I reinstalled Windows 8 Pro and then upgraded to 8.1, then I downloaded and installed the latest version of PA (just this morning). I'd already verified my video drivers were up to date, and my sound drivers are the latest ones from Lenovo's site, though I don't know if there are newer ones from RealTek available. Win 8.1 doesn't come with DX9, so at first it gave me the error about not finding d3dx9_43.dll, so I installed the "DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)" as directed in the forums. I also tried installing the "DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime" but it won't install on Win 8.x, per the error it gives. Now when I run PA it gets all the way to where it says to pick a spot in the green area, but no planet loads, and then it gives the "pa.exe has stopped working" error and exits completely (see attached). I've also attached my dxdiag.
checking drivers with steam or windows or downloading them from your laptop's website is not the way to have up to date drivers. try this : http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/331.65/331.65-notebook-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql.exe your error seems unrelated though.
Make sure you have run Windows Update as well - sometimes that updates the video / sound drivers - usually considered optional downloads so check the optional list to see if it recommends any drivers for Win 8.1 - what you were using may not be completely compatible and that might be causing the crash.
I get my video drivers direct from nvidias site. I only got the sound drivers from lenovo because realtek has a lot of chipsets and it's usually better to go with the PC maker's verified versions.
Since I just installed windows fresh and updated to 8.1 it should have the latest drivers that ms offers but I'll check for optional ones too. I have whatever video options are on by default, as I didn't change any settings before trying to play a game.
waiting for the icon in the lobby to turn green can help (its in the top right next to the planet after you publish a game) or by default the game access you video card and auto sets the graphic defaults, on some cards this means uber or high settings are used turning some features like HDR and Anti-Aliasing on,, this also causes issues on some systems. try setting in game settings like this then slowly change one setting up at a time after a successful game with no crashes.
I should have mentioned before that the game worked great before I reinstalled windows, but I haven't played it for a week or two.
I'm not sure, i will look into it some more very soon for you, i need to get my children ready for school , and have a nap myself (i sleep while their at school). I will only be a few hours then like Arnie in the terminator "I'll be back" .. lol i wont give up till we get you going again
OK, I changed the video settings to the "Low" preset just to try it, and it came up. However, after rendering the planet, it took a full minute for all the green dots (ore nodes) to appear, followed by the green spawn zones. I picked a zone and spawned, then I changed the settings to "Medium" and then "High". Each time it took about a minute for the screen to go from black to having a planet on that I could play on. This is pretty weird, as I have a pretty robust system. I just installed an SSD also, so my system cold boots windows 8.1 in 12 seconds. I'd think PA would load relatively quickly, but the amount of time it's taking to load the textures and everything seems crazy, so obviously something is wrong. I don't have time to try playing an actual game right now so I'll have to check in later with the results of that. Any other suggestions in the mean time are welcome Thanks for the help!
turn resolution scaling down in game or lower your desktop screen resolution. last of all try my performance boost mod/hack. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-performance-booster-v2-55493.53233/ it's not recommended (only because i haven't tried it myself on the new v.56310 build yet) but it may improve performance. if using the performance mod breaks the game, let me know and i'll update it for the current build
also let me know if you have tried all these options in this thread to improve performance https://forums.uberent.com/threads/how-to-improve-frame-rates-all-video-cards-driver-links.53165/ even some robust systems and cards have been having some issues, some card are picky about the shader coding and it may be causing issues (uber are constantly updating this as they go so it does improve from build to build )
also the resolution scaling slider isn't very informative all the way to the left is %50 resolution, then %75 then, then same as screen res, then anything above the 3rd snap spot while moving to the right renders the game at a higher resolution than your screen resolution (fake anti-aliasing, but chews up gpu power) .. turn it down (move it all the way to the left) then move it to the right 1 or 2 spots then use that setting
