This guide will help people who are having issues running the Full Motion Video portion of Tesla Effect, either with no video, or a “green screen” video issue.

Tesla Effect utilizes some of the very latest video compression / decompression technology to deliver 2K resolution video in phenomenal quality with a relatively small file size. In order to optimize performance of video decompression and playback, we employ various multi-threading and hardware acceleration techniques that all GPUs that meet the minimum spec for Tesla Effect can take full advantage of. However, if you are not running the latest drivers you may find that your card will not render the video correctly. Please review the following to ensure you have taken the necessary steps to help resolve your video issue.

The min spec for this game is an Nvidia GeForce 200 series, which places it in the same range as other cards manufactured late 2009 early 2010 (such as the Radeon 5770). If you do not have one of these cards or higher, it may not contain the proper technology implementation both on hardware and in the driver set to take advantage of some of the advanced features in the video codec. These advanced features enable Tesla Effect to deliver 2K resolution video with excellent quality at relatively low capacity. You can try it on an older card if you like, but you will either have severely degraded performance, or it may not work at all.

The minimum specs for 'Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure' are:

PC System Requirements

Minimum:
OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA 200 Series
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 17 GB available space
Sound Card: Direct X 9.0c compatible device

Mac System Requirements

Minimum:
OS: 10.7.4
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA 200 Series
Hard Drive: 17 GB available space

The AMD/ATI Equivalent of an Nvidia 200 series graphics card will be the 6000 series. For Intel, the HD 3000 and HD 4000 accelerators should also work, but as you will see below the Intel HD drivers may need a few more steps taken to ensure they are running the most up-to-date drivers.

If not, please install the DirectX 9.0c July distribution obtainable from Microsoft's DirectX website. It will work concurrently with any and all other DirectX implementations on your system, so you don't need to consider it a "downgrade". Think of DirectX 9.0c as THE industry standard DirectX implementation (you will find that most other AAA titles also require this, even though DX10 and DX11 are available). If you are playing Tesla Effect on Steam, you may find that Steam has already installed this as a pre-requisite package bundled with the game.

If not, please update your Nvidia, AMD or Intel HD graphics drivers using the latest versions from the manufacturer's website. If you choose to run an older driver, you may be missing some of the hardware acceleration enhancements that were implemented in later driver versions that our video compression codecs take advantage off. This will result in a "green screen" or "no video" issue.

If so, it is likely your OEM manufacturer will only allow "certified" drivers to be installed. This can be an issue as many OEMs only certify drives once a year (if that). So odds are your "latest driver" as certified by your OEM may actually be out of date.

Download the latest driver for your specific video card directly from Intel. If your machine will not allow you to install it, claiming it is "uncertified", you will then have to uninstall the old driver FIRST. Once the old driver is uninstalled, you will be driver-less and should be able to reboot. If Windows attempts to automatically re-install the old driver, cancel it. Now proceed to install the latest Intel driver. You will find it should install the driver without issue, and you should be running the latest driver.

You may find that despite being up-to date on all your dedicated graphics card drivers, Windows will be attempting to launch the game via the Integrated Graphics Accelerator. There are two ways to prevent this. Firstly if you are using Nvidia you can go to your Nvidia control panel and change your "preferred graphics accelerator" to your dedicated GPU. If you are running Windows 8 you can also change the launch settings of the game to ensure it is using the dedicated card to launch the game.

Nvidia Control Panel Settings...


Windows 8 GPU Launch Settings (right-click to bring up menu)...

Some users have reported that disabling the Steam overlay helps. If you are experiencing no video or the game fails to proceed past the title screen, try this:

• Right click in the Tesla Effect game in your Steam Library.
  
• Open the game's Properties
  
• Un-check the option to Enable Steam Overlay

In almost 100% of cases where people were having video issue, they were able to resolve it following the above steps. Good luck, and enjoy Tesla Effect!

If you have tried ALL of the above, and are certain it has not resolved your video problem, you can send Big Finish Games an email describing the issue to the following address:

support@bigfinishgames.com

Remember: it helps if you are able to provide specific details about the hardware and software you are using.

This includes:

• Video Card Model and Manufacturer (e.g. Nvidia GTX 480)
  
• Is the video card intergrated (like Intel HD 3000/4000) or dedicated (like Nvidia/AMD)
  
• Operating System (and version, e.g. Windows 7 with Service Pack 1)
  
• CPU/Processor model (e.g. Intel Core i7)
  
• How much RAM is installed
  
• What other software / processes do you run whilst running the game

...information like that which is listed above will greatly increase our ability to respond and aid in hopefully providing a solution to your issue.