CCP Atropos wrote:In some cases people have ended up with the in-testing builds of the EVE Launcher (only published to Singularity) on their Tranquility installs. The builds on Sisi attempt to start the game using DirectX 11 which can cause a black screen on the TQ EVE Client. You can tell if this is the case by checking the settings in the EVE Launcher; if it has a tab marked DirectX, you should change it to use DirectX 9.
I just tried to launch the game and was greeted by an 840 MB patch. After the patch finished installing, I also got this black screen error. I ran the repair tool to no success. Then, on a hunch, I looked at the DirectX settings in the launcher. Surprise, surprise! It was set to DX11. I changed it to DX9, and the client launches just fine. My conclusion can only be that the DX11 support was introduced with this patch, with the DirectX setting now defaulting to DX11 instead of DX9. I know for fact that my GPU does not support DX11, so the error I got makes sense.
My problem with this whole situation? ONCE AGAIN, CCP RELEASED A PATCH WITHOUT GIVING US ANY EFFING PATCH NOTES.
The latest patch notes (available
here) are for the Odyssey 1.2 release, dated 10/22. That's 10 days ago now, by my current date/time. No notes for today's patch whatsoever, presumably dated 11/1. Now, I'm certainly OK with unannounced patches that are small and have no impact at all on normal Eve gameplay (read: backend updates for future Dust 514 integration or other such patches that shouldn't have any impact on client performance). But seriously, a patch that is 840 MB in size, that apparently updates the DirectX version AND default DX version setting, that could possibly affect thousands of players who are not running DX11-compatible hardware? Come the EFF on CPP! I'm seriously annoyed at the lack of communication on this one.
I'd like to direct your attention to
this thread regarding the upcoming changes to DirectX requirements/support. According to that dev blog:
Quote:
If you've played EVE Online using Singularity, our public testing server, you may be running with DirectX 11. The change should be mostly unnoticeable, as our goal right now is to have a DX11 client that performs the same (performance, stability) as our DX9 client. This change will go out to everyone in our winter expansion, EVE Online: Rubicon.
So the DX11 component is already live on SiSI, but was NOT supposed to go live on TQ until the Rubicon release. Fine, great. I was on SiSi last night and had no issues. I'm not sure if my client was defaulted to DX9 or DX11 (presumably DX9), but I had no issues at all. Whatever the case, this latest TQ patch defaults to DX11, and we were not told of the change. This is a HUGE oversight on CCP's part IMO, and I think that this trend of releasing patches without giving us patch notes needs to stop. If you're going to put out a change that involves possible compatibility issues with my hardware, well goddammit I think I need to know about that. If I had gone the route that so many people have (and will), I could possibly have gone as far as uninstalling and reinstalling my graphics drivers, the Eve client, and possibly gone through who knows how many Windows graphics and compatibility settings, all of which could have taken me hours to do. All for lack of being told that all I need to do is change one little drop-down box in the Eve launcher.
CCP, this is hugely irresponsible on your part. I'd like some sort of response that will reinstate my faith in your ability to keep us, the players, informed of changes that could possibly impact our ability to play the game. Thank you.