Spiral Knights - Black screen on start-up [Please help!]

Black screen on start-up [Please help!]

2 replies [Last post]

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 21:19

Plantwinner

Recently, I have tried to log in to my Spiral Knights account only to find the black screen on start-up
Here is my projectx.log (If that helps to narrow down the issue):

2015/11/21 15:29:55:533 INFO K$a.b: Logging to 'C:\Users\(Hidden)\AppData\LocalLow\spiral\projectx.log'.
2015/11/21 15:29:59:472 INFO K$a.b: Connected to Getdown. [port=55683]
2015/11/21 15:30:00:856 INFO K$a.b: Couldn't create display; switching fullscreen mode. [fullscreen=false]
2015/11/21 15:30:00:897 WARNING K$a.b: Couldn't find valid pixel format.
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.RuntimeException: Controllers has not been created.
at com.threerings.opengl.gui.e.f.isValid(SourceFile:638)
at com.threerings.projectx.client.ProjectXPrefs.c(SourceFile:903)
at com.threerings.projectx.client.az.(SourceFile:82)
at com.threerings.projectx.client.ProjectXApp.init(SourceFile:1277)
at com.threerings.opengl.o.run(SourceFile:172)
at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)
2015/11/21 15:30:15:681 INFO K$a.b: Getdown closed connection.

Mon, 11/23/2015 - 22:55

Flowchart

looks like a graphics / OpenGL problem. Might need an updated driver, or an old driver.

Also if you are playing on Windows 10, some old graphics cards will not work.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Technical_issues_FAQ#Windows_10_Help

Tue, 11/24/2015 - 05:04

Petater

Actually the reverse is true

The OpenGL support in SK is so ancient that it's having its deprecated API rug pulled from under it. It only uses barebones opengl 2, so cards going back to the year 2003 with drivers from at least circa 2006 will run SK. After running into numerous issues graphics wise with SK, I ran an OpenGL Driver Monitor and did a breakdown of the command queue buffers and API call stats. They're using APIs that have been deprecated since OpenGL 3 (glbegin/glend), and a bunch of drivers for different OSes have pulled legacy API compatibility from being supported.

Basically, a game master listed Nvidia cards that support OpenGL 4 and up only, when the game itself only uses OpenGL 2 with a compatibility context. It's a programming issue within SK due to out of date stale code, since their own DLL for connecting to OpenGL is itself out of date, and the continued usage of deprecated APIs that have been deprecated for a decade.

Anyhow the Tesla series cards from 2008ish onwards still have windows 10 drivers provided in the 340 version releases, so they have native drivers on Windows 10. It literally boils down to code rot in SK.

Sega Networks LLC developers need to bump their OpenGL helper DLL to LWJGL version 3, and make SK use non-deprecated OpenGL 3 functionality at the very least. Like, use VBO/VAOs. Nvidia/ATI are cleaning house on the deprecated APIs in their drivers.

We know that won't happen though, and we'll just see more accessory/costume spam in place of code fixes and updates.

Search

Black screen on start-up [Please help!]