Adventure Game Studio

AGS Support => Advanced Technical Forum => Topic started by: Dave Gilbert on Mon 17/01/2011 22:35:09

Title: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Mon 17/01/2011 22:35:09
Hi all!  I recently got a new computer which uses Windows 7.  Today I tested my current game in fullscreen mode and my mouse cursor would not move.  The mouse cursor would work fine in windowed mode.  After trying various options, I found that the cursor would magically work perfectly in Direct3D mode.  I am trying to avoid using Direct3D mode, as I've discovered that a lot of older computers are incompatible with it and I've lost a lot of sales that way.  Is there to get a DirectDraw game to work under Win7 in fullscreen mode?

EDIT:  I've tested this with other AGS games and the same thing seems to happen.  Switching to windowed mode works fine.

EDIT 2: Actually, it seems the whole GAME freezes up, not just the mouse.

EDIT 3:  I've looked up this old thread (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41129.msg544287#msg544287) which said the game needs to be in 32 bit color to run in DirectDraw mode under Win7.  My game *is* a 32 bit color game, and it still doesn't work. :(
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Calin Leafshade on Mon 17/01/2011 23:45:00
I have noticed this but it seems like alt-tabbing out and back again fixed it for me.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Tue 18/01/2011 00:14:04
No joy, alas.  That wouldn't really be a viable solution for me anyway, since this is a problem that customers would face and not myself.  Downloading demo + game not work = no sale.  They don't bother fiddling with settings in order to get it to work, they'll just move on. 
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Wyz on Tue 18/01/2011 03:19:03
I've searched for similar problems and I get the impression that DirectDraw is not working very well on windows 7 systems. My guesses are that Microsoft is slowly breaking support for DirectDraw and the is not much you can do about that.  :(

Maybe you could make a distinction between win98/xp/vista and win 7 downloads? You'd only need to supply a other config files, but that's way too fiddly. Separate uploads might be a solution?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Gilbert on Tue 18/01/2011 05:01:30
BTW, have you tried updating DirectX9 first?

One problem is that DX10(or 11) is actually not compatible with older DirectX versions, so instead Vista and 7 are shipped with both DX10/11 and DX9 at the same time, so that programmes not supporting 10/11 would use 9 instead. But for some reasons, it seems that under default setting DX9 wouldn't be updated automatically under Vista/7 and so you should try manually updating DX9 first.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Tue 18/01/2011 20:04:19
Updating DirectX9 isn't a very intuitive solution for the average customer.  A customer faced with a directX issue would typically go: "What gives? I've already got the latest version of DirectX!  Guess I won't buy this game."  

Wyz's solution is probably the best one, although it would be problematic for the distribution networks.  Hm.  I'll have to think about this.  Odd that this problem has never come up before on the distribution networks, since I only give them DirectDraw builds.  You'd think that at least one customer would have been using Win7.  Or maybe I just got lucky?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: AGD2 on Tue 18/01/2011 20:57:55
Doesn't sound like it's a Win7 issue exclusively, but perhaps it could be a quirk with your particular laptop's video hardware or something similar?

I also have a laptop with Windows 7 and I was testing a full-screen AGS game today (320x200 resolution, no graphics filter), which was compiled with AGS 3.2, and the mouse worked fine in DirectDraw mode.

--EDIT--
This thread could be helpful, but I don't know because I didn't read much further than the first few posts:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistagaming/thread/4e83dac8-8d4d-4dad-9f1d-e08fa2fe1e48

Seems like it could also be related to sound. Maybe you could also try changing the sound driver in winsetup.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Baron on Wed 19/01/2011 01:30:40
I've just tested my current DirectDraw project built on Windows XP machine on my wife's Windows 7 laptop in full screen mode and experienced no problems.  As you say, it is rather unlikely that no one downloading your games has been using Windows 7.  I suspect the single machine -have you tested on many Windows 7 systems?  Or are you using something external to AGS in this current game that you haven't in your previous games (some weird .dll or something?) that might not jive with Windows 7?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Wed 19/01/2011 21:00:02
No .dlls in this game, although I just tested a different game that uses the snowRain plugin DLL.  That game wouldn't run at all in Direct3D mode/Fullscreen.  I had to switch to DirectDraw, but since it wouldn't run in fullscreen I had to play it in a window.  Yeesh!  And I've been liking Win7 so far.

-Dave
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Calin Leafshade on Wed 19/01/2011 21:03:00
yea, the snowrain plugin is DD only.

But you could use the AGSBlend plugin to code a similar effect which would work in either mode.

[/sorry not really relevant]
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dualnames on Thu 20/01/2011 12:53:37
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Wed 19/01/2011 21:00:02
No .dlls in this game, although I just tested a different game that uses the snowRain plugin DLL.  That game wouldn't run at all in Direct3D mode/Fullscreen.  I had to switch to DirectDraw, but since it wouldn't run in fullscreen I had to play it in a window.  Yeesh!  And I've been liking Win7 so far.

-Dave

Dave, I'm using Win7 for the span of over a year now, and I've played lots of ags games in fullscreen, windowed ecc, without any trouble. Even games with and without dlls. So I have to say that this isn't AGS related here. At least not entirely.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 14:39:12
Hm.  So this is definitely to do with my computer.  That's good to know!  At least this won't effect anybody else.  So, I should just try updating DirectX9?  I'll give that a whirl. Thanks!

EDIT: aaand no joy. :( 
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: cat on Thu 20/01/2011 16:18:40
Do the graphics filter change anything?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 16:26:18
The game refuses to run at all in fullscreen when I change the graphics filter above 2x.  Probably because my laptop monitor only goes up to 1366 x 768.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dualnames on Thu 20/01/2011 16:29:25
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 16:26:18
The game refuses to run at all in fullscreen when I change the graphics filter above 2x.  Probably because my laptop monitor only goes up to 1366 x 768.

Dave, I usually never adjust that at least for fullscreen I play the games without a filter just fine, and I use up to 4x for windowed. When the game is 16bit and played on fullscreen it just blinks on and off for a while then properly plays. My screen resolution is 1920x1088 though. Want me to test some games on a lower resolution? See if we can narrow it down?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 16:36:59
Oh, and here's another bit of info.  I checked dxdiag and it says that DirectDraw acceleration is enabled in both 32 and 64 bit mode, so it appears DIrectDraw *should* work, even though it doesn't.

Dualnames, if you could try that and you run into the same problems as me - that would help narrow down the problem!  (Even though I still don't know what the solution would be) :)
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: cat on Thu 20/01/2011 16:40:21
Another test: Do you have a WinXP virtual machine at hand? You could try to run the game in it on your laptop.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: subspark on Thu 20/01/2011 19:04:22
Dave, your problem isn't exclusive to your machine. I also have very recently been affected by this odd behavior.

I suspect that it may have something to do with a recent windows update for Win7 based machines. To help CJ issue
a fix, we'll need to narrow down the source of the problem. Can you give me your system specs including:

(Model of PC or Mac, OS, CPU, RAM, Monitor, GPU, Native/Current Resolution, anything else that might be relevant or helpful).

My specs are:
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 22:53:09
Glad to know I"m not the only one!  Here are my specs:

ASUSTek Notebook K52F/K62F series
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU  M 460 @ 2.53GHz
RAM: 4GB
64 bit Operating system
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
Display driver: Intel(R) HD Graphics

Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Pumaman on Thu 20/01/2011 23:18:18
If you set the game to run in XP Compatibility Mode does that make any difference? Not sure what it might do, but it might have some affect on the DirectDraw behaviour.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Khris on Thu 20/01/2011 23:34:05
I've tested a 2.72, a 3.1.2 and a 3.2 game on Win7 32bit.

They're all 320x200 or 320x240, and I've tested them in fullscreen using every possible combination of DirectDraw, DirectX and the x2 and the x4 filter.
All of them worked perfectly fine, the only odd one out was x2 & DirectX; even with the 85Hz option checked, the screen was slightly off-center. That's my monitor settings I assume, it's weird that 640x480 and 85Hz gives two different images depending on the graphics driver though. Dunno, maybe this is not that weird.

I'm running an ATI Radeon HD 3850 / DirectX 11 on a CRT set to 1280x960.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Thu 20/01/2011 23:42:24
Compatibility Mode was the first thing I tried.  So I know that doesn't work. :(
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Fri 21/01/2011 17:23:57
Sorry for the double post, but this is becoming quite a big problem.

Gemini Rue won't work at all on this new computer, for three reasons:

The game is a 16 bit game, using the snowRain plugin, so it needs to run in DirectDraw mode.

1 - As mentioned, my computer won't run DirectDraw games in fullscreen mode

2 - Win 7 won't run 16 bit games in windowed mode (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41129.msg544287#msg544287), so playing it in DirectDraw/windowed mode is out (it forces the computer to switch to a different color scheme, which locks up the game).

3 - Switching to direct3D won't work, since the snowRain plugin is incompatible with Direct3D.

So... I find myself completely stuck.  I can't run the game at all, in windowed mode or in fullscreen, unless I muck with my computer's settings and switch the game to 16 bit color mode.  This is not an optimal solution, since your average customer won't know or even want to do that (especially for a game released in 2011).  Does anybody have any other ideas?  I could drag out my old laptop to test the game on, but the fact that this happens at all makes me sure that others will encounter it as well.  I'm supposed to be launching this game in 4 weeks so I'm going crazy trying to get it resolved.  So, any more help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-Dave
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Snarky on Fri 21/01/2011 17:43:51
The simplest solution (for you and your customers) would seem to be to offer an option to disable the SnowRain plugin, or maybe even rewriting it so that it's compatible with Direct3D, if that's feasible.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Fri 21/01/2011 17:55:59
Not really feasible at this point, I'm afraid.  The main issue here is getting AGS games to run in DirectDraw mode in fullscreen on this computer.  Anything else is a bonus. :)
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Fri 21/01/2011 19:50:27
WOOOOOOOOOO!

After two hours with tech support, we figured it out!  And it's the most convoluted and arbitrary solution ever.

Basically, the laptop was running in something called "Entertainment Mode."  I'm not sure what that means, but all I had to do was switch it to "High Performance Mode" and magically all my problems went away.  I never would have thought of that in a bazillion years.

So.  Phew.  That's a relief.  Thanks for all the advice, everyone.  As for me, it's back to testing, I suppose.  

Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Igor Hardy on Sat 22/01/2011 20:42:29
Boy, did you get entertained in that mode! :)

Good to hear you solved the problem.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: cianty on Sat 22/01/2011 23:07:31
Wow. What a weird thing is that? Glad it's solved now. Can't wait for the game. :)
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Pumaman on Sun 23/01/2011 16:20:36
Was that "Entertainment Mode" a Windows setting or something specific to your graphics card drivers?
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Sun 23/01/2011 17:17:48
It was something specific for the laptop, more specifically the battery.  I think "High performance" mode means it uses more of the laptop's processor power to run, while "entertainment" mode does not.  I'm not sure of the details, but I know that it works.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Pumaman on Sun 23/01/2011 17:58:07
Ah ok, thanks for the info!
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: subspark on Tue 25/01/2011 07:22:34
Hmm this means my issue may also be related to performance. I'll have a fiddle with the performance settings in my control panel and let you know how I go.  :)

Sparky.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Dave Gilbert on Tue 25/01/2011 16:10:21
I don't know if you have a laptop or not, but the option to change this was located under the battery settings.  If you have a desktop, it probably does not have a battery.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7 - SOLVED!
Post by: Snarky on Tue 25/01/2011 16:27:51
Older versions of Windows have a couple of settings somewhere for Audio and Video acceleration, which also tend to disable DirectX features if you turn them down (causing very odd symptoms, like static in mp3 files). Sounds like this "entertainment mode" might be the Win7 name for the same, maybe.
Title: Re: Game freezing in fullscreen/DirectDraw mode using Win7
Post by: CoolGuy on Fri 11/11/2011 01:26:35
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Fri 21/01/2011 19:50:27
WOOOOOOOOOO!

After two hours with tech support, we figured it out!  And it's the most convoluted and arbitrary solution ever.

Basically, the laptop was running in something called "Entertainment Mode."  I'm not sure what that means, but all I had to do was switch it to "High Performance Mode" and magically all my problems went away.  I never would have thought of that in a bazillion years.

So.  Phew.  That's a relief.  Thanks for all the advice, everyone.  As for me, it's back to testing, I suppose.  



Switching to "High Performance" mode on my laptop also worked to fix the problem for me. My problem was slightly different in that the games would run, but the mouse would freeze every 5 seconds or so, and sometimes the mouse would freeze altogether until I left the window and came back to it. How awkwardly convoluted.