[FistMarine]

A while ago when I was testing newer EDuke32 builds, I noticed that when starting the game on 32-bit Polymost mode, after the nuke logo that shows fine, when the 3DRealms screen is supposed to show up, the whole screen is covered in black and I can only guess where I'm navigating in menu to quit the game or use task manager to force quit. Today I went through older EDuke32 builds from late 2018 and early 2019 (since I remember noticing this problem when testing Alien Armageddon mod for Trooper Dan sometime in 2019) to see which build is the culprit and found out that the latest working build is r7241. r7242 and above are affected by this bug, including the most recent build r8620. Software and Polymer work fine.

Here are my PC specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit SP1
Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon R7 360 Series
RAM: 4.00 GB

Here are the eduke32 logs (r7241, r8620 polymost and r8620 polymer)

 eduke32-7241.log (1.58K)
Number of downloads: 138
 eduke32-8620.log (1.84K)
Number of downloads: 133
 eduke32-8620-polymer.log (1.92K)
Number of downloads: 142

[Putrid Pete]

This same exact issue was happening to me on my second computer that uses Windows 7, although I have the 64 bit version. Obviously this is a problem that could use a closer look by the devs, but if you want an immediate solution, what worked for me was simply making a fresh install of EDuke32. Don't delete your files files right away in case it doesn't work for you. Simply download a fresh build of EDuke32, extract it to a new folder and add duke3d.grp to it for a test run and see if that resolves it.

[FistMarine]

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried to make a fresh install of latest EDuke32 build in a separate folder containing only DUKE3D.GRP and eduke32.exe, but sadly it didn't work. I still get the black screen.

[Putrid Pete]

Too bad it wasn't of any help. Anyway, to add to this issue, this was happening to me when I tried to run Ion Fury with EDuke32 in polymost on a computer with windows 7, exactly as described by OP. Here's a screen cap of when I talked about it on the duke4 discord a few weeks ago. In it, I mention that if I launched the game in software mode, then switched over to polymost through the game menu (in the video options) it changed to that mode without issues. Maybe the same is happening to you too? Either way, strange issue.

[FistMarine]

I have tried your suggestion by starting on Classic and changing to Polymost in game and I still get the black screen. In meantime I found 2 more bugs that are worth reporting:

1. Start EDuke32 in Polymer mode, then start a new game and change to Classic mode. You will get black screen just as if you started Polymost mode.

2. This one is hard to reproduce and it may take multiple attempts. After I closed EDuke32 with task manager (or guessed where exit was), when I started EDuke32 next time, the Video mode option was empty, supposedly Classic was selected but it didn't show up because by default if I tick Polymer box, only OpenGL mode shows up which is how it should be (at least as of lately, I think in past both modes always showed up regardless of whether Polymer box was ticked or not). However if you leave that video mode option empty (see screenshot of the bug), it seems to start Classic mode with Polymer and you can switch between the 2 modes fine. If you quit game after that (leaving Polymer enabled), you will have OpenGL mode showing up fine at startup. Then it seems to repeat the first bug I mentioned above in this post. Sorry if anyone is confused by what I mean, I tried to explain my best.

Screenshot:


EDIT: Forgot to mention this happens in latest build r8620.

[Darkus]

With version r8738, I also have black screen with Polymost, but only when VSync is on. I only hear the game running. Previous version worked fine.

Steps to reproduce: Start EDuke using Polymost, go to settings, enable VSync and restart EDuke. This affects both windowed and fullscreen mode.

Log from a fresh install:
https://pastebin.com/YM5rLBPL

[LeoD]

Darkus, on 12 March 2020 - 01:05 PM, said:

With version r8738, I also have black screen with Polymost, but only when VSync is on. I only hear the game running. Previous version worked fine.

Confirmed. Bisected to r8712.

[FistMarine]

I have tried now with EDuke32 r8784 and it seems the bug has been fixed! I no longer get black screen in Polymost mode. ;)