Soma black screen upon startup.

[Dormant]

Hello, thanks for clicking my thread peeps.

I know this was a common issue for some people, and that a lot of threads have been created in hopes of solving it. But what worked for others has not worked for me. I've checked the official frictional thread and everything, still doesn't work. According to minimum specs, I should be able to run it. I even checked my HPL to make sure my graphics card is supported, which it is. (or should be)

So yeah, basically when I start the game it's just a black, frozen screen. No sound or anything either.

HPL log: https://www.pastefs.com/pid/23793

There's also this which appeared when it crashed:

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Users\Tucnak\AppData\Local\Temp\WERB089.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
C:\Users\Tucnak\AppData\Local\Temp\WERBC2E.tmp.appcompat.txt
C:\Users\Tucnak\AppData\Local\Temp\WERC063.tmp.mdmp

(Tucnak is my windows user)


(edit, added hpl log)

[Abion47]

You could paste it here within a spoiler tag or you could upload it somewhere like Pastebin and then post the link here.

[Dormant]

Thanks, I'll try that

[Dormant]

Got the paste link working.

Here's the link to my HPL: https://www.pastefs.com/pid/23793

[Abion47]

Geez, that's a long log file. It looks like just about every single shader in the game is failing to compile, and the common error seems to be:

WARNING: 0:3: extension 'GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object' is not supported
WARNING: 0:4: extension 'GL_ARB_shading_language_420pack' is not supported
ERROR: 0:33: 'binding' : syntax error syntax error

If the shaders are failing to compile, it's most likely an incompatibility with your video drivers. What graphics card do you have, and are the drivers current?

[Dormant]

Geez, that's a long log file. It looks like just about every single shader in the game is failing to compile, and the common error seems to be:

WARNING: 0:3: extension 'GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object' is not supported
WARNING: 0:4: extension 'GL_ARB_shading_language_420pack' is not supported
ERROR: 0:33: 'binding' : syntax error syntax error

If the shaders are failing to compile, it's most likely an incompatibility with your video drivers. What graphics card do you have, and are the drivers current?

Yeah, it is a lot of text haha. Thanks for going through it.
My laptop has two display adapters. One is "AMD Radeon HD 6700M series" and the other is "Intel® HD graphics 3000". I'm 90% sure my drivers are current.

I know Frictional games have had problems with intel cards before, but with Penumbra, I was able to fiddle with the video settings and manged to get it working. Maybe SOMA is a bit more strict?

[Abion47]

The Intel GPU can definitely be the source of some issues. That being said, Intel HD 3000 shouldn't be having an issue with the version of OpenGL that SOMA is using. (Intel HD 3000 supports up to OpenGL 3.1/3.2, and those two extensions only require version 2.0.) Then that being said, your log states that the game is launching using the OpenGL 3.1 profile, and though I said that Intel HD 3000 supports 3.1, from what I can tell the actual support for that version is hit-or-miss.

Your Radeon GPU shouldn't have any issues whatsoever, though. Try going into your AMD graphics properties and force your computer to use that card when running SOMA. (It's sort of odd that your computer is defaulting to Intel when a Radeon GPU is present anyway.)

[Dormant]

Hmm, okay.

So I disabled my Intel graphics, from my "update drivers" window. Immediately the screen resolution went down. I tried running Soma and no change at all. But then a window popped up saying I didn't have AMD graphics installed, even though I thought I did have it. So I went and downloaded "AMD Catalyst Display Driver version 14.10.1006". But the resolution was still not great, and the same window popped up.
The exact message is "No AMD graphics driver is installed. Or the AMD driver is not functioning properly. Please install the AMD driver appropriate for your AMD hardware."
I thought that version should have worked, because I saw it was compatible on this page:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles...Notes.aspx

Edit: Went to the AMD website and clicked the button to detect and download the latest drivers for my computer. Now I tried re-enabling Intel graphics again. Right-clicked my little AMD catalyst icon at the bottom right of my task bar, and went to "Configure switchable graphics". I added Soma as an application, and set it to the "high performance" setting. Then tried launching the game and it gave me a "LoadLibrary failed with error 126: the specified module could not be found."

[Mudbill]

I would suggest a proper, clean installation of the drivers. There are times when they either corrupt or don't get removed properly, leaving files in places that may prevent the new driver from functioning.

1. Download a copy of the latest driver for your AMD card and keep it ready.
2. Attempt a normal uninstall of the current drivers.
3. Use Display Driver Uninstaller from Safe Mode to clean up the remaining files (running it will ask to auto boot to it)
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/disp...nload.html
4. After rebooting (just click the "Clean and restart" option), try a normal install of your downloaded drivers from step 1.

[Dormant]

I would suggest a proper, clean installation of the drivers. There are times when they either corrupt or don't get removed properly, leaving files in places that may prevent the new driver from functioning.

1. Download a copy of the latest driver for your AMD card and keep it ready.
2. Attempt a normal uninstall of the current drivers.
3. Use Display Driver Uninstaller from Safe Mode to clean up the remaining files (running it will ask to auto boot to it)
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/disp...nload.html
4. After rebooting (just click the "Clean and restart" option), try a normal install of your downloaded drivers from step 1.

Tried your suggestion, but looks like I'm right back at where I was before :T

Thanks for your reply