Screen has started going blank/black

Marcus7144 · Oct 21, 2019

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone else was having the same problem? It just started yesterday. One minute I'm flying my ship, next minute the screen just cuts out and goes blank. The music is still playing but unable to do anything other than end the process in Task Manager.
Graphic card is using latest drivers btw. Everything is updated.
Any thoughts?

NiteShaft · Oct 21, 2019

I have just ran in to a issue where my screen does not go blank, but it does shake and shimmer like it is jumping between screens. Not sure what that has been about. I have had it happen 3 times in the last week. And it is just in this game. All drivers are current

Seizewell Warrior · Oct 21, 2019

Yes, started getting this the last couple of days. Up to now it has come back but happened 10 minutes ago and was unrecoverable. I could hear sound running in the background as my ship jumped to hyperspace but then appeared to get stuck in there. Had to hard reboot PC to recover (Ctrl-Alt-Del unresponsive). It happens at random no particular set of circumstances or area. Looks like another bug from the last update. Google has some reference to the problem a few years back but not much in the way of conclusive answers. In over two years of playing the game (on and off) this is the first time it's happened.

GFX drivers up to date and no issues running other games but basically unplayable until this gets sorted. Shame, as I was just getting into VO mining, too.

Astrometer · Oct 21, 2019

I've had a problem for a couple of days where the screen blanks and returns but the game loses focus. I have to Alt-Tab to regain control.

Marcus7144 · Oct 21, 2019

Seizewell Warrior said:
Yes, started getting this the last couple of days. Up to now it has come back but happened 10 minutes ago and was unrecoverable. I could hear sound running in the background as my ship jumped to hyperspace but then appeared to get stuck in there. Had to hard reboot PC to recover (Ctrl-Alt-Del unresponsive). It happens at random no particular set of circumstances or area. Looks like another bug from the last update. Google has some reference to the problem a few years back but not much in the way of conclusive answers. In over two years of playing the game (on and off) this is the first time it's happened.

GFX drivers up to date and no issues running other games but basically unplayable until this gets sorted. Shame, as I was just getting into VO mining, too.

Have you tried Alt+Tab? That works for me and then I open the Task Manager and close it.

Marcus7144 · Oct 21, 2019

Also, the game seems sluggish as well, not forgetting that it takes an unusual amount of time when I close the game. The screen goes black while it's shutting down for a good 15 seconds or so. As people have stated, it must be something to do with the latest update.

Seizewell Warrior · Oct 21, 2019

No I didn't try Alt-Tab, I have to say.

Just played 45 mins of Euro Truck Sim 2, graphics fully cranked up with various mods running and no issues - must be ED.

Vardaugas · Oct 22, 2019

If you use a Nvidia card that is overclocked (like my gtx980) some games cause the driver to crash and not recover at random times. It stops when you disable the overclocking, which can be done in the Nvidia control panel by activating the debug mode under help. Has been happening to me for ages, old or new drivers.

Seizewell Warrior · Oct 22, 2019

Both GPU and CPU running at stock speed. Hardware config not changed and game running okay last week, apart from the known hitching/rubber banding which followed the last update.

Unknown Zombie · Oct 22, 2019

Yeah this game causes a lot of driver crashes on my GTX 970 (factory overclocked) -- and it's the only game I have this problem with. I'm not going to underclock my card just for the sake of this one game, so I just suffer the inconvenience... I just can't wait until I get my name smeared all over the "combat logger" reddit simply because my video drivers crashed at an unfortunate time..

Though I've found that the vast majority of my crashes tend to happen while using the FSS.

Anyway, I've found that using the Nvidia control panel to set the card power mode to "maximum performance" and turning off vsync in the game and control panel (or set vsync to "Fast" in the control panel and turn it off in the game) drastically cuts down on (but does not completely eliminate) the driver crashes.

Marcus7144 · Oct 22, 2019

Thanks for all your help.
A new Nvidia driver has come out today, so currently downloading and installing it. I suppose I'll have to tweak up the settings, as well. It is a pain, but there you go.

Mondeza · Oct 25, 2019

I had this with the AMD R9 200 Series card which is not overclocked. It started on Sunday with the flickering and progressed to the black screen CTD. Last night I, believe, that I found a work around/fix. The new drivers didnt help but I removed all the AMD drivers and Apps almost back to the windows defaults ( as close as I could get). Reloaded all AMD drivers and applications and then did a file verification in the ED Login app (not Steam). After that I was able to play for 2 hrs with no problems.

Saltyseadog · Oct 31, 2019

I have had this problem before. In my case it was caused by my PC monitor running in 1920 x 1080 and my 4KTV game monitor running at 3840 x 2160. Sometimes the EDH graphics setting of 3840 x 2160 would reset to 1920 x 1080 and I would get a black screen on the 4KTV monitor. Simple fix was to change monitors and enter the graphics settings from there reset and change back again.