Blank screen when starting 7d2d on Mac OS

L

lorfo

New member
With out warning, upon launch, 7D2D comes up with a blank screen.

MAC OS running Sequoia 15.2

examining the output log file show the following screen size and window size to be 1 x 1:

From Output_log_client file:

Unloading 5 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 5823.
Total: 9.764875 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.166084 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.223209 ms MarkObjects: 9.344750 ms  DeleteObjects: 0.030208 ms)

2025-01-28T15:31:46 12.253 INF ApplyAllOptions streaming budget 88473.59 MB
2025-01-28T15:31:46 12.257 INF ApplyAllOptions current screen 1 x 1, 60.0000024000001hz, window 1 x 1, mode MaximizedWindow
2025-01-28T15:31:46 12.259 INF Texture quality is set to 1
 

Have not been able to locate where this parameter is coming from upon launch.

Running as a different User and launching 7D2D, game displays properly:

Log from another user:

 From Output_log_client file:

Unloading 5 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 5831.
Total: 9.558167 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.152958 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.076375 ms MarkObjects: 9.297750 ms  DeleteObjects: 0.030416 ms)

2025-01-19T12:03:52 13.259 INF ApplyAllOptions streaming budget 88473.59 MB
2025-01-19T12:03:52 13.263 INF ApplyAllOptions current screen 2560 x 1600, 60.0000024000001hz, window 2560 x 1600, mode FullScreenWindow
2025-01-19T12:03:52 13.265 INF Texture quality is set to 2
 

Can you guide me as to where these parameters are coming from based on the current user's login?

I have tried to completely remove both Steam and the 7D2D files and reinstall without any effect.

 
That is usually due to a GPU driver or hardware problem, though may also relate to using GLCore with a DX12 compatible GPU.  You could try Vulkan to see if you can at least see the menu and maybe adjust your settings to see if something helps.  You might also try uninstalling your GPU drivers and installing the latest drivers or trying an older version of the drivers (sometimes the latest versions have issues).

 
I'm a friend of OP, he's on a Mac and I'm a PC guy so could only help him so much, but here's some more background that might help.

He is on a Mac so GLCore is only option - no DX11/12 or Vulkan from what he's told me.

He has 3 7d2d folders - vanilla steam, a copy with DF mod files and another copy with Rebirth mod files.

All 3 worked fine for weeks/months.

One day he had the game open, paused it to take a break, came back, exited game, restarted game and had a black screen - all this in less than an hour timeframe.

The issue existed for all 3 installs.

Multiple file verifications, uninstall/reinstall, reboots, checking for OS updates - none of these fixed issue.

He created a 2nd user account and installed steam/7d2d under the new account - game works

He copied DF (or rebirth folder from main profile to new one) - game works

He created a link/shortcut (don't know mac terminology) to DF or Rebirth (whichever he didn't do in above step) install on the main account - game works

Eventually we found the log entries in above post - it looks like in the original account something in the user account settings is causing 7d2d to launch in a 1x1 pixel window (blank screen apparently) whereas in the new account it's launching in his expected 2560 x1600 pixel window (hence it works)

All I can do is google and phone support, between both our googling and his poking around over last few weeks, have not been able to find anything in the main account user settings that would cause the game to launch in a 1x1 window but it feels like that's where the issue has to be coming from.

Any questions or suggestions where to look would be appreciated.

 
While DirectX and Vulkan aren’t available under macOS, the Metal renderer is. It should be an option when he starts the game launcher from Steam. Like Riamus says, it might get him far enough to see the main menu interface and fiddle with the video settings, like resolution and windowed versus full screen. For what it’s worth, I was playing V1.3 Stable under macOS 14 Sonoma earlier today without issue.

 
Ah.  Yeah, I'm not a Mac person, so I don't know the details of them with this game.  I was just going by previous comments in the forums about blank screens in hope it helped.  There was one post very similar to this about Mac Sonoma, where their log showed a resolution 2x2, which is likely the same problem.  Unfortunately, the person never responded to say how they fixed the problem, so it wasn't any help to read the thread.  If you do find a fix, please reply back with what it was so that others can know how to fix it.  Unfortunately, I can't be much help with Mac.  I'd try what Crater Creator said and use the Metal renderer.  The main thing is to get into the settings and try to adjust things.

Here are at least a couple other things you can try...

1) Install an older version of the game... maybe A21, though it doesn't matter much.  See if that works.  It would help to determine if it's a version problem.  If it works in an older version, try newer versions until it stops working.  That would be vital information for a bug report as it would indicate exactly what version created the problem, if it's a version problem.

2) If possible, try changing to another video card.  If it's the same model, it would show if the GPU hardware is having problems.  If it's a different model, it would show either if the GPU hardware is having problems or if it's a GPU driver problem.

3) Try installing older (or newer) GPU drivers to see if maybe it's a GPU driver problem.  Be sure to get drivers directly from the manufacturer's website and not through OS updates.  I'm not sure how good or bad Mac OS driver updates are, but if they are anything like Windows, you're better off getting them directly from the manufacturer.  Even if Mac does a good job with them, I'd still update from the manufacturer just to be sure.

 
Also not a Mac person, but from what I understand there is no separate GPU, it's all part of the "Apple Silicone" - googling shows he's on par with a 2070 give or take, so no swapping GPU's to test.

We did try game version 1.1 and 1.2 with no change, but didn't try an older alpha - I also don't think this is the issue though, it really feels like it's pulling a setting from somewhere in the user account given his original (and only) user account at the time worked fine, then stopped, but anew account does work and pulls the right screen size - feels similar to a windows registry user setting, I just have no clue how that works in Mac world.

He is up to date on his drivers (according the the OS) and the history shows no updates happened in the 1 hour window between launching, playing, pausing, afk, restarting, black screen of death.

I did find a thread for Unity developers talking about this happening (not 7d2d specific) but I didn't see a solution posted - was more discussion about Unity developement itself and none of them seemed to be able to recreate it.

We'll definitely post a fix if we find one though.

 
Yeah, it's strange that it is related to a user account.  I don't know what would relate to that.  Drivers are tied to the OS and not a user account and hardware wouldn't care about a user account.  I just didn't have any other ideas.  User accounts do have options to change the display settings, so you could look through the display settings to see if there is something there.  Perhaps even just change resolution to something else, then change it back.  Maybe something just got messed up somehow with it.  If you do try that, I'd suggest trying the game in the other resolution in addition to trying it after changing it back.

 
He changed the renderer from GLCore to Metal in the 7d2d launcher and still has the same issue.

Log file from launch is showing Metal as the renderer, but also still:

ApplyAllOptions current screen 1 x 1, 60.0000024000001hz, window 1 x 1, mode MaximizedWindow

Tried setting launch options with:  -w 1920 -h 1080 and that didn't help - still same black screen (presumably there is a 1x1 pixel "window" in the middle that the game is in, but even glasses won't help see that..

Looking for a parameter list to see what else we can try.

 
Good news everyone!

As above, changing the launch options to include  "-w 1920 -h 1080" and other resolutions didn't help.

Next I found some Unity6 documentation which ended up being backwards compatible with whichever Unity version the game is on at:

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/PlayerCommandLineArguments.html

and based on that, we tried -screen-height and -screen-width with 2560 and 1600 which sort of worked - the game actually launched but in a 1:1 aspect ratio of 1600x1600 so there was stretching and clipping, but, the game launched, he was able to get into the options and select a resolution and ---barely--- able to click the visible sliver of the Apply button.

After this, launching the game worked.

Closed the game, removed the launch parameters, relaunch the game and all appears well.

So he's back up and running, but we still don't know the root cause of how/where it got changed to 1x1.

I don't love the fix w/o knowing the root cause, but hey, it's fixed.

Thanks all for the help!

 
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