No mouse pointer at all!

[pauby]

Bought AI War on Steam some time ago but only just started playing it today.

Launching the game and a normal Windows window appears and then it goes to full screen. However the mouse pointer is gone. It's just not there.

Here are some thing I've noticed:

* If I press Shift-Tab it takes me to the Steam game window - no mouse pointer there either.
* If I press and hold the Left Control key after a few seconds the words 'Left Control' appears in the window and if I continue to hold the key, moving the mouse moves the words.
* In the main full screen screen in the top left it says Version 7.001Trial.

I have deleted the game from Steam (and made sure the folder was gone) and reinstalled it. Same results.

I have a laptop and a USB mouse. Nothing fancy about it except it has a scroll wheel. No other problems with any other Steam games or anything else.

I have searched in here and through Google for a solution but nothing has come up.

Any suggestions?

[keith.lamothe]

I honestly have no clue how that happened   I don't recall anyone else having that problem, but weird input device issues do happen.

My suggestion would be:

1) Reboot the machine, try again.

2) If that doesn't work, try to click the update button on the main menu; I imagine that will take some trial and error (unless the LeftControl thing shows up there too) but I imagine it will be possible.  Anyway, if you can run the update to get past 7.001 that might conceivably help (though I can't think why).

3) If you have another machine to try the game on, that would be helpful for diagnosis to see if the problem is machine-specific, etc.

[pauby]

Thanks for your quick reply.

Just to update:

1. Rebooted the laptop - no difference.

2. I can't click anything with the mouse. I was trying to enter my name and choose my colour on the very first screen and then click save in the hope I can get to a menu somewhere and change some settings but while the 'Left Control' text will move, I can#t click anything. I tried to press Tab to change to the Save button but nothing happens there either as well as pressing Return also does nothing.

3. I do have a desktop PC but it's at home and I'm not May be heading back there tomorrow so will try it then.

I did also try unplugging the mouse and using just the touchpad on the laptop but no difference there either. I will try another mouse if I can get one but I don't see that making much difference,. Will try anything just now though!

[keith.lamothe]

That is really, really odd   I could try to get you a copy of the update files (since normally the game downloads them for you) to run the updater with, though I kind of doubt anything happened since 7.001 to fix this.

Is this fullscreen or windowed?

It occurs to me that you might not be able to try it in windowed mode because of the lack of the mouse cursor to get to the settings screen.  Does your AIW install directory's RuntimeData subdirectory have a settings.dat file?  That can be tweaked by hand (change "IsFullscreen:1" to "IsFullscreen:0") or if the game hasn't even generated one for you I can post a default copy here.

[Kahuna]

format hard drive and reinstall operating system

[pauby]

format hard drive and reinstall operating system

<shaking head>

That's for your 'suggestion'. I think I will give that a miss. But if you have anything useful to add in the future, please jump back in.

[Kahuna]

will do 

[keith.lamothe]

Well, when an issue is this strange, sometimes the entire computer does need to be "exorcised"   But hopefully something less drastic will do.

[pauby]

Another update.

I went home and tried my desktop PC and everything is working fine. Mouse moves with no problems. I also brought another mouse from home and tried it on the laptop but same results. Moved it from USB3 to USB2 port (just in case) but again same results.

That is really, really odd   I could try to get you a copy of the update files (since normally the game downloads them for you) to run the updater with, though I kind of doubt anything happened since 7.001 to fix this.

That would be appreciated. At the moment I think anything is worth a try.

Is this fullscreen or windowed?

Full screen.

It occurs to me that you might not be able to try it in windowed mode because of the lack of the mouse cursor to get to the settings screen.  Does your AIW install directory's RuntimeData subdirectory have a settings.dat file?  That can be tweaked by hand (change "IsFullscreen:1" to "IsFullscreen:0") or if the game hasn't even generated one for you I can post a default copy here.

No settings.dat file in the RuntimeData directory. If you can post a default copy here that would be appreciated.

Well, when an issue is this strange, sometimes the entire computer does need to be "exorcised"   But hopefully something less drastic will do.

I think we can rule that out. As I said this issue is not present in anything else. The OS on the laptop was installed around a month ago (it's a new laptop and I removed Windows 8 and put Windows 7 x64 on it) so it's fresh and new.

Whilst I appreciate this is a very strange problem, everything else works fine so that would suggest it's a combination of this game and the laptop combined.

I'm not sure what putting it into a VM will tell me but I will try that anyway.

[pauby]

Okay - we're getting somewhere.

Tried the game again there and pressed the Left Control as I have done and on the first screen (where you type your name) and I saw the Save button highlighted. It's about an inch below and quarter of an inch to the right of the Left Control text but it appears.

To cut a long story short I was able to select the game to run in a Window and BANG I can use the mouse.

So the problem is only at full screen.

I have a few other things to try but at least I can now play it!

[pauby]

Okay. Final update methinks. Remember this is all in full screen.

I uninstalled the touchpad software on the laptop just in case - same result.

On the main screen there are a lot of buttons at the bottom. I noticed that they will highlight as I move the mouse which makes me think that the mouse itself is moving around the screen as you wo9uld expect, however there is no visible mouse pointer. I changed the mouse pointer in the Control Panel (worth a try) but still the same.

So it looks like the mouse works, it's there and will move, highlight and allow you to click on things. However the pointer itself is simply not visible.

I have also ran the updater and updated to 7.009 but still same issue.

I'm happy to run whatever you need to to figure out what is going wrong. I don't believe it's the OS when everything else works. You guys don't believe it's the game as nobody else has had this issue so I'm not sure what else to suggest.

It works fine in windowed mode so it's a combination of this laptop and the game.

I appreciate the help Keith and Kahuna (although I'm still not sure if you were joking with your reinstall the OS comment!). Hopefully I can get on and play now!

[keith.lamothe]

Awesome, sounds like you've got at least a workable situation

Yea, some kind of odd combination of machine and game, I'm sure.  But since we use the Unity engine it's probably below the level that we could really address.  Out of curiosity do you have the same problem with any of our other games (Tidalis, A Valley Without Wind, Skyward Collapse, Shattered Haven) ?  I'm not sure if any of them uses exactly the same version of Unity as AIW.

Anyway, let us know if you need any other advice   Kahuna's guide in his sig is an excellent reference particularly for new players, btw.  I don't think he advises anyone to reinstall their OS in there