Screen goes black ingame, monitor enters standby mode

[Sporg]

As stated in the topic:

I have numerous times encountered that my screen goes black ingame, and after a while the monitor goes in standby mode.

 

The game still functions, I can control the plane and all sounds still works.

 

I can wake up the monitor by Alt-Tabbing to another window and then continue the game.

 

It happened once in UH-1H and several times in Bf 109.

But since my Bf 109 seems to crash on exit, I only have the UH-1H track file. Black screen happened near the end of this.

 

Logs.zip includes screenshot of my settings.

In the Huey track I did not have HDR enabled.

 

Edit: Tested it again with 109:

Got black screen two times at approximately 10 minutes and 20 minutes. Cleared it this time by pressing escape and waiting until the picture returned.

After flight game again froze when pressing "Quit".

I attach the logs from this flight as well (Log 109 Black Screen.zip).

No track again, since the game crashed.

 

Edit 2: Same issue with FW 190D9 module.

I can use Blooze's trick hitting Esc to get the picture back.

But game will still freeze when clicking "Exit" in the menu.

 

Basic specs: i7 2600K @ 4.2 GHz, 8 GB RAM, GTX 670, Windows 7 x64

Uh-1H first attack flight 1.5 beta.zip

Logs.zip

Log 109 black screen.zip

Edited October 3, 2015 by Sporg

[Blooze]

This has happened numerous times for me as well. If I hit ESC it will pause the mission, the monitor comes back on and I can resume and continue.

AMD FX6100, 8GB RAM, GTX 650ti 2GB Video card.

[huppel]

Had this happening a lot in < 1.5. Hoped the new game engine would solve this but it happened twice to me already when running 1.5. I'm using a GTX670 btw.

Funny thing it only happens with DCS, no other game. Now planning to upgrade to a new videocard.

[StandingCow]

Shot in the dark here... but are you folks playing on windows 10? There was an issue with black screens that was affecting me, but not in games, it was windows startup.

 

The fix was in BIOS changing PCIE to gen3.

[Raven434th]

Have this problem as well...on win7.It did this in blackshark and flamming cliffs.ATI 5770 card here. Gonna try changing power options for display to see if it occurs again.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Raven434th

[Blooze]

This is a real ball buster for me and I have tried numerous tweaks but still get the black monitor every 2 or 3 minutes. I would welcome any theories that may lead to a solution.

[Sporg]

I flew in the Dora module and it made the black screen.

I manged to press Esc in time, and this time the menu didn't freeze.

 

I managed to save the track,and thus the black screen happened just before the end of the track.

 

I attach the track plus the logs.

Hope this can help the dev's.

Logs.zip

Dora shoot end black screen.zip

[Blooze]

I theorize that older video cards may not be able to handle the extra load put on them by EDGE and DX11 and may overheat as a result. If I knew that for sure the solution would be obvious but I remain cautiously optimistic that there may be another reason.

[Sporg]

I theorize that older video cards may not be able to handle the extra load put on them by EDGE and DX11 and may overheat as a result. If I knew that for sure the solution would be obvious but I remain cautiously optimistic that there may be another reason.

 

I'll try a session with a temperature logger on.

 

But I doubt that this would be the issue, I have an ASUS card with an overdimensioned cooler. And have very good airflow in my cabinet.

Besides, people with older cards run the game fine.

 

Edit:

Test made, highest recorded temperature of GPU was 66 degrees C, which it reached several times during the session.

CPU cores hardly reached 60 degrees C.

I doubt this is any issue, but now it is tested. :)

Edited October 3, 2015 by Sporg

[Blooze]

I'll try a session with a temperature logger on.

 

But I doubt that this would be the issue, I have an ASUS card with an overdimensioned cooler. And have very good airflow in my cabinet.

Besides, people with older cards run the game fine.

 

Edit:

Test made, highest recorded temperature of GPU was 66 degrees C, which it reached several times during the session.

CPU cores hardly reached 60 degrees C.

I doubt this is any issue, but now it is tested. :)

 

I agree, I used OC Guru to boost fan speed to 100% but no joy. Thanks for sharing the test. Changing drivers didn't help either so I'm thinking it's unique to the 1.5 beta for whatever reason. Maybe some future updates will solve the issue.:book:

[Blooze]

After passing 2 successful stress test programs on my video card with no issues I think I may have found the problem, at least I hope so. I had my Windows power options plan set to turn my display off after 3 mins. of idle time. I changed that to "never" and haven't had a black screen since. I think the reason this became an issue with 1.5 when it never was an issue before is that for some reason 1.5 runs in windowed mode by default even if full screen mode has been selected in the options menu, but that's just a theory as well. I remain cautiously optimistic and will test again tomorrow.

[Sporg]

ED devs, I believe I found the culprit to both black screen in-game and freezing when trying to Exit from the menu.

 

It has to do with window focus:

 

1. In Power Options, I had my display set to switch off after 10 minutes. When I set my display to "Never switch off", I did not get black screen again.
   
2. When I clicked Exit in the menu, the game froze again. However, this time I started my Task Manager. I found DCS and it did not indicate "Not responding" like it would if crashed fully. I then right-clicked DCS and chose "Switch To". Now I could Exit as normal and got the Debriefing menu.
   

I believe that the DCS exe does not tell Windows that it is running and that it needs focus. Thus after a while Windows does not register anything going on, and put the monitor to sleep, even if the game is active.

 

Likewise, apparently the DCS window sometimes loses focus when you click "Exit" in the menu, and thus seems frozen.

 

I hope you can solve this.

 

Edit: Seems that Blooze found the solution at the same time.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Sporg

[Blooze]

ED devs, I believe I found the culprit to both black screen in-game and freezing when trying to Exit from the menu.

 

It has to do with window focus:

 

1. In Power Options, I had my display set to switch off after 10 minutes. When I set my display to "Never switch off", I did not get black screen again.
   
2. When I clicked Exit in the menu, the game froze again. However, this time I started my Task Manager. I found DCS and it did not indicate "Not responding" like it would if crashed fully. I then right-clicked DCS and chose "Switch To". Now I could Exit as normal and got the Debriefing menu.
   

I believe that the DCS exe does not tell Windows that it is running and that it needs focus. Thus after a while Windows does not register anything going on, and put the monitor to sleep, even if the game is active.

 

Likewise, apparently the DCS window sometimes loses focus when you click "Exit" in the menu, and thus seems frozen.

 

I hope you can solve this.

 

Edit: Seems that Blooze found the solution at the same time.

 

And there was much rejoicing!:megalol:

[Sporg]

Apparently after update the above mentioned Task Manger solution does not work any longer for crash on exit.

 

Instead I have used the solution shown here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=148786

This seems to work.

 

I have not yet tested if the display sleep problem is solved.

 

Edit: Have tested now. Display sleep problem still remains, with frozen Exit screen after mission. :(

Edited October 5, 2015 by Sporg

[Oldguy]

1) You might also check the power-saving settings in W10 under device manager; it is notorious for trying to save every micro-watt.

 

Your system may be going to sleep causing some elements to go into hardware power-saving mode.

 

That would give a black screen.

 

2) Make sure you are truly in full-screen; DCS runs in frame-less window mode when you choose 'full-screen' under 'options'.

 

LEFT alt-enter forces true full screen.

 

Maybe that will help.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Oldguy
missing text

[Sporg]

1) You might also check the power-saving settings in W10 under device manager; it is notorious for trying to save every micro-watt.

 

Your system may be going to sleep causing some elements to go into hardware power-saving mode.

 

That would give a black screen.

 

2) Make sure you are truly in full-screen; DCS runs in frame-less window mode when you choose 'full-screen' under 'options'.

 

LEFT alt-enter forces true full screen.

 

Maybe that will help.

 

Thanks, however, I'm running Windows 7.

 

The problem only exists when I set my display to sleep automatically.

Otherwise the game runs fine.

 

Have not tried the Alt-Enter with display sleep yet, wanted to specifically test if the problem was still there after the latest patch.

[Art-J]

This issue is still here in the latest 1.5 and 2.0 iterations.

[dogrokket]

Same here, but can get it back with WIN/P

 

I just started having this problem after installing 1.5... I have a Lenovo Y50-70 with a GeForce 860M and an external Samsung monitor hooked up through HDMI port. The monitor goes black, but the game is still running. One time it switched back to the laptop screen on it's own, but if I hit the WIN/P keys it comes right back! I have only had the problem with the A10C so far. Otherwise, no game performance issues that I noticed. :cry:

 

EDIT>> I changed the power profile in windows settings to max performance, and I haven't had the problem again. Yet.

Edited January 8, 2016 by dogrokket
Update

[golani79]

I never had this issue before but just ran into it - ver. 1.5.3.52478

Is there anything we can do about it?

 

Running it on Win10 x64

[Ramsay]

Yes, it's Win 10's power saver turning off the display after 10 minutes due to keyboard/mouse inactivity (it doesn't take into account joystick/hotas inputs).

 

I've increased the time out to an hour in 'Settings/Power and sleep Settings' -> Screen, When plugged in, turn off after 1 hour (1 min - Never).

 

As I expect I'll move the mouse/click a switch at least once an hour, though it can be disabled if you'd prefer.

[golani79]

That´s strange as I´m on Win10 for quite a while now and I never had this issue before (didn´t change any of the power saving settings).

 

Shouldn´t a running application prevent it from going to sleep in the first place?

 

But I´m gonna try to change the settings and see what happens - thanks!

[SkateZilla]

No, and Most Monitor Standby Modes only look for Mouse and Keyboard Activity.

Other Items Like Gamepads and HOTAS aren't monitored.

 

Exclusive Full Screen will prevent Screen Standby, Borderless Windowed, Windowed Wont.

[finch]

There is no solutions to prevent the screen go to standby without changing the sleep timer in windows control panel and set the timer to off? Windows 8.1 and tried everything