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unmerged(61937)

unmerged(61937)

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Oct 21, 2006
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Hello all,

I've been playing and enjoying Europa Universalis for a couple of weeks now without any problems, but recently when playing the screen will randomly flicker, the whole thing will go black for a fraction of a second but still long enough to see and it irritates the hell out of my eyes. Clicking, scrolling or just moving the cursor doesn't seem to cause it, it just happens. Occaionally when loading 3/4 of the screen will do this aswell with the other bit remaining perfectly fine. The only change I'd made on my system before this problem started was to update my anti-virus.


I have version 1.09 and i'm running;
Windows XP professional, 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Intel Celeron 2.8GHz
1024MB RAM and 700 MB free hard drive space
Nvidia GeForce 6600 128MB
Creative Audio PCI ES1371,1373
DirectX 9.0c

I hope that's what's required by the sticky. So, any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Duke Forseti said:
Hello all,

I've been playing and enjoying Europa Universalis for a couple of weeks now without any problems, but recently when playing the screen will randomly flicker, the whole thing will go black for a fraction of a second but still long enough to see and it irritates the hell out of my eyes. Clicking, scrolling or just moving the cursor doesn't seem to cause it, it just happens. Occaionally when loading 3/4 of the screen will do this aswell with the other bit remaining perfectly fine. The only change I'd made on my system before this problem started was to update my anti-virus.


I have version 1.09 and i'm running;
Windows XP professional, 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Intel Celeron 2.8GHz
1024MB RAM and 700 MB free hard drive space
Nvidia GeForce 6600 128MB
Creative Audio PCI ES1371,1373
DirectX 9.0c

I hope that's what's required by the sticky. So, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum


It's most likely a program running in the background. Could be your antivirus searching for virus. It could also be musicmatch. Try and turn them off.

Antivirus should only be turned off when not connected to internet!!

You could also try to rename your avi folder to avi.old.
 
Rename the AVI folder under the EU2 main directory, and reboot. This will stop the initial video running, which often causes this problem.

Also check for video driver updates.
 
AndrewT said:
Rename the AVI folder under the EU2 main directory, and reboot. This will stop the initial video running, which often causes this problem.

Also check for video driver updates.
Click to expand...

Thread Res!

Yeah, i've done all that's been suggested, and I still get the flicker. I even tried in window mode, but didn't help any.

Just wondering if there are any other tips/tricks to get rid of that flicker, its damn annoying.

I'm running WinXP with a Radeon9250 with the latest drivers, though perhaps I shouldn't use the latest drivers?
 
In every case, it's been caused by either 1/ Binkplayer running the AVI files or 2/ a background app switching window focus in and out. I'm sure you have one of these happening still ... you did reboot after the changes?

Before you start up EU2 do ctl-alt-esc and look at Task List | Applications; there must be NOTHING listed there. Then go to the Process list, look for any AV app, BitTorrent, MusicMatch, essentially anything at all that is not a core Windows process and kill it.

Do not backrev your graphics drivers for this probelm.
 
AndrewT said:
In every case, it's been caused by either 1/ Binkplayer running the AVI files or 2/ a background app switching window focus in and out. I'm sure you have one of these happening still ... you did reboot after the changes?

Before you start up EU2 do ctl-alt-esc and look at Task List | Applications; there must be NOTHING listed there. Then go to the Process list, look for any AV app, BitTorrent, MusicMatch, essentially anything at all that is not a core Windows process and kill it.

Do not backrev your graphics drivers for this probelm.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply.

Do you mean ctl-alt-del? ctl-alt-esc does nothing on my system.

And I don't have any apps running, but do you mean processes? Seems I probably have a bunch there, but I kill everything in the toolbar at the bottem anyway.

Ok, so to refresh, I renam AVI to AVIold, I reboot, I kill everything in the toolbar.
 
licker said:
Do you mean ctl-alt-del? ctl-alt-esc does nothing on my system.
Click to expand...
Yes, sorry, that's a different OS :)
And I don't have any apps running, but do you mean processes?
Click to expand...
Well that is what I said ... "Then go to the Process list, look for any AV app, BitTorrent, MusicMatch, essentially anything at all that is not a core Windows process and kill it"
Seems I probably have a bunch there, but I kill everything in the toolbar at the bottem anyway.
Click to expand...
More than just the toolbar, the process list.
 
AHh, sorry for the misunderstanding, I'm not totally savy here ;)

Anyway, I look at my process list and there are >30 apps running most with names I have no clue what they do!

Of course i can look at which are system and which are user...

I don't have any AVI or Music stuff on the system, all i can think is that it has something to do with my internet, but shutting that off doesn't help me ID which apps might still live on associated with it.

Anyway, I appreciate your help, and will keep on trying to kill things until I can get it working.

If you have any knowledge of WinXP and what kind of extra crap I don't need feel free to point them out.

Thanks
 
Ok, I killed every app except for explorer and the flickering went away. It was over 30 apps though, but I guess it worked.

Thanks, and I'll try to locate the specific culpits as time allows.

I also reran my spyware/virus checkers, but they didn't come up with anything.
 
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