black screen when i open the game (fixed)

can someone please help me install grand prix 4 for my dad i have been trying to install it for 2 days without luck when i launch the game the only thing i see is a black window that closes after a minute i have tried 2 win 10 pcs and a laptop with windows xp i have tried installing gpxpatch and nocd



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2021 11:51PM by ERIKMISKOLIN.

Win 10 is not my thing, but are you running the game from GPxPatch?

If not, you need to. See the end of this thread for more details

If you don't have it, GPxPatch can be downloaded from the developer's site here

PS: Edit - just noticed you have been using GPxPatch. Apologies.

In which case, take a look at this thread.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2021 08:04PM by Noog.

someone sent me a folder with the gpxpatch and tried running it on windows xp and still had the same issue

An older version perhaps? 4.52 is the latest.

Don't worry though. Many Win10 users here so I'm sure someone will help you out soon.

There are quite a few threads about Win10 problems on the forum too, but I'm not sure the search function is working correctly at the moment so I for now I suggest you put GP4 +Windows 10 into a search engine to help you track them down.

PS: I just did that and found this



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2021 08:13PM by Noog.

im trying to install the game on windows XP

when i was still trying to install to win 10 i did all the steps u sent me and still didnt run

Hmm.

As I say, I don't use Win 10 (or any Windows for that matter), but I'm wondering what error message you get if you open up a command line and run GPxPatch.exe (or even GP4.exe) from there?

i get no error its just a black window that maximizes and thats it i have to close it trough task manager even alt f4 doesnt work

Wish I could be more helpful because I'm certain I had the problem back in the day, but what happens if you delete (or rename) f1graphics.cfg and/or f1gstate.sav to force the game to re-create its defaults?

If that doesn't work however, you could try downloading the ready-built installation from Tom's site, here. AFAIK that should just work without any messing around.

Also, just remembered something:

Make sure you have these files in your GP4 folder:

mfc42.dll
msvcrt.dll
binkw32.dll

I think GPxPatch installs the first two but I'm not sure about binkw32 - and without it I think the intro video will probably hang, so it could well be that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2021 09:04PM by Noog.

i already downloaded the same version from toms site i also have the binkw32.dll but i cant seem to find msvcrt and mfc42

Finally (by which I mean I'm out of ideas after this), you said you have GPxPatch installed, so load it, but before you launch the game, make sure you check the enable debug mode, set the verbosity to medium or high and then hit the "Start GPx" button.

Now, if you close the game using the Task Manager and look into your GP4/gpxdata folder you should have a file called gpxpload.txt - and if you post the contents of that here in the thread it's quite likely it'll tell us what the problem is.

when i run gp4 trough gpxpatch the gpxpatch is not responding when the game is running and even when i close the game it still isnt responding and it doesnt create a txt file

Hmm. Very strange.

So, just to be clear:

1. If you run GP4.exe and you get a black screen which you have to kill in the Task Manager (which isn't all that unexpected)

AND

2. You run GPxPatch.exe and hit the Start GPx button - the black screen comes up in front of GPxPatch - then you kill GP4.exe so you can see GPxPatch again but there's still no gpxpload.txt. (But this is really weird).

If verbosity was set to HIGH in particular I have no idea why gpxpload.txt isn't being created, so all I can suggest again is that you download Tom's pre-built installation. With that, IIRC, all you should ever need to do is extract it to a folder and use GPxPatch to run the game, but if it doesn't, I'm afraid you have me beaten! Sorry.

One final shot in the dark though: do the machines you are using have CD drives? You don't need the GP4 CD but the machine DOES need to have a physical drive (or a fake software one).

i will try to reinstall the game tomorrow and the machine has a cd drive

i already reinstalled and i have the same issue

There's a graphics display problems thread in the FAQ which might be worth looking at.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

can you please provide me with a link because i cant seem to find the FAQ

The FAQ is one of the sticky posts in this forum, [www.grandprixgames.org]

Like Mortal, I'm leaning towards this being a GFX problem too; so give this a try:

Open up your /GP4/f1graphics.cfg file. Look at the setting on the first line (ie "f1graphics.cfg controls all settings" ). Now, whatever it is (ie 0 or 1), change it to the other one, save it (making a note of the date/timestamp) - wait a minute or two and run the game. Now what happens?

If it fails, check the date/timestamp on the f1graphics.txt file now. Had it been updated to the new time?

Also, take a look at what you have in /GP4/gconfig.txt - and again, check the modification time stamp of the file been updated to today's date.

The reason I'm asking this is to see how far the loading process gets before it stalls. It might give us a clue.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2021 04:41PM by Noog.

when i change the value to 1 the same thing happens the game runs with a black screen and i have to manually close it and i dont know how to create a timestamp neither do i know what it is.