happily give it, but I'm afraid I don't know what information to give right now. Sorry.
Yeah, that's a graphics driver issue. I'd reboot your machine (a complete reboot) and try again. If that doesn't fix it, make sure you graphics drivers are up to date.
Nope - rebooted it several times, updated drivers, they are now up to date, even tried uninstalling and reinstalling it.
I'm kind of at a loss, to be honest.
Find the log file. Instructions here: http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=16476.0
Attach the most recent log file to the post here. To attach, look below the area you type a post for the "Attachments and other options" and follow instructions there.
Also post your log and we'll see what sort of GPU you have (and what driver is being used).
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=16476.0
Here's the log file.
By the way, I really appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you so much.
Comparing your video capabilities with mine, I notice:
You: Version: Direct3D 9.0c [nvumdshim.dll 9.18.13.3165]
Me: Version: Direct3D 9.0c [aticfx32.dll 8.17.10.1395]
You:Caps: Shader=30 DepthRT=1 NativeDepth=1 NativeShadow=1 DF16=0 INTZ=1 NULL=1 RESZ=0 SlowINTZ=0
Me: Caps: Shader=30 DepthRT=1 NativeDepth=1 NativeShadow=1 DF16=1 INTZ=1 NULL=1 RESZ=1 SlowINTZ=1
Will update after I googled.
Depth Texture Formats: DF16
Multisampled Depth Buffer Resolve: RESZ
Depth Texture Format: INTZ (can't find SlowINTZ except in Unity3D crash report logs. :()
Conclusion. You're running the integrated Intel Graphics in an Intel Ore ix processor. Check your graphics settings and set them for quality over performance anywhere that's possible. If you get your capabilities to reflect the same values as mine, you should be golden.
Incidentally, and this just came to mind. I notice you run with the maximum 1.7 GB of RAM allocated to Video RAM.
In a different forum a poster recently reported that although the Intel processor allows that, his motherboard restricted him to a much smaller value. If your luck runs out on the quality settings, it might be interesting to see if there is any effect if you reduce the amount of VRAM to a much lower amount, such as 512 MB? Just for grins, not permanently.
Ugh, not I noticed something else. You also have a discrete graphics card, since a second initialization is attempted:
d3d: creation params: flags=44 swap=1 vsync=80000000 w=304 h=201 fmt=21 bbcount=1 dsformat=75 pflags=0
d3d: failed to create device [queried technique not available]
GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.0]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M (ID=0x1292)
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 1972 MB
If there are two GPU's in the system and the intel one isn't turned off (and the nvidia card was added later), I bet directx is confused about what driver to use. It looks like something like that is going on in the log with the intel GPU coming up first, failing, and then the nvidia init'ing next. There are a ton of shader warnings later one... which is what I'd expect after seeing the magenta rectangles everywhere.
The other thing is when the nvidia gpu initialized it came up in directx11, not 9.
For instance my machine looks like this in the log:
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 9.0c [nvd3dum.dll 10.18.13.5330]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 3072 MB (via DXGI)
Caps: Shader=30 DepthRT=1 NativeDepth=1 NativeShadow=1 DF16=0 INTZ=1
I might run dxdiag and see what it says:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/run-directx-diagnostic-tool
Another quick thing you can try would be to force the game into dx9 mode. You do that with the following command line argument:
-force-d3d9
In steam, right click the game and go to Properties. Then click on "Set Launch Options" and enter "-force-d3d9" (without the quotes) and apply it. Might not make a difference since something funny is going on with the drivers on your system, but can't hurt either.
Okay, it seems that, as you suggested, the problem comes, somehow, from the two GPUs, and I can solve it by disabling one or the other in the Device Manager. I don't know that that's a good this to do long term, but it works to solve the problem. Of course, it might be a good thing to do, I honestly don't know.
Either way, thank you for advising me on how to solve it, and I apologize for being a technical ignoramus.
I once had a laptop with similar integrated/discrete graphics. They work just fine and usually the manufacturer provides a utility to manage switching, or to set parameters for when the discrete GPU is used instead of the integrated GPU. For "office" work, videos, streaming and such tasks, the integrated GPU is great and gives you substantial additional battery life (and less heat as well). When you're gaming or doing something else that needs the horsepower of the GPU (rendering, Photoshop, etc.) then the discrete GPU comes into its own.
Even if you have to do it manually, there will be no bad effects from switching between the GPUs.
The one caveat is to be very careful when you update the display drivers. Often two sets of display drivers don't play well together and you should make sure to load then from your laptop manufacturer's site, or at least consult with their tech support staff on how best to do it.
Finally, if the manufacture gave you that Lucidlogicx' Virtu software, it was my finding that it totally sucked. I got better performance from simply uninstalling it and running the discrete GPU all by itself.