Matrix Games Forums

I have the same black screen problem, tried all of the above but nothing worked, except after reinstalling
the game ran ok only the first time.
I reinstalled once more but it didn't work.

What kind of graphics card do you use? Have you updated the drivers or tried individual graphics settings for the game? I had had the same problems in another game, in combination with my nVidia graphics card, it helped to set the settings for the game manually and not play with the global graphics settings.

ORIGINAL: armonica

I have the same black screen problem, tried all of the above but nothing worked, except after reinstalling
the game ran ok only the first time.
I reinstalled once more but it didn't work.

Please follow the suggested procedure in Post #10:

ORIGINAL: berto

Instead, please do this:

[*]Entirely empty your CSME logs folder.
[*]Launch Middle East.exe.
[*]Load up the Bootcamp 1 scenario.
[*]Verify the black map. The entire screen is not black, just the map, correct?
[*]Without doing anything else, immediately quit the game.
[*]Quit the Middle East launcher frontend.
[*]Zip up what should just be two log files -- engine.log, frontend.log (or possibly three, if also any error.log) -- and post here.

Yes, just the map is black.
Attached log files.

Thanks for the log files. They don't reveal anything except for the same error (_GameHomeDirectory is some strange gobbledygook #) described here.

Have you tried the suggestions in both of

[*]Post #17 << try this one especially
[*]Post #18

No luck with that either.
I guess I will try to get a refund or some credit toward buying a different game.

I fixed this by going into NVIDIA Control Panel and Remove the Program Settings for a program associated with CSME.exe under Manage 3D settings. You should see it in the drop down box. Highlight and click remove.

Which program would that be? I can't find any program associated with CSME.exe under Manage 3D settings.

I don't believe your black map problem is a video issue. A black map is one symptom of the .scn file failing to load properly.

You can confirm this by opening up any of the game maps in the memap.exe map editor. You see the maps in edmap, yes?

Sorry if this is for whatever reason not working for you.

Sorry the program was me.exe not csme.exe. The program profile is caxa 2008. What I did to test was copy me.exe to me_nvidia.exe and run me_nvidia.exe. Noticed I now have graphics. So I used nvidia inspector to edit the profiles. Selected CAXA 2008 and clicked "Remove Application from Current profile.

Deltanine94 I do not have caxa 2008 in the list.

Berto, yes I can see the maps and the units in the editor. Really weird.

Wish I could include a screenshot somehow. You are right you don't see in list I was wrong that is why I had to install nvidia inspector. Try the copy me.exe to me_nvidia.exe and run me_nvidia.exe. If that works it tells you that the fix that worked for me will work for you. It has been awhile and so I tested this morning and with the nvidia driver update my issue came back and so I just ran through it again.

If you google caxa 2008 me.exe you will see the 4th entry down NVIDIA Profile.txt - TechPowerUp with the description of how I started to figure out how to solve it.

Thanks

ORIGINAL: armonica

Berto, yes I can see the maps and the units in the editor. Really weird.

Not really. It is likely not a graphics issue. For some reason, most likely the .scn file is failing to load properly. It could be file corruption, maybe a missing file.

I don't suppose there is some way you could make available your entire install? [X(] Maybe you have a Dropbox account or something?

Wait. There is something else we might try. More tomorrow.

Never mind. I thought we might be able to set up more verbose logging, but it seems that is practically impossible in this situation.

Unless we can somehow get a look at your entire installation, there is nothing more we can do for you. Sorry.

I have asked in armonica's tech support ticket, to uninstall the game, create a new Windows administer account and reinstall the game in that account.
Maybe the issue is related with permissions.

Thanks, VPaulus.

I had thought that maybe I could pass along to armonica a special me.exe with augmented logging capabilities. As it happens, we are not really set up for that for CSME v1.02.

@armonica: If you are willing to hold out until the release of CSME v2.0 (soon, likely before the end of the year), maybe either (a) the new version will solve this issue for you, or (b) the new version will have these augmented logging capabilities. With the augmented logging capabilities, we can diagnose the issue almost certainly.

Sorry you are having problems Armonica but this order was placed 2 years ago and you have had extensive use of the game so its not possible to get a refund. We have no DRM and no way to disable it on your machine.