Over the weekend I bought and installed Syberia. It's a great game but I shut my computer off Sunday night and on Monday when I started it up all that I got (after Windows 98 loaded) was the mouse cursor on a black screen. Durning bootup I got all of the displays but always ended up with the black screen. I restored my hard drive from a older build and everything is okay now. So what's up with this? Did installing Syberia do this? I have a ATi Rage 32 meg video card.


thanks, Lone Wolf.....

I've heard that Syberia installs DirectX 8 without asking you. A few people reported having the black screen at startup problem after installing DirectX 8, though not with an ATI card.

Anyway, if you weren't using DirectX 8 before installing Syberia, this could be what happened. The ATI Rage 32 MB card does have new drivers that are designed to work with DirectX 8. So the solution would be to install the newer drivers.

Hello Jenny100

Thanks so much for the reply. I'm thinking that I had DirectX 8.1 or 8.0a installed before I bought and installed Syberia. Is there anyway that I can tell if Syberia is installing a different version of DirectX? Or better yet stop the game from installing DirectX at all?

thanks again, Lone Wolf

DXDIAG will tell you what version of DirectX you have on your computer.
Click the Start button, then Run. Type
dxdiag
in the box and OK it.

You should see your current version of DirectX listed on the first tab.

Hi Jenny, I ran DXDIAG and I have version 8.0. I also went out to the ATi web site and the latest driver that they have for my Rage Fury was posted October 22, 2001. Is there somewhere else that I can find a updated driver? I think this is a cool game and would really like to get it to work.

This is the URL that I found at ATi:
ATI Rage drivers


They say "This is a fully released and supported display driver, which
supports Windows ME, Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE.
DirectX 8 and OpenGL support are included."

So I need to find a driver that works with DIRECTX 9.0.

Thanks.....Lone Wolf

I checked the abysmally slow ATI site just now and yes that October 2001 seems to be the latest driver they have for the Rage 128 and Xpert ATI cards.

If you have DirectX 8, I don't think you need to bother looking for a DirectX 9 driver. But if the October 2001 driver isn't working for you you might try the earlier March 2001 driver to see if it works any better. Sometimes when they fix things they break other things and both drivers say they work with DirectX 8.

Is this game OpenGL or Direct 3D????

Lone Wolf

Direct 3D.

Here are the system requirements from the README:

1. Minimum system requirements
------------------------------

Pentium II 350 MHz processor
Direct3D compatible 3D graphics card with 16 MB
64 MB RAM
400 MB free on hard disk
16X CD-Rom drive
DirectSound compatible sound card


2. Recommended System Requirements
----------------------------------

Pentium III 500 MHz processor
Direct3D compatible 3D graphics card with 32 MB
128 MB RAM
800 MB free on hard disk
24X CD-Rom drive

And here is the list of video cards:

6. Compatible 3D Cards
----------------------

3D Cards tested...............Chipset

VisionTek Xtasy MX 420........Geforce 4 MX
VisionTek Xtasy 6564..........Geforce III
3D Prophet II.................Geforce II
3D Prophet II MX..............Geforce II MX
3D Prophet....................Geforce I
Riva TnT2 Model...............TNT 2
Diamond Viper v770............TNT 2 ultra
Diamond Viper v550............TNT
3D Prophet 4000...............Kyro I
3D Prophet 4500...............Kyro II
Voodoo 5500...................Voodoo 5
Voodoo 4500...................Voodoo 4
Voodoo 3000...................Voodoo 3
ATI Radeon 8500...............Radeon 8500
ATI Radeon 7200...............Radeon 7200
ATI Radeon R6.................Radeon R6
ATI Rage Fury Pro.............Rage Fury Pro
Matrox G400...................G400
Matrox G550...................G550

Hi MrLipid

I have a ATI Rage Fury in an Abit BX6-R2 mainboard with 256 meg of PC 100 ram, a Sound Blaster Live sound card, a 60 gig WD HD with about 35 gig free. I have Windows 98 installed on my PC and the CD/DVD is like 48/16 so I should be okay with Syberia. I don't really understand what DirectX does and which version this game uses. Right now I have 8.0a. I did download 8.1 and 9.0a but have yet to install them. I know with my older with my video card it's not made to work with the 9.0a DirectX.

thanks, Lone Wolf

Not sure that Syberia will work with a Rage Fury. The README specifies a Rage Fury Pro which is a somewhat different card.

You've got the right version of DirectX.

As for what DirectX does, it is an API or Application Programming Interface. Think of it as the collection of buttons and levers that Syberia (or any other program) pushes and pulls to communicate with your system.

DirectX is a big deal because it is a standard. Prior to DirectX, every individual program had to come up with its own collection of buttons and levers with which to communicate with your system. A clumsy and time-consuming process.

With DirectX, programmers know where all the buttons and levers are and can spend their time working on the program rather than on the interface between the program and the system.

Hi MrLipid & Jenny100


I installed Syberia again last night. Since I
did a restore from my "backup" drive this was a new install. I did install DirectX 8.1 then the game. The game did not try to install DirectX. After the install the game played fine. I got as far as Kate in the hotel and receiving her fax in her room. At that point I saved and exited the game. I shut down my PC altogether. I left it
off for several minutes and turned my PC on again. I still get the black screen with the mouse pointer when the desktop should load. The first time I installed the game it must have installed a version of DirectX because that time
it rebooted the PC before I could start playing it. Not so last night I was able to play the game right away. As long as I don't shut the computer down I'm okay. I have 3 hard drives. My 60 gig (that's the one I use all of the time). I
have a 20 gig that is my good build that I can restore from and I have an 18 gig that is my "test drive". That one I use to download and try out software / drivers etc. All are
Western Digital. I did download and install the Syberia demo on this (18 gig) drive and it worked fine. I never had the black screen with the 18 gig drive but then again I haven't had that drive connected for several weeks now. All three drives are mounted in my case (it's a full size
tower) but only one is connected via the IDE ribbon and power that being the 60 gig. I did on this past Monday send an email to ATI with detailed information about what is going on here. By the way I went into safe mode again last
night and did a uninstall for Syberia but it didn't help. I did try and reboot into normal mode but all I got was the black screen. All I could get in normal mode was 256 colors
not 16 or 32 bit. Anyway I'm at a loss as what to try next.

I really would like to get this game to work if I can it's a great game.

thanks, Lone Wolf

Since I'm no whiz at this when it starts getting this complicated I'm whistling in the dark but I'm wondering where (which harddrive) your Registry is located. Your color/resolution kind of problem sounds to me like your video card isn't being recognized and that made me wonder about the registry. Do you use one or two harddrives at a time and in what sequence as Master/Slave? Just questions to think about, not that I know what I'm talking about.

Maybe all this will give someone else more oriented to this kind of problem a clue towards an answer.

This is just one man's opinion and take it for what it's worth. It sounds like it might be time for a video card upgrade.

The ATI Rage Fury Pro is, to quote ATI's blurb, "Powered by ATI RAGE 128 PRO."

The ATI Rage Fury is "Powered by ATI RAGE 128 GL."

My hunch is that the Rage Fury Pro represents the very bottom of Syberia's working range. And the Rage Fury is a step below that. Which would put it in the not-working-very-well-if-at-all range.

I had similar issues with an old nVidia card and Rally Trophy. Once I upgraded, the title ran like a dream.

Hi BillyBob and thanks...

Each of the 3 hard drives has it's own build with Windows 98 and the same set of drivers. The 18 gig drive is just one for me to test out new demos on so I don't corrupt my 20 or 60 gig drives. The 20 gig is a good build and there to restore from incase I have a problem. The 20 gig has most but not all of my games on it. Because there is not enough room. The 60 gig is the drive I use most of the time. The only time more than one HD is connected at any time is when I want to restore a drive like I did last night. So if I use the 18 gig drive I disconnect the 60 and the 18 becomes C: The 2 extra drives are mounted in the case but not hooked up. After I do a restore from the 20 to the 60 I do have to reinstall a few games and I have the game saves on a CDRW. So with in a couple of hours if I do mess up my main drive I'm back in business.

thanks again for the reply

Hello MrLipid, thanks once again...

I had given though to buying the ATI Radeon 7500 AGP because it also supports T&L....I guess there are two things that I don't understand here. I can see that my current video card may not be able to support Syberia but I don't understand why after I install it I can't even boot to my desktop. I would think that maybe the game would crash or something like that. Second is that I had installed the Syberia demo on my 18 gig drive and never had this occurrence. I had thought maybe I will try and install the full version of Syberia on the 18 gig drive just to see what happens.


thanks, Lone Wolf