Black Main Menu

[PrinnyLeHero]

I've been trying to play Fallout New Vegas recently. Today, I tried to play the game but whenver I launch it the main menu is just black. There's still music and I can hear the menu sounds when I hover over the options, but I can't see anything. Everything works, it's just pitch black.

 

I'm playing in Fullscreen, lowest graphics settings. No mods. I haven't installed an ENB and I have verified file integrity twice now, only 1 file seems to be missing and the size is too small to be a master file. I've scoured the internet to try and find the fix but I haven't seen that many posts that had this problem.

 

Any help?

[dubiousintent]

I can't tell from that problem statement if you have ever gotten the game beyond the main menu at any time, which makes a difference as to where the problem might lie. So, I'm going to assume you have never gotten that far.

 

The "base game" (with or without any DLCs) is ten years old and may not work "out of the box" because it is expecting a different environment (both hardware and software) than you have today. There are now a number of mods we consider "essential" and configuration setup steps needed. The good news is ... we know most (about 99.9%) of those things. The bad news is ... you need to do some reading and have patience. This is not a console game (even though many of its problems come from compromises to enable it to originally run on the XBox) where you just plug in a cartridge and start playing.

 

One of the first things is that while Windows 10 (an assumption you need to correct if I'm wrong) is "backwards compatible" with DirectX9, you still need to install the DirectX9 DLLs because the game is looking for those specific file names. Please see the 'Solutions to Starting the game problems' section in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

 

Another assumption is that you have (at least once) run the "FalloutNVLauncher". It only needs to run once, but must be run so the game can detect and configure for your hardware. Once that has been done, you should not need to run the "Launcher" again unless you "verify files" (which resets that information; treat "verify" as if you had just installed the game). The process you normally will use is covered in the "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article mentioned below.

 

Please see the 'Vanilla Load Order' entry in the 'First Timer Advice' section; and the 'Common Game Problems' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article.

 

If the problem persists, then see the 'Solutions to "Crash To Desktop" (CTD) problems' section in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

I recommend anyone read the entire "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article to understand the differences between this game and others you may have experience with; especially if this is your first attempt to play a modded FNV or it's been more than a year since you last did so. It is designed for someone who has never played a modded PC game before, so it tries to avoid making any assumptions, is kept "up-to-date", and covers years of "lessons learned".

If you need further assistance, Please provide ALL the information requested in the wiki "How to ask for help" article. Don't forget to identify things that do not appear in the "load order", such as the version of Windows, if you are using a "Steam" or "GOG" and/or "regional language version" of the game (even if you are playing it in English); using the FNV4GB Patch, NVSE and it's related plugins; replacements for textures (specifically their larger image sizes: 1024x1024, etc.), animations, or "bodies", etc.; and "post-processors" like ENB or SweetFX. It saves us playing "20 questions" and gets you a more specific answer more quickly. (The usual turn-around on post and reply in an older game forum is 24 hours.) Screenshots don't usually work so well because they tend to cut off or fail to display needed information and are hard to "piece together" into a complete and coherent picture.

* See "How to markup images (etc) in forum posts and comments" article for how to use "Spoiler tags". "LOOT" already includes those tags in the "load order" it copies to your clipboard, so you can just paste it's list into your post.

BTW: You will ALWAYS get the "1 file missing" message when you "verify local files". Don't worry about it.

 

-Dubious-

Edited March 14, 2020 by dubiousintent