Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Bugs & Technical Problems Screen is black when game starts

Hello,

I recently purchased Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition and I am having problems starting the game. When I launch the game from Steam, the Nvidia control panel, or the exe file the game starts, but the screen remains black. I can hear game music, but no image is displayed. What is strange is that the first time I ran the game it worked fine, but this issue occurred the second time I loaded the game and I have been unable to resolve it.

I've tried numerous things: confirmed validity of game files in Steam; reinstalled the game; ensured that my antivirus program (Windows Defender) was not blocking the game; disabled unnecessary programs like TeamViewer; updated all my video card drivers; lowered my desktop resolution; ran as an administrator - none of these changes has resolved the issue. Is there anything else to try? Thank you in advance for any advice you can provide. I have included information on my computer below:

Windows 10 Home 64 bit
Direct X v12
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB

Try browsing to the '..\Documents\Larian Studios\Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition' folder and delete or rename the graphicSettings.lsx file, to get the game to recreate it the next time it is started.

If that doesn't help, try downloading this replacement folder and extract just the graphicSettings.lsx file from the zip into your D:OS 2 DE folder, to see if that will get the game to start properly.
The graphicSettings.lsx file is set to 1280x720 Windowed mode, Very Low quality preset and low audio quality, which you can change in the options (manually, or hit autodetect) if that helps.


Try doing a clean boot and then test the game. Click Start, or hit WinKey-R, type in msconfig and hit enter; in the General tab, click Selective Startup, uncheck Load startup items (if required) and leave Load system services and Use original boot configuration options checked. Next, click on the Services tab, check the box to Hide all Microsoft services, then click the Disable All button (maybe make a note of which are currently enabled/disabled), then click OK and reboot the computer.
Run msconfig again to switch back to the normal boot configuration.

Try creating a new Windows administrator user account, switch to that account and try starting the game from there, directly from the executable.

Hello:

Thanks! Replacing the graphicSettings.lsx file solved my issue. Messing with the settings, I notice that if I set the resolution to a setting with specific refresh rates it causes the issue, so that appears to have been the problem. I will avoid those refresh rates. (And now I know that if I have a similar issue in the future I can reset the settings using the method you describe above).

Thanks again for the support with this issue.