So, launched your game and everything's black but you can hear the music and see your mouse cursor? Its a bug in Fullscreen. I've discovered many ways to fix it. Firstly, what's happening is that it is not in Fullscreen, its windowed, but the game is telling it to black out everything. The intended purpose is blackening unused screen space when running the game at a lower resolution while the monitor is at a higher resolution. Fullscreen fails so it reverts to a window, and the game is programmed so that when it is set to the monitor resolution it goes into Fullscreen even if Fullscreen is unchecked, result is this bug.
Q: Why hasn't Obsidian fixed this? The game has been out for months!
A: From what I hear they're claiming its a bug in Unity, and Unity isn't their product so they can't alter it. But like all problems that haven't been solved the real reason is lack of imagination. If they removed the feature that makes it go into Fullscreen even if Fullscreen is unchecked when a window is at the monitors Resolution, or disabled the blackening of unused monitor space, that would fix the bug but maybe that's automatic stuff that Unity puts in I'm not sure how much they can do working with an engine they can't manipulate. But one fix Obsidian definitely could do is remove the Unity Fullscreen entirely and utilize the Mac Fullscreen. On a Mac we have a built in Fullscreen which is disabled on PoE, in Yosemite it's the green button, on Mavericks its the arrows icon in the top right. And personally I prefer the built in full screen because I can easily switch to see my desktop without effecting the game, and access the top menu from fullscreen. Not knowing how isn't an issue since the internet was invented, or at least since the invention of search engines.
Fix #1: Playing in Unity Fullscreen
The only way you can play using their buggy Fullscreen is by connecting a second monitor, with mirroring off, so the other monitor goes black instead. However this causes the game at all resolution settings to cut off all 4 edges of the screen for me. If that happens you can fix it by (1) setting it to a lower resolution and (2) windowing it then (3) exit and (4) relaunch then (5) full screen it and it should be fine on launch from then on.
1920x1080 is default for me so I lowered to the next option under 1600x900 and when I went to full screen from launching in window it became 1680x1050. The other issue is that the game still exists in the other monitor you just can't see it; you can click and it will run your people that way; and your mouse goes past the screen making Screen Edge Scrolling annoying (because it still uses the edges of the first monitor). Basically just write off that edge and use the arrow keys. If you have something in Mac Fullscreen on the other monitor it won't go black but you can't interact with it while the game is in Fullscreen because the mouse and keyboard are locked to it.
Fix #2: Change it to windowed, in game, while its black.
There's no way to manually change the resolution. But for a split second when you hit Cmnd+F you can see the windowed (but at your comps resolution so taking up the full screen) game for a second. In that second you can interact with the game. Warning: This is difficult and annoying but doesn't take much time and is a permanent fix if done correctly. Spam Cmnd+F quickly while you do this;
1: Go to Options
2: Go to Graphics
3: Select a lower resolution from the Resolution drop down.
4: Fullscreen Checkbox is unchecked, make it checked. Checking Fullscreen will make it attempt and fail, causing it to revert to a window of a smaller size, lower res window means it won't be trying to go fullscreen anymore (no more black screen bug). Not checking the box will make the game assume you want to keep the current hybrid/bugged fullscreen setting, which will make the window smaller but the black screen will still be an issue.
5: Click the X to close the window
6: Save Settings when the in game popup asks.
It should launch in window and be playable from now on.
WARNING: DO NOT raise the resolution to the same or higher than your monitor resolution, it will recreate the bug.
Note: Sometimes the software fails to revert to Fullscreen when you change the game resolution to the same as your monitor resolution while windowed, resulting in a window that takes up your full screen, parts of which will be off of the screen. If you want that, be willing to have to repeat the glitch fix process before you do it as you may have to do it several times. Also, even if you do get it to work, on launch the glitch will be back.
Fix #3: Change it to windowed, in game, at 90º
1: Change Display settings to Rotation: 90º
1a: Apple Logo in the top right
1b: System Preferences...
1c: Display(s)
1d: Rotation: 90º
2: Turn mouse+head 90º
3: Launch Game. It won't black out the screen because the default resolution is different from the screen now. Which can only be done with Rotation since the games default resolution is automatically the monitor resolution but has no options for reverse dimensions of screen resolutions, so it won't try to force Fullscreen.
4: Lower the Resolution in game
4a: Go to Options
4b: Go to Graphics
4c: Select a lower resolution from the Resolution drop down.
4d: Click the X to close the window
4e: Save Settings when the in game popup asks.
5: Change Rotation to Standard and play normally.
It should launch in window and be playable from now on.
WARNING: DO NOT raise the resolution to the same or higher than your monitor resolution, it will recreate the bug.
Note: Sometimes the software fails to revert to Fullscreen when you change the game resolution to the same as your monitor resolution while windowed, resulting in a window that takes up your full screen, parts of which will be off of the screen. If you want that, be willing to have to repeat the glitch fix process before you do it as you may have to do it several times. Also, even if you do get it to work, on launch the glitch will be back.
Question
Branimir
So, launched your game and everything's black but you can hear the music and see your mouse cursor? Its a bug in Fullscreen. I've discovered many ways to fix it. Firstly, what's happening is that it is not in Fullscreen, its windowed, but the game is telling it to black out everything. The intended purpose is blackening unused screen space when running the game at a lower resolution while the monitor is at a higher resolution. Fullscreen fails so it reverts to a window, and the game is programmed so that when it is set to the monitor resolution it goes into Fullscreen even if Fullscreen is unchecked, result is this bug.
Q: Why hasn't Obsidian fixed this? The game has been out for months!
A: From what I hear they're claiming its a bug in Unity, and Unity isn't their product so they can't alter it. But like all problems that haven't been solved the real reason is lack of imagination. If they removed the feature that makes it go into Fullscreen even if Fullscreen is unchecked when a window is at the monitors Resolution, or disabled the blackening of unused monitor space, that would fix the bug but maybe that's automatic stuff that Unity puts in I'm not sure how much they can do working with an engine they can't manipulate. But one fix Obsidian definitely could do is remove the Unity Fullscreen entirely and utilize the Mac Fullscreen. On a Mac we have a built in Fullscreen which is disabled on PoE, in Yosemite it's the green button, on Mavericks its the arrows icon in the top right. And personally I prefer the built in full screen because I can easily switch to see my desktop without effecting the game, and access the top menu from fullscreen. Not knowing how isn't an issue since the internet was invented, or at least since the invention of search engines.
Fix #1: Playing in Unity Fullscreen
The only way you can play using their buggy Fullscreen is by connecting a second monitor, with mirroring off, so the other monitor goes black instead. However this causes the game at all resolution settings to cut off all 4 edges of the screen for me. If that happens you can fix it by (1) setting it to a lower resolution and (2) windowing it then (3) exit and (4) relaunch then (5) full screen it and it should be fine on launch from then on.
1920x1080 is default for me so I lowered to the next option under 1600x900 and when I went to full screen from launching in window it became 1680x1050. The other issue is that the game still exists in the other monitor you just can't see it; you can click and it will run your people that way; and your mouse goes past the screen making Screen Edge Scrolling annoying (because it still uses the edges of the first monitor). Basically just write off that edge and use the arrow keys. If you have something in Mac Fullscreen on the other monitor it won't go black but you can't interact with it while the game is in Fullscreen because the mouse and keyboard are locked to it.
Fix #2: Change it to windowed, in game, while its black.
There's no way to manually change the resolution. But for a split second when you hit Cmnd+F you can see the windowed (but at your comps resolution so taking up the full screen) game for a second. In that second you can interact with the game. Warning: This is difficult and annoying but doesn't take much time and is a permanent fix if done correctly. Spam Cmnd+F quickly while you do this;
1: Go to Options
2: Go to Graphics
3: Select a lower resolution from the Resolution drop down.
4: Fullscreen Checkbox is unchecked, make it checked. Checking Fullscreen will make it attempt and fail, causing it to revert to a window of a smaller size, lower res window means it won't be trying to go fullscreen anymore (no more black screen bug). Not checking the box will make the game assume you want to keep the current hybrid/bugged fullscreen setting, which will make the window smaller but the black screen will still be an issue.
5: Click the X to close the window
6: Save Settings when the in game popup asks.
It should launch in window and be playable from now on.
WARNING: DO NOT raise the resolution to the same or higher than your monitor resolution, it will recreate the bug.
Note: Sometimes the software fails to revert to Fullscreen when you change the game resolution to the same as your monitor resolution while windowed, resulting in a window that takes up your full screen, parts of which will be off of the screen. If you want that, be willing to have to repeat the glitch fix process before you do it as you may have to do it several times. Also, even if you do get it to work, on launch the glitch will be back.
Fix #3: Change it to windowed, in game, at 90º
1: Change Display settings to Rotation: 90º
1a: Apple Logo in the top right
1b: System Preferences...
1c: Display(s)
1d: Rotation: 90º
2: Turn mouse+head 90º
3: Launch Game. It won't black out the screen because the default resolution is different from the screen now. Which can only be done with Rotation since the games default resolution is automatically the monitor resolution but has no options for reverse dimensions of screen resolutions, so it won't try to force Fullscreen.
4: Lower the Resolution in game
4a: Go to Options
4b: Go to Graphics
4c: Select a lower resolution from the Resolution drop down.
4d: Click the X to close the window
4e: Save Settings when the in game popup asks.
5: Change Rotation to Standard and play normally.
It should launch in window and be playable from now on.
WARNING: DO NOT raise the resolution to the same or higher than your monitor resolution, it will recreate the bug.
Note: Sometimes the software fails to revert to Fullscreen when you change the game resolution to the same as your monitor resolution while windowed, resulting in a window that takes up your full screen, parts of which will be off of the screen. If you want that, be willing to have to repeat the glitch fix process before you do it as you may have to do it several times. Also, even if you do get it to work, on launch the glitch will be back.
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