Thread regarding AI NPC black dialogue window issue

Information Dev's Corner
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The purpose of this thread is to gather information about the issue which is causing some people to see a black square instead of the regular dialogue window when speaking to an AI NPC.

If you are experiencing this, please try the following steps first:
[ul]
[li]Go into the “Graphics” tab in the “Options” menu and find the “GPU Accelerated UI Rendering” option. Try switching it to on/off (depending on if you already have it enabled or not) and then restarting the game.[/li][li]Restart the computer.[/li][li]Make sure your graphic drivers are updated to the latest version.[/li][li]Make sure you have DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 installed.[/li][/ul]

If none of these steps work, please post in this thread (or send me a PM if you prefer privacy):
[ul]
[li]Your computer specs (graphics card, processor, RAM, etc).[/li][li]Which OS you are using.[/li][li]Which version of DirectX you have installed.[/li][/ul]

If you have any other information, please include that as well.

Thank you in advance!

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What worked for me was just relogging.

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Have had this problem ever since you changed the UI to that crappy new framework you are using now. All I get is a damn black screen on top of my UI.

Tried switching Accelerated UI Rendering off and on, and restarting my system multiple times, didn’t work.
Updated my drivers to latest version, also didn’t work.
DirectX 12 installed

My Laptop specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7, 4700U with Radeon Graphics
GPU: using integrated graphics from my CPU
Ram: 16GB
OS: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
DirectX version: DirectX 12

Stop breaking things that works perfectly fine in the first place :mad:

2 Likes
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Hey, just thinking outside the box here…

This problem is intermittent for me, regardless of what setting I use for graphics inside the game client or out. Relogging helps sometimes, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes, the AI NPCs are marked as “Unreachable” when they produce a black dialogue box of death (IE it doesn’t even have controls to close the window, you must close the client and restart.)

Maybe this isn’t a GRAPHICAL issue as much as it is a TOKEN ECONOMY issue? Seems more likely that the loop of “Ping AI, check token status, return “I’m tired” message” is broken. I haven’t heard “I’m tired” since the black windows started. It seems like less of a rendering issue, and more of a failure to call the AI function loop.

Might be worth checking into. shrug

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You have the opportunity here to think for yourselves as a company and walk back all this AI nonsense you are forcing on us just because it’s the current trend worldwide.

AI NPCs are a pain in the ass for everyone, they add nothing over what a simple terminal does other than being stupid and useless and wasting our time with fake immersion.

10 Likes
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What gets me with technology sometimes is how hidden away useful functions might be, if they are there at all.
I believe MA’s NPCs have a conversation memory from previous conversations, so can users pre-prompt NPCs to offer whatever available missions they have, plus saying if there are any missions on personal cooldown and how long until their availablility? Would it be as simple as asking them to do this if players write “mission pls” (or shorter even) whenever a chat takes place?

[Pain in the ass stuff can sometimes be a case of moving said ass away from the fire, rather than requiring the fireplace to move :stuck_out_tongue: ]

But yeah, I get the all-round dissatisfaction at stuff we don’t want being programmed, bugged, poorly explained etc., over stuff we DO want done, such as mending quite simple things involving simple parameters, such as NI’s harvester IV having the presumably proper decay and returns (50 cent decay), or the decay on a refiner that is out by a factor of 10, and more… oh, and that the NI (AG) NPC that provides various bps is turned on again (at Thebes)!

Edit: on the subject of software, it is not the OP’s fault that my tab only shows as far as : Question: - Thread regarding AI,
so my post has ended up being drawn a bit off-topic by the post above, and I didn’t remember that the OP is looking for something rather more specific.
It is a consequence, as so often, of software-human interaction (yes, mouseover on tab shows me the full title, including memory use even), so sorry.

Back on topic, I asked elsewhere what the rendering UI option is supposed to do in the first place, that one or both settings may fail, or that it might be solved by off/on, or on/off (default is apparently now for the box to be ticked on since this vu).
It does highlight wonderfully what knowledge can sometimes do, plus that we also sometimes cannot know that we don’t know something, or is difficult for people to understand even if somewhat aware of an issue.

Isn’t there a simpler option for all of this mission gathering that doesn’t involve AI and a new UI that for some reason works differently? Or the more common question: Why, just why, MA?
To end in a humorous, yet serious way… Thoreau once wrote, “Simplify, simplify.” - and to those who can remember Coach from Cheers, his wonderful response!

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This.

1 Like
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100% this

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Question, are you running in windowed or full screen? I have no issue and am running in full screen, someone else posted they were running in windowed mode and were experiencing issues. They had to tweak something on their end, maybe with scaling but it resolved their issue in windowed mode…I’ll try to locate that thread.

1 Like
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i5 14400F
RTX 4060
16 GB RAM
Win 11
DirectX 12

I have tried your fix and it works, but after every relog i have to do it again.

Now I will quote Mr Mercer

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Let’s spend development time and effort on useless AI jank, said no paying customer ever….

Less buzzwords and more UE5

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My pc specs:

CPU: Intel i7-4790K
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
Ram: 32GB
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
DirectX 12
All drivers up to date

Tried every possible scenario mentioned and nothing works.

Only once after a relog did it work for a single AI mission, here I was able to pick up a daily mission and complete it. (I believe this was last Wednesday). The next AI NPC I talked to gave me the Big Black Box of Bullcrap yet again.

So yeah, 1 time in about 500 attempts did it work, and only for a brief period.

2 Likes
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This. I tried the other options presented and still had black block. I always run in not full screen and had the issue. Toggled full screen on and it worked! Switched back to not full screen and it still works.

Edit: This is for the voting window , I assume its the same interface code as the AI NPC, I am on RT and we don’t have that crap here, im not flying back to Caly to test it out :slight_smile:

Edit 2: Who is paying for the AI’s responses btw? I did not vote to pay for this additional cost…Assuming its CLD holders since its a cost to run Caly…

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So today again all AI NPC’s give a black box.

I tried everything imageable.
GPU use was Off when I arrived at the Camp and I got the black box
Switched it on, restarted game, black
switched it off, restart game, black
Reboot PC, black
switched it on, restart, black
changed fullscreen resolution, black
switched it off, restart, black
changed to windowed mode, black
back to fullscreen, black

so you can imagine that this is really bad for your customers.

Spec:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS
GPU: Radeon RTX 4050
Driver: 32.0.15.8115
Date of Driver: 21th of August 2025
DirectX= 12(FL 12.1)

Little correction, the GPU is a Nvidia Geforce RTX 4050, not a Radeon RTX 4050, the CPU has a integrated Radeon 780 Graphic kernel integrated.
Entropia runs on the Nvidia GPU.

Hope this helps to finally find the bug.

BTW, until you can iron it out please get rid of this AI Crap which does not work and make it for the time beeing a normal NPC.

After writing this post in Firefox I had the Browser open and restarted the game.
Without any change in the Graphic options the Dialog box now opens on all AI NPC’s

If this is a coincidence, I dont know.

Restarted again, still OK
changed the gpu setting to on again, restart, black box
changed gpu to off again, restart, black box

Seams FF was a coincidence as it is still open

Last time to test:
Shuting off the PC, waited 10 seconds to restart, logged in, NPC works again, nothing changed no Firefox running.

So it is a may be it works, may be it does not work every time you log in.

2 Likes
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Same for me, nothing seems to work to fix it, where the last days 1, 2 or 3 relogs should fix the issue temporarily.

OS: WIN11 pro 24H2
CPU: i7-7700HQ
GPU: GTX 1050 (581,80)
DirectX: 12

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When I saw this failed window the first time my guess was: This must be a feature for some upcoming epic event like “The payback of AI NPCs to be asked with our crap” :laugh:

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Tried on / off, restarting, not solved.
Updated windows and video card driver, than restarted a few more times with both on / off settings again, not solved.
Always black screen on Aris for AI npcs.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 16-Core Processor
GPU: RTX 5090 32GB
RAM 128GB
WIN 11 pro
DirectX 12

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After changing the graphic settings, and I went far enough away from the npc to make it disappear then it works for me.
So it’s not enough to reset the graphics, the npc also has to reload after entering.

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Yes, this one worked for me too, previsiously i always relogged standing next to the AI and no matter what and how many times, always black screen.
This time moved away, relogged there without even chaning options (was on), moved back to NPC, it is working.

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Tried again, this time walking away or teleporting away and relogging there not solved the issue, only worked after teleported up to Aris SS, relogged there, and went back to Aris.