While playing Black Mirror I get mouse pointer artifacts left behind as I move the mouse around the screen. Also, I don't see anything in inventory unless I mouse over the area and then, due to the trail of mouse pointer artifacts left behind, it is very difficult to tell what the inventory contains. (Just putting the mouse pointer into the bottom or top black areas doesn't automatically show anything).

When I go to the Options page I can't change anything. Clicking and click-drag do nothing to affect the settings. And yes, there are the left over mouse pointers as well.

Anyone else experience this?

I'm running with:
Win7 64-bit
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M (yes, this is a laptop)
DX 11.1

I think I have same problem. I tried hard to find how to fix it, but without success.

My OS is W10 Pro 64bit.

It seems like this is a relatively rare and new problem with the game.

To pin down the problem it would be good to see if you have something in common apart from a 64 Bit Windows version.

@Plutak:
What video card/chip model are you using (manufacturer and model nr)?

@all:
Does the video chip (GPU) or the display device (monitor, TV, beamer) handling the scaling of the game resolution?
Do you use DPI scaling to make objects of your desktop bigger?
If so - have you already tried to disable display scaling on high DPI settings for the agds.exe and BMirror.exe?
Have you already installed the latest DirectX Update on the system you're now using (a freshly installed Windows Vista and up doesn't have DirectX parts needed for older games installed - to change that you need to install the latest DirectX update once)?


If you have questions about how to check one of these things just ask. :)

I am using MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G and DirectX (12) should be updated.

EDIT: Also I am playing czech version, i have tried polish and english version ... Only english version worked well without glitches.

I asked for the DirectX Update for a reason. DirectX is not like other games. programs or tools. Being up to date does not necessarily mean that every DirectX component that a game might need is installed. The version number also doesn't reflect this. DirectX is a collection of libraries and components that provides features that can be used by programmers instead of needing to address the hardware (respectivly its drivers) directly.

Since the hardware became more capable over the years more features were added. But they weren't added to updated libraries and components that provides all features from the very first DirectX version. Instead over the time new libraries and components were added. So libraries and components from different DirectX versions coexist. From Windows Vista onwards Windows came only with the libraries and components for the newest DirectX versions (10 and up).

Some older games therefore require libraries and components from older DirectX versions that are missing on a system with a freshly installed Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10. The last DirectX Update adds these missing libraries and components of older DirectX versions. Some people fear that this old DirectX Update will downgrade their DirectX since it's sometimes called a DirectX 9.0c Update. But that only means that libraries and components up to DirectX 9.0c are added. The already present libraries and components of newer DirectX versions aren't overwritten. They continue to coexist.

The reason I tell you this is that some time ago I wanted to play Black Mirror 1 in a window. I used a tool called D3DWindower (sadly only works with 32bit Windows) to achieve this. In the options of this tool I had to activate the usage of certain DirectX 7/8 feature. Otherwise I got artifacts like the one you're talking about.

That doesn't mean that it's also the cause in your case. But it might be possible. You can download the last DirectX Update (June 2010 because DirectX 9.0c development stopped back then) here: Link
If you doubleclick at the downloaded file it will only extract itself into a folder you have to chose. You then need to go to the folder and doubleclick on the dxsetup.exe to start the real installation.

You also haven't answered the following questions:
Does the video chip (GPU) or the display device (monitor, TV, beamer) handling the scaling of the game resolution?
Do you use DPI scaling to make objects of your desktop bigger?
If so - have you already tried to disable display scaling on high DPI settings for the agds.exe and BMirror.exe?

Well my monitor and my GPU should handl scaling but i set up my gpu to use original ratio (800x600; 4:3). I have tried also other settings (switching between GPU and monitor scaling etc.) with no progress.
I don't use DPI scaling (set to 100%).

DirectX installation from Microsoft, even installation from game folder _redist, didn't help.

I've just noticed a post in the Steam discussion board about the game. Someone reported there that he had a black screen unless he turned off morphologic filtering (FXAA) in the 3D part of the driver settings.

I never thought that the driver 3D settings might be relevant, but I made a few tests. If I run the config.exe, set the game to 800x600x16 and activate morphologic filtering in the AMD Catalyst Control Center, the game graphics are totally blurred except for the cursor. If I move the cursor the area I just left is clear for a moment like a clear shadow following the cursor. This does not happen if the game is set to 800x600x32 or if morphologic filtering is turned off.

So I get a different result than the user reported but morphologic filtering (FXAA) still had an effect. Maybe the effect depends on the driver version or actual hardware.

So since the 3D settings seems to be relevant:

Did you change the default settings in the 3D section of the driver settings?
If so I suggest to reset the 3D settings in the NVidia Control settings to default and/or to create an entry for the agds.exe and BlackMirror.exe (doesn't exist for all language versions) in the NVidia Control settings and to deactivate all Filtering options (Antialiasing (especially FXAA), Anitrosphic, etc.) for both files.

If you're using a tool to optimize, tune or store video settings I suggest to deactivate and close it.

And since I don't know how the gog Galaxy client works I suggest to close it also (since the Steam client sometimes cause video problems - maybe the Galaxy client does too).

At last I suggest to set the game to 800x600x32 using the config.exe.

Hello,

I'm experiencing the same issue, the fact is that I've just switched from AMD 6870 to Nvidia GTX 970 and I was not experiencing the problem with AMD card.
I've tried desactivating all filter but it doesn't change a thing

O.S : Win 10 64 bit
Nvidia driver : 359.06
Language : French
Game version : 1.2fr
Windows résolution : 1920 x 1080

EDIT : After switching to English (1.0en), the problem has disappeared

So it looks like only certain language versions have this problem.

In the Steam forum someone found a solution (apart from playing the english/german version):

- download the following Zip-archive DSWin8.zip: Link
- extract the Zip-archive and copy the extracted files ddraw.dll & aqrit.cfg to the Black Mirror 1 installation folder (the folder with the file agds.exe)

To me it looks like these files manipulates the way DirectDraw is used. So my guess is that the problem is that the affected language versions of Black Mirror 1 are using DirectDraw in a way that doesn't work correctly using Windows 10. Either because Windows 10 doesn't handle a certain DirectDraw mode correctly or because Black Mirror 1 is using a DirectDraw mode in a way that was never correctly but until Windows 10 that wasn't a problem because former Windows versions used a different way to handle this mode.

Bakhtosh: Thank you, the latest solution with .zip worked for me,

Hi, could you reupload the files please? I am also encountering these problems and I don't want to change language, because that is one of the things I am enjoying the most (old czech games with czech voiceacting)

Thank you.

Hi,

I faced the similar issue with graphical artifacts and mouse trails and I was lucky to solve it!

There are 2 possible/tested solutions:
1. DDrawCompat (tested version v0.5.1)
- Download it from github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases
- Extract ddraw.dll file
- Move the extracted file (ddraw.dll) into a folder with the game

This solution solves the original issue but the resolution looks lower (in the main menu at least).

2. dgVoodoo2 (tested version v2.82.2)
- Download it from dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/
- Extract the folder
- Move dgVoodooCpl.exe file into the folder with the game
- Move DDraw.dll file from MS/x86/ folder into the folder with the game
- Run dgVoodooCpl.exe and on DirectX tab change "Videocard" to "dgVoodoo Virtual SVGA Card"
- Click on "Apply" and close it
- Run the game!

The second solution solves the original issue without decreasing the resolution in the main menu. Perhaps, it's possible to enhance the graphic by enabling some options in the dgVoodoo app but I did not try that.

Hope it helps