I have a system with several Linux distro's on it and World Of Goo runs fine on most, but not on the one I mostly use, Gentoo. I just get a black window (or screen if I configure it to run fullscreen). Since it runs well on other distro's it has to be some software issue of course. Do you have any hints where to start looking? Versions of availlable libraries, window manager, perhaps (it runs on gnome, xfce, kde4 in Ubuntu or OpenSusse but in Gentoo I have e16).

Thanks for any pointers

e16? If that's supposed to be Enlightenment, what are the other four characters?

I'd suggest starting with examining differences in video drivers and X server configuration. When you get a black window, do you still get sound?

Oh, yes that would be Enlightenment 0.16.8.14

I've been playing around with some xorg.conf device settings but had no luck. I assume the xf86-video-ati 6.8.0 in Gentoo is the same driver as xorg-xserver-video-ati 6.8.0 in Ubuntu 8.04, so I guess that should work (it also works on xorg-xserver-video-ati 6.6.3 on Ubuntu 7.04.

Judging by the sound, the game is running fine behind that black window, it just won't let me join the fun. :(

Are you able to run other OpenGL applications? For example, glxgears (from x11-apps/mesa-progs)?

There is a version 6.9.0 of the ATI driver in portage. Could you try installing that one? (You may have to add x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati ~x86 to /etc/portage/package/keywords if you only have x86 in your global keywords)

OpenGL in general is no problem. I have tried 6.9.0 and even 6.10.0 without any change. I did notice something quite interesting, to me anyway, it may not be related to the black window in World Of Goo.

I usually have compositing disabled in Enlightenment because windows move really jerky when it is on. Just for testing I enabled it and found that all the windows that were already opened before I started World Of Goo moved quite smoothly afther that, while any window created afterward moved as jerky as usual. Does World Of Goo do something with other windows that are open when it starts? Make X or Enlightenment put them in a buffer or something?

For what it is worth, I have verified, sort of, that Enlightenment is not to blame. I installed openbox window manager and had the same black window in World Of Goo.

I'm afraid I don't know what else to try, which is why I didn't reply earlier. There was a similar issue reported in this thread and there re-installing drivers ended up fixing the problem, although I'm not sure if the cause was the same. This somewhat suggests that the game is not at fault, although I understand this isn't very helpful to you.

If you are able to figure out what is wrong on your own, let me know, and maybe I can fix it in the game (or let other people who report a similar issue know about it). If you can't fix the problem and want your money back, please let me know by e-mail, and I'll help you out.

[quote author=hschaeks link=topic=1534.msg10266#msg10266 date=1235506911]
Does World Of Goo do something with other windows that are open when it starts? Make X or Enlightenment put them in a buffer or something?
No, not explicitly, although creating an OpenGL context may have that effect (to be honest, I'm not an expert at X server or X driver implementations, I just try to use the available high-level interfaces properly).

I use same ddx driver (xorg-xserver-video-ati v6.8.0 and v6.9.0) for my ATI 9250 and WoG run fine for me. But i tried to got that black-screen problem to help you even i use Gnome and Ubuntu... I changed several desktop and in-game resolutions and found that if WoG resolution is set to be bigger than desktop i always got that fulscreen blackscreen... So, solution  for this problem may be to set resolution in 'config.txt' to be the same or lower then your Desktop resolution. Just run 'xrandr' command and see all available and currently used resolution.

@soultaker: Thanks for looking into it. It certainly is no showstopper for me. As I've said I have several distros on the system that run WoG just fine. It just takes a reboot.

I'll let you know if I find anything and I have found some messages in Xorg.0.log that might be pointers. It says my 3d driver claims not to support visuals 0x23, 0x24, ...., 0x32. Are any of these important?

@cosmi: thanks for trying, but I was already running the game in a window that is smaller than my desktop.

It seems unlikely, since the other distros work fine, but could it be that the fact that my desktop is wider than the max_texture_size (or was that max_texture_width?) of my video card has anything to do with it?

The last time I tried to run WoG fullscreen it had an ever smaller size than the window I use now.

Thanks for the AIGLX tip. Just for neatness it got rid of those messages in Xorg.0.log.

@soultaker: I've got it working. I figured I might try updating mesa as well when updating the video driver didn't help. In the process I had to update a few other libraries and even add one, so I'm not completely certain what the minimum is to get it to run. So I now have updated xf86-video-ati to 6.11.0 dri2proto to 1.99.3 xf86driproto to 2.0.4 libdrm to 2.4.5 and mesa to 7.3; xorg-server is at 1.3.0.0-r6 and WoG runs nicely. Thanks again for looking into this.

[quote author=hschaeks link=topic=1534.msg10396#msg10396 date=1235946739]So I now have updated xf86-video-ati to 6.11.0 dri2proto to 1.99.3 xf86driproto to 2.0.4 libdrm to 2.4.5 and mesa to 7.3; xorg-server is at 1.3.0.0-r6 and WoG runs nicely.

I can confirm this fix (Hardware: VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]).

/etc/portage/package.keywords
games-puzzle/world-of-goo-demo<br /> =x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati-6.11.0<br /> =media-libs/mesa-7.3<br />  =x11-libs/libdrm-2.4.5<br />  =x11-proto/dri2proto-1.99.3<br />  =x11-proto/xf86driproto-2.0.4
$ emerge -avuD world
and rebuilding xorg-server (emerge -a1 xorg-server) to link against mesa's new API.