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black screen only in launchbox


Bodine Grunch

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I have two problems that are driving me buggy, both with emulators that used to work well. There wasn't time to use LaunchBox for a couple of months or more. When I sat down to play I found the notification about the new 9.10 version and a shoebox full of Windows 10 updates,  applied them all and everything seemed fine until I started using NeoPop and Oswan. NeoPop crashes with two DirectX complaints (NeoPop generated errors "only 16 or 32 bit colour modes are supported" & "an error has occurred initialising direct draw"). I've poked at it but haven't done much to solve it yet. 

The one that's driving me crazy is Oswan. It starts and reacts to command line settings, the music plays but the emulator screen is completely black. When I mouse over the emulator toolbar the drop-down menus appear normal but when I mouse over the drop downs they invert to white boxes containing the menu choices on a black screen. When I mouse over the choices they go completly black but they remain active and respond to mouse clicks. Nothing I've tried has made any change. 

First and most important, both emulators perform perfectly outside of LaunchBox and they are the only two that have broken out of 25 emulators. That should eliminate  any doubt  about hardware  or drivers. I have unticked "enable game startup screen" in both the emulator and the general settings, I have unticked "enable game pause screen" in the emulator settings. I have ticked & unticked each of the various emulator settings regarding quotes, spaces before ROMs,  extensions, etc I have deleted and recreated the emulator and platform information I have re-imported the ROMs, I have reinstalled LaunchBox, I have reinstalled an older version of LaunchBox, I have deleted-rebooted-reinstalled the newest 9.10 version of LaunchBox, I have checked all the settings I can find to be sure they are default values, I have uninstalled all the Windows 10 updates the Wizards of Redmond will allow me access to. 

This one, to me, was very strange: From inside Big Box I selected a game, clicked "Play" and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Closed the emulator, clicked "Open Oswan" chose the same game from the recents and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Paused the emulator but left it running. Exited Big Box. Went back to the paused emulator on the desktop, reloaded the same game from recents and it ran just fine!

 I installed a second LaunchBox 9.10 on the same computer and only used it to import the Wonderswan ROM files. They all ran correctly in LaunchBox and Big Box. Evidently I could delete everything and start from scratch but just the thought of all that work again is horrific and without some kind of guarantee the same thing won't happen in the future I'm not exactly hot to try it. If there is a simple answer and I've missed it, so be it. I'm not too proud to feel stupid. I could sure use some fresh ideas because I'm running dry.  

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56 minutes ago, Bodine Grunch said:

I have two problems that are driving me buggy, both with emulators that used to work well. There wasn't time to use LaunchBox for a couple of months or more. When I sat down to play I found the notification about the new 9.10 version and a shoebox full of Windows 10 updates,  applied them all and everything seemed fine until I started using NeoPop and Oswan. NeoPop crashes with two DirectX complaints (NeoPop generated errors "only 16 or 32 bit colour modes are supported" & "an error has occurred initialising direct draw"). I've poked at it but haven't done much to solve it yet. 

The one that's driving me crazy is Oswan. It starts and reacts to command line settings, the music plays but the emulator screen is completely black. When I mouse over the emulator toolbar the drop-down menus appear normal but when I mouse over the drop downs they invert to white boxes containing the menu choices on a black screen. When I mouse over the choices they go completly black but they remain active and respond to mouse clicks. Nothing I've tried has made any change. 

First and most important, both emulators perform perfectly outside of LaunchBox and they are the only two that have broken out of 25 emulators. That should eliminate  any doubt  about hardware  or drivers. I have unticked "enable game startup screen" in both the emulator and the general settings, I have unticked "enable game pause screen" in the emulator settings. I have ticked & unticked each of the various emulator settings regarding quotes, spaces before ROMs,  extensions, etc I have deleted and recreated the emulator and platform information I have re-imported the ROMs, I have reinstalled LaunchBox, I have reinstalled an older version of LaunchBox, I have deleted-rebooted-reinstalled the newest 9.10 version of LaunchBox, I have checked all the settings I can find to be sure they are default values, I have uninstalled all the Windows 10 updates the Wizards of Redmond will allow me access to. 

This one, to me, was very strange: From inside Big Box I selected a game, clicked "Play" and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Closed the emulator, clicked "Open Oswan" chose the same game from the recents and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Paused the emulator but left it running. Exited Big Box. Went back to the paused emulator on the desktop, reloaded the same game from recents and it ran just fine!

 I installed a second LaunchBox 9.10 on the same computer and only used it to import the Wonderswan ROM files. They all ran correctly in LaunchBox and Big Box. Evidently I could delete everything and start from scratch but just the thought of all that work again is horrific and without some kind of guarantee the same thing won't happen in the future I'm not exactly hot to try it. If there is a simple answer and I've missed it, so be it. I'm not too proud to feel stupid. I could sure use some fresh ideas because I'm running dry.  

This is probably down to the new startup/shutdown screens if its been a long time since you updated. you can try adjusting the startup/shutdown settings or just turn them off completely for those emulators in Tools/Manage emulators/name of emulator/startup screen tab.

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