Seems I'm having a problem with Evil Under the Sun. Randomly, when outside, I experience a "whiteout". Almost everything is white although I can occasionally see Poirot's outline and sometimes a bit of scenery.

I've updated my video drivers, reloaded the game three times, turned off both my firewall and spyware programs, and am still having a problem. Anyone else experience something similar?

I'm running a Pentium 4 on a Dell with a Radeon X300/X550 series card. Never had a problem with any of the Agatha Christie games (or any others) before. Any ideas? Thanks!

I would try playing around with some of the in-game video options. Brightness, gamma correction, anti-aliasing etc. I would also take a look at the game's readme file to look for any known issues. This game is brand new and there doesn't seem to be much info on it at the moment.

Hello
I too am having the same problem, never had a problem before.

Hi, Robert. Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. Had to go out of town for business.

Anyway, the only in-game option I can see that could possibly affect the video is the anti-aliasing and I've tried it both on and off and still have the problem. I thank you for taking the time to respond.

I'm sorry to hear, barlouwin, you're having the same whiteout as I am. I've emailed The Adventure Company techs, but who knows when I'll hear back. I'll post their answer when and if it comes.

When was the last time you updated your video card drivers? Here's where to get the latest drivers for your card. Be sure to read the instructions in the link given on your driver download page.
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

Hello OP
Hello Robert


I updated my video card drivers last night, fingers crossed the game seeems to be okay now.
Will see how I go on, Give this a try yourself to see if it helps you.

Thanks, Robert and barlouwin, but I've already updated my drivers. Did so just a couple of weeks ago. Also tried turning down the acceleration; nothing so far has worked.

How did you go about updating them? Did you get the drivers from the web-site I linked to above? Click start-->run-->type dxdiag-->click ok. Then click the display tab and tell us what it says for driver version (and the date).

Hi. I just went to Nvidia and updated driver there.

Sorry to say though I am having problems again with the whiteness, it played okay last night but today started playing up again.Don't like to touch a lot of things in case I make things worse. Will try uninstalling and try again.

I went directly to ATI to update mine. I went ahead and clicked on the link you provided; it ends up at the same place.

Using dxdiag, it states the version is 6.14.0010.6727, dated 9/28/07. The main driver is ati2dvag.dll.

Thanks again for your help. Oh, I should also mention the whiteout only seems to occur for me when I'm outside. Hasn't happened while in the hotel.

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Hmmm, I just went to check the version and date of the latest drivers. I KNOW I updated a couple of weeks ago (during October) but the version of driver on the site is 7.10, dated 10/11.

I don't know, OP.
You might want to try following the instructions on the ATI site step by step.
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=20870
They include uninstalling the previous drivers before installing the new ones
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=20561

If you have bits of old drivers left behind after installing your new ones, it can make your games not play correctly. See if you can get a clean driver install.

Thanks, Jenny, I'll try a clean install and see if it helps.

Hi--I just started playing this game yesterday, and am having the same problem with whiteout as the others. I am not able to see much of anything and have to shut the computer down kapoot. I have a Dell pentium 4 with a 128 MB DDR ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. As I am not too computer literate, I am hesitant to go to the website you suggest, but go I will. I hope the instructions are easy to understand. I will get back to you if I need further help. But didn't someone upgrade the driver and still having whiteout?? HMMM??? Just might have to send the game back if I am unable to play it, huh?
Beverly in Florida.

Upgrading the driver won't help if the video card is below the required spec for the game. I don't know if TAC is planning to release a patch for this or not. You might send an email to TAC letting them know you have this problem. If enought people are having the problem, maybe they'll get the lead out and make a patch (or lean on the developer to make one).

Thanks Jenny, I will send an e-mail, and see what kind of an answer I receive. Beverly

I know my card meets the specs. Tried a clean download of new video drivers last night but it didn't help.

Today, I went to the Dell website and downloaded drivers from there. I also went to Microsoft's site and made sure I had all the latest updates from them. Wonder of wonders, the game seems to be okay right now. I've played it almost non-stop since I'm concerned it might not work tomorrow.

I'd like to thank everyone for all the help they've provided. I don't post here too often but do read quite a bit. This is a great place not only for technical assistance but game assistance, too. Couldn't have made it through some of the games without MaG's help.

I have the same problem with the "whiteout". I tried increasing the value of my virtual memory and it worked fine for a while.
The only way I can keep playing is to SAVE when I get to a "whiteout". You'll see the save tag if you sweep the cursor across the screen. Then I quit the game and restart it and LOAD from the whiteout save position. And now the "whiteout" has disappeared and I can continue the game for at least some time. Tedious? Yes, but I'm too starved for adventure games to just give up. Hope there is a solution though for this "whiteout".
Best regards to you all.

Hi Maivor---I took your suggestion this morning and it works!!
Is it tedious? You betja!! Am I going to continue playing this game? You betja!!
Beverly in Florida

Thanks for the workaround, Maivor.

I just received an e-mail from Philip Priest Tech support from dreamcatcher games. This is what he said:
Thank you for contacting DreamCatcher Interactive’s Technical Support department. Perform each suggestion in the order listed below. Test the game after each suggestion.

Suggestion 1: Update your video and sound drivers

Visit the website of your video card and sound card manufacturer to download and install the most recent drivers. To determine your video/sound card name and manufacturer:

1. Click Start, and then click in the dialog box at the bottom of the start menu..
2. Type "dxdiag" without the quotes and click OK.
3. Click the Display tab to determine the Device Name and Manufacturer.
4. Click the Sound tab to determine the Device Name.

5. Locate the website for the hardware manufacturer and download the latest software updates: Video card drivers are updated three to four times per year and most sound card drivers are updated twice a year.

Suggestion 2: Adjust Game Settings

From the main menu, after launching the game look under the options, or the video options menu to adjust the in-game settings. There are a number of graphical features available, that can improve the visual appeal of a game, but also use more system resources to process causing the game to slow down or otherwise disrupt your experience. Disable any animated effects, particle effects and particularly anti-aliasing. Some games will allow you to adjust the screen resolution, the lower settings will improve performance as well.

If these resolutions do not solve your issue, please respond with any new changes that have occurred or error messages generated.

Sincerely,

Philip Priest
Technical Support
DreamCatcher Interactive Inc.

When replying to this

It usually takes more than one try to get an actual answer from them.
They always send out generic fix suggestions at first. You have to respond to their email and try again to get custom support.

Turns out this is what worked for me: instead of installing the latest driver for my Radeon X300 card, I installed an older driver, one from February, 2006. No problems with the whiteout since then. I wonder if there's a glitch in the new driver?

It could be the driver, or it could be the game. I would suspect it's the game since others with different hardware are also having the same issue.

This isn't the first time that using older video drivers fixed a problem.

My game also has the same problem, and always in the same place.
I uninstalled it, installed it and disabled animated effects,particle effects, and anti-aliasing.
I have a Radeon 7000 card that I tried to update. Said I needed to intsall NET Framework. Tried to do that and it came up error1722. I've updated this card before, so why not now?
Would a new card make this game work?

Thanks,