Comments on: Baldur’s Gate 1 graphics glitch and disabling NVidia hardware acceleration

By: Wire

Wire — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 06:39:36 +0000

I have an Nvidia 8800GTS and had the “black box” problem on a 32-bit WindowsXP computer Playing BG.

Setting the Hardware Acceleration at the middle setting (the third from the left out of 6)

Thanks for the help

By: kevin

kevin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:56:09 +0000

So happy this works. I couldn’t play with those black boxes.

Definitely an easier fix than using a virtual machine.

Not sure if everyone was just using Vista, but the problem happens on Win 7 as well, and the DLL fix works.

By: stefjeee

stefjeee — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:50:57 +0000

Hey,

I play yuri’s revenge (red alert 2 sequel) on Vista 32 bit… I have a nvidea 8600m GS and i got lag when playing this 2d game.

I used to have xp, which allows to disable directdraw with dxdiag.

Now my vista doesn’t allow that so I tried to disable it as you explained here, but when I start Yuri’s Revenge with Direct Draw hardware acceleration off, the game starts, but my screen is black. I’m able to start a game on skirmish, and i recognize it runs on full speed as it should by listening to the sound. (don’t ask)

How can I get the black screen away and play this awesome game on full speed? I’m 100% the lag is caused by directdraw 3d acceleration…

By: yiming

yiming — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 05:03:25 +0000

Glad I could help. As much as I enjoy the new BioWare RPGs, I will always love these Infinity Engine games.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:17:48 +0000

Finally, a solution that actually solves the old Nvidia / Infinity Engine chestnut on modern video cards. You have my eternal gratitude yiming. My lap top is infinitely more useful to me once again. Mega Happy Face!!!

By: whiskersquire

whiskersquire — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:20:58 +0000

Thanks! Not having black blocks fall out of monsters when they die and seeing the crimson splurts has officially made my day. Great stuff! FYI, this worked with my Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics card.

By: Kojiro

Kojiro — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 03:17:54 +0000

Oh, it did.

By: yiming

yiming — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:48:12 +0000

Well, I did try, after some of the previous commenters told me of the problem.

“Make sure that if you are on x64 (x86_64) that you also use the x86 architecture control panel for BG1, as it seems to be required to affect 32-bit mode apps (see comments for this post for more details).”

but I’ll go ahead and bold-face that as soon as I get a chance.

Let me know if the 32-bit version works for you.

By: Kojiro

Kojiro — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:41:06 +0000

….

Oh, I see.

You should probably clarify that then.

By: yiming

yiming — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:14:41 +0000

Are you sure you’re using the right control panel? You must use the 32-bit control panel, not the 64-bit version, and you must deactivate DirectDraw’s hardware acceleration, not any of the other options.

By: Kojiro

Kojiro — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:23:16 +0000

IT DOESN’T WORK! I tried the SDK route and I STILL get the damnable black boxes!

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:48:35 +0000

you fixed it! I am unspeakably happy.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 04:43:28 +0000

Awesome! This is going to help me relive all of those incredible moments on my new laptop!

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:20:21 +0000

Great advice. For me, the trick was using the x86 SDK DirectX control panel. Thanks everyone, now my child can enjoy this game that she’s finally old enough to play.

By: MF

MF — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:22:08 +0000

This is great! I’ve tried to find a solution for this problem for days and I can not finally play Icewind Dale 2 on my windows 7 computer!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:25:54 +0000

Ha! I’ll second that =D

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:55:12 +0000

I love you for fixing my game.

By: Standa

Standa — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:23:18 +0000

Thank you very much!

I have GeForce 7600GT and the portrait selection icons (green) were flashing, now you helped me solve it. Im grateful that I can play without that disturbing flashes.

By: Neil Treeby

Neil Treeby — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:12:56 +0000

Thanks for the advice, this all works wonderfully (with an eVGA 9400GT), no messing round with unofficial patches etc. I just need to remember to turn acceleration back on before playing Oblivion again!

By: yiming

yiming — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:48:09 +0000

Thanks for the explanation! Windows graphics is totally not my area of expertise, but that makes a lot of sense considering the other changes (and) brought by WDDM. I do hope Windows 7 would remove the need for having to use a DirectX debug tool to change acceleration settings, or better yet, fix the glitching directly.

By: Fake Al Gore

Fake Al Gore — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:34:00 +0000

When the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.0 was released with Windows Vista it did not include native GDI+ acceleration. Compatibility was obtained by directing all GDI+ calls through the Desktop Window Manager. This results in some odd artifacts in DirectDraw applications such as Baldur’s Gate and, at times, decreased 2D rendering performance. Since hardware acceleration is not implemented unless specifically done by the device driver developer at great cost and with little gain, there is no slider on the Troubleshoot tab.

Windows 7, with its included WDDM 1.1, has native GDI+ acceleration once again built-in to the operating system. AMD and NVIDIA already have fully-compliant WDDM 1.1 drivers ready for their more recent products.

By: yiming

yiming — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:27:38 +0000

So far I only know of two ways to fix this thing. If performance is terrible after switching off DirectDraw, then you’re going to have to try the second option: Software Transparent BLT and 16-bit color. You lose a little bit of resolution, but you’ll get the rest of the benefit of graphics card acceleration.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:41:25 +0000

Hey, thanks for the tip. Works on XP, too.

However, you were right about it slowing down a lot. Hmm…
Any other way I can bypass that? Other than a new processor?:D

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:28:47 +0000

Yes this is awesome.

By: DecimisRex

DecimisRex — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:04:57 +0000

Thank you so much, this is just what I needed

By: Citizen7

Citizen7 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:45:38 +0000

Thanks a lot. This worked perfectly for me. I didn’t bother to change the x64 architecture, just the x86. That worked fine. No mouse trails either. I’m glad to get this going. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this classic.

By: yiming

yiming — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:12:20 +0000

Happy to help! Yeah, you have to switch with the x86 architecture as well — maybe because the game runs in x86 mode, not sure. I actually did the exact same thing as you when I was dealing with this — maybe I should make that clear in the post.

By: LuckyJack

LuckyJack — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:27:29 +0000

Did it, the thing was not only to change the hardware accelarion in the x64 folder, but also in the x86.

Thanks alot! I have mouse trails now, but as it seems only in the menu. I think I can live with that.

By: LuckyJack

LuckyJack — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:25:38 +0000

Sadly doesnt seem to work, i swithed it off as you staded but Dxdiag still tells me the acceleration is on. Also I still get black boxes, although in the game Planescape Torment. But I think it’s exactly the same error.

By: yiming

yiming — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:08:00 +0000

Ah yes, I got into Baldur’s Gate rather late, and it took me years to complete my first BG1 game because of college. Don’t repeat my mistake

In any case, I’m happy this post helped. Enjoy the game.