GameZig

I’m having the exact same issue. I’ve tried contacting Funcom with no response. Which “setting” do you change? I’ve tried to change all of the different ones from 1 to 0 with no luck. I still get the weird graphics at log in.

I’ll appreciate it if you can leave a response as to which particular setting you changed, or send me a mail. Thanks man!

I finally got a response from Funcom, where they included a new preference file. This worked well for me, just replace it with the file found in the directory that this blog points to.

Here’s a link to it if anyone needs it:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=kwxwmk1bodb

I can’t guarantee it’ll work for your set up, but it might be worth a try.

Sorry for the slow reply, been out all morning. Ya, the new file is a good fix too. It’s probably just pre-fixed for ya. The particular setting I changed was the ‘render shader’ setting from on (1) to off (0). Glad you finally got in, if you are in Doomsayer look me up, I’m Blackwings in there.

THANK-YOU! I followed your exact instructions and it worked wonderfully. Thank-you to the person who asked which value to change to 0… this is exactly the value I needed to change for it to work, and I suspect it is the most common cause of the problem. OP, perhaps you should add that to your main post. Thanks again! God, I love the internet and nice folks like you. Thanks so much.

Sorry Will, I originally had it in the main post but somehow managed to screw up and take it out. It’s back in there.

I see a lot of you are downloading the premade prefs file that Ole mentioned from Gigasize, that is the prefs1.xml file. Hope that works for you but if it doesn’t be sure to try the change mentioned in the main post to the prefs2.xml file.

This happened to me last night. I was about to just give up when I saw your post. Lord I hope this works. I’m going to try it when I get home from work…

I’ll love you forever Blackwings if I get it running.

I feel your pain brother. I was pulling my hair out updating drivers and trying to change game settings before I figured out where this file was. It’s in a hidden folder, so make sure to make them visible. Pop back in if you need any help.

I’ve been doing some digging on this issue, looks like this is only happening to folks running ATI cards, model 9800, X800 (me) or X850 cards. If this is you, this should fix your problem. I will be adding a link to a pre-made prefs2.xml file tonight for you to download.

hi i am on vista can someone tell me the instruction for vista.?

I’m not a Vista Pro, but I beleive you go to C:\Users\$USER$\AppData\Local\Funcom\Conan\Prefs.

I don’t actually have Vista, so if someone out there has Vista can back me up on this or point us in the right direction? Best of luck hihiguy.

That’s the correct directory. Thanks Blackwings.

Hi all, i’m having this issue too, but in the Local Settings -> Application Data -> Funcom -> Conan folder there isn’t any Prefs subfolder…anyone know why? i even tried to create it and put in the 2 files, but doesn’t seem to work…any ideas? thanks

I know the prefs folder isn’t created until the first time you try to start the game. Make sure you start the game, even if it’s just a black screen, then hit the space bar until you get past the black screen (7-8 times) to get past all the intro movies, then you should see a mountain scene with some graphics glitches. At that point the prefs folder should be created.

Thanks for the lightspeed reply
I tried as u said and waited till the mountain appears on the balckground, but still no Prefs folder. guess i’ll try to re-install it and see
thanks again

Hmmm…that is odd. Are you sure you are in the Local Setting/Application Data folder? There is a separate application data folder in the same directory as the local settings folder, make sure you go in local settings first and then app data. Otherwise I’m not certain why you wouldn’t be able to see it.

i seem to be having the same problem where i dont have the prefs folder and what it contains. and i do have it set to show hidden files and folders. doing a file search still comes up with nothing. i am using an amd 3200+ xp, 2 gigs of ram and a ati x800xt.

This worked to prefection after about two hours of trying everything else under the sun. Your a legend, thanks for posting this.

Im having the same problem as meme. I opened the correct folder under funcom then conan but under conan its just blank (no pref file anywhere)

AOC tech support is horrible and wont get back to me so if anyone has a solution, you are a god.

I’m assuming both Ryan and MeMe let the game run through the black screen mode until you got to the mountain scene? You have to get that far for it to create the prefs files. You can either just let the previews run (you should have sound) or keep clicking until you get the mountain scene.

Also, again be sure you are not in App. Data but Local Settings/App Data. I’m assuming you did both of these and still are unable to see, I’m researching further to see if I can re-create your issue. Stay tuned.

yes i did wait till i saw the mountain scene.. several times and i even tried to re install it and still have the same issue and yes i did look into the proper folder i know what you mean by looking in the other too because thats where i first looked.. i even did a search for the prefs1 and prefs2 files and have none associated to AOC anywhere on my pc. and i do have my games installed on a separate partition than windows. but have not had a problem with that in the past.

Ya, I can’t see your installation being on another partition as a factor, my own installation is on a separate partition from Windows. I’ll keep working on this, very frustrating.

Okay, one more thing we can try. I got a friend who said he didn’t get his prefs files created until he actually attempted to log in to the game. Basically, he said he kept clicking until he got to the mountain screen with the flickering lights.

At that point, type in your username (you won’t be able to actually see the login screen) then hit TAB and type in your password and press enter. Give it a few seconds to go through the login process, the screen may or may not change, I’ll have to ask my bud, but after that go back to where the prefs folder should be and see if it’s any different. We’ll get through this with or without FunCom techs.

I have been having a problem that maybe you guys will have an idea about how to fix. ATI card and after the install of the game, When it try’s to pull up the patch download screen, The screen flickers for a split sec and then minimizes down. Once this happens you can’t get anything to come up yet the task manager shows that the process is still running normal. Any Ideas? PLZ? Pulling my hair out on this one.

i have tried what you mentioned blackwings with no luck. i can see that after typing my account and password it is doing some thing and then i see something flash on the screen quickly and i wait a bit then close it all.. and still have no luck with the prefs folder. i have sent an email to tech support but i am not really expecting a response for about a week.

Spankdhiney, if you can see the downloader in the task manager as a running application, you should be able to right click on it in the taskmanager and maximize. Give that a shot. MeMe, I’m not giving up on ya, I’m going to keep at it. What version of Windows are you running btw? XP or Vista?

im using xp sp2

i’m on MEME’s same boat i’m searchin around to resolve this issue, thanks for the help Blackwings tho, very appreciated
i’ll let u know if i find something

ok, MeMe the files are there, i guess u made my same mistake.
When u are under “USER” folder go in the “LOCAL SETTING” folder non in the “APP DATA” one. I guess u missed this step too.
Ok, thaks alot Blackwings :, but now i got another issue, the intro sound doesn’t work, it just keeps repeat me the first 2 seconds of sounds, while the intro goes…anyone knows why?
Thanks again

by the way i have the same video card as meme

I tried reading through the comments, have you tried creating the prefs folder and saving the prefs1 and 2 files into it? The folder name should simply be “Prefs”. I’m running low on ideas…

Hey i’ve tried everything i searched the web for 8 hours trying to fix mine windows wont work no resolutions while windowed or non windowed changing the shader down wont work i cant even get the lctrl Rshift C debug menu to come up i got a ati radeion 9250 i got a ventrilo 2 blackwing if ya wanna come on and talk i can tellya some of what i’ve read all over the internet and i do mean all over vent3.gameservers.com 4552

I’ll come on when I get home, at work at the moment. It’ll be after 5PM EST. I can tell you though, your card, the 9250, is lower than minimum specs. It may still start up but you’ll probably be pretty laggy. May be time for an upgrade.

There are new ATI drivers released yesterday, nothing in the release notes about AoC but it’s worth a try. MeMe, was curious if you’ve had any progress with your issue or respone from FunCom tech support? I cannot recreate your problem.

http://ati.amd.com/

Also, if you are able to find your prefs file and are trying to change it yourself and your changes keep reverting back from 0 to the default 1, right clicking on the prefs file and select ‘open with’ notepad to make the changes.

If you were a beta tester for AoC and are experiencing the black screen issue, it is now recommended that you uninstall the beta via the control panel add/remove programs. This may fix the problem but you may still need to reinstall the retail version of the game as well.

Another option is to go to the simpleconfig.exe tool (Program Files/FunCom) and go to the graphics tab and uncheck full screen and try it. If it works you can change back to full screen once in the game and it should stay working. Also, simpleconfig.exe can be used to verify/repair your game installation as a possible corrupt file could cause the black screen issue. Hope this helps!

8800 GTS GeForce
Vista 64 bit
everything is updated, i can see and have tried to manipulate the pref file and it is set correctly. (shader values)

I have tried windowed and full (as well as both DX9 and DX10). I am still getting all sound and a black screen during ads followed by a quick blotchy screen of cream color followed by a sweet mountain scene with a banner type doodad.

I have re-instsalled and re-updated everything.

Is this a possible issue with 64-bit OS’s?

Blackwings you sir are a stud for being more informative than AOC support and pretty much anything else I have been able to find on the webs.

This is typically a problem with ATI cards, not sure on Nvidia. Are you running two cards in SLI? I read that was having problems somewhere. Your card supports Shader 2.0 so the shader fix won’t handle your problem.

One thing you may want to try is uninstalling your video drivers, running a program called driver cleaner to get rid of all the old files, then reboot. Check the Add/Remove programs to make sure every mention of Nvidia is gone, if not run cleaner again, try in safe mode (F8 at boot).

Once it is completely gone install the latest Nvidia drivers again.

ya the rest of my computer is well over to play but i’m getting a whole new rig in a few weeks i just want to play til then i have so many games i cant play cuz of my vid card but soon it will all be gone and i can play anything

and i updated drivers dint work for me but the blackscreen shouldnt be there at most it should prompts me upgrade cuz it cant handle the graphics like cod-4 did and ur3 < pixel shader screwed me on those 2

gah guess i’ll have to wait it out til then torrented games and tf2 for me

Ya peanut I know what you mean man, sucks. Could always pickup a descent graphics card at a local electronics store, they are fairly cheap for a way better card than what you have. They have some as cheap at $70-80 that should do the trick. Not smoking cards by today’s standards but still better than what ya got and good enough to at least get into AoC.

this worked great!!

I bet this has to do with something like the game thinks you have good enough card while optimizing to drive with shader model 3. And if your card doesnt have that, it will freak out.

I have x850 XT PE, wich is fucking good graphcard, (except the SM3 that it dont have) So i guess the optimizer thinks I have a better card than I actually have.
Not sure is this theory is true, but atleast it does make sense for me

The shader seems to be turned on as a default whether you can support it or not, just an oversight on the part of FunCom. At least it’s an easy fix. Glad you got in, see you in game!

Im having the same problem as udodou, I have 8800GT and have tried turning the shader value off but still the same black screen problem as described. I guess there must be some other fix for the 8800’s as they do support shader 2.0.

Same deal here..
Vista 32bit, geforce 8400M GT, which is well rated for this game.. The shader option does not seem to matter to the geforce cards.
Going to try the driver cleaner…
If I get this working will see.

Remember, if you were a beta tester, make sure you completely uninstall any beta client software and reinstall the retail software as well.

blackwings, any other sites covering this info?
Looking for some other ideas..

K, so I’m having the problem that is happening to meme, I tried the whole type account info and hitting enter and Im still getting no prefs folder. I tried creating my own prefs folder and puting both files in it, still no luck. PLEASE HELP!!

I just checked on google and there were a few articles based on AOC having the blank screen with a 8800 graphics card. I cant read it though because it is asking me to sign in and put credit card details in. Is there anyway to access the AOC forums without registering the game cause I dont want to start my 30 day trial before I have got the game actually working.

I’m already registered there, I’ll go check the AOC forums on the 8800 and come back here to post it up. I seen info on the Nvidia’s having problems with graphics effects but not black screen so far but I’ll dig deep.

Other than AoC I don’t know of any other sites talking about it. If you find any feel free to post them up here.

Okay, I just read a post on AoC of a guy running Vista 64bit, has an 8800GT card and was getting the black screen problem. He tried everything suggested and finally got the game working by doing the following, his words:

1. Uninstall AoC
2. Uninstall and clean drivers using driver sweeper
3. Installed latest drivers (175.16)
4. Reinstalled AoC - worked.

If you use the driver cleaner, make sure it completely removes the drivers by checking in Add/Remove programs, if you see any mention of Nvidia run it again, in safe mode if you have to. Once it is completely gone then go on to step 3.

You can get the driver cleaner here:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655

For those of you still unable to find the prefs folder, I’m still looking for other answers, hang in there.

If any of these works for ya, stop by and let me know. Would love to know things are working so I don’t keep looking for answers, or if you find something that isn’t mentioned here come by and post it up so others can get in too. Thanks!!