Problems with full screen apps (Games)

[DragonSpawn]

I just did the driver cleaner. Got rid of all NVIDIA driver shiz,....then rebooted and slapped the newest driver back on. Then rebooted again. Then tried to start a game in fullscreen,...and it crashed like normal.

 

Although at all the reboots this time I did not get a MS error message prompting me to send a report to Microsoft. Albeit is it a coincidence or was something in the error message that perhaps allowed me to start the game last time?

 

 

 

PS: So what is next? Audio driver cleanup? :(

[DragonSpawn]

Also remember I did a system restore point to last time it worked 3 hours ago before the driver cleaner action. Is it dangerous for system stability for me to restore to a spot with different driver settings (the last spot is/was the unclean one with the driver residues from previous driver updating)?

[Dalo Harkin]

Did you check that the graphics card has both the 6 pin connectors in it?

If its crashing at full screen - its:-

 

DRIVERS - checked

POWER - hard to check

GPU MEMORY - hard to check

 

I know it sounds daft but can you try using an earlier driver if you can access one.

 

and just to check you aren't overclocking anything are you ;)

[DragonSpawn]

Not overclocking.

 

 

How do I check the pin thingie without opening the box? Is it visible from the open side of the box? Since I lose my warranty if I open the box. Before I do that, I think I'll email the service of the builders of the box and see if they tell me to do that.

 

 

Also remember I said I ****ed around with the audio drivers early on? By installing a shoddy USB headset with it's own audio drivers, then mistakenly uninstalling realtek, then hastily reinstalling realtek when noticing I had no sound, then later uninstalling the headset, etc.. Might the issue be in the audio drivers and not the video card ones?

 

 

 

 

Also can it really be the power? Wouldn't it crash then when I play it for hours at max settings (on the rare random opportunities it does launch fine without BSODing)?

[DragonSpawn]

Something very odd. I just tried launching the game again with fullscreen..............it worked. So it didn't work 5min ago but this time it did. I didn't do anything in between, I didn't open another program or reboot or nothing.

 

 

So whatever it is, it's erratic.

[DragonSpawn]

Ok tried it a 2nd time. Launched. Tried it a third time in a row...crashed.

[DragonSpawn]

Took a flashlight and looked into the box from the outside without opening it. It seems as if the 8800GTX has both pins in. Since there are two cables side by side which seem to plug into the card.

[DragonSpawn]

Okay it launched again. This time I decided to alt-tab from the launched game. That worked. I launched teamspeak to talk with a few people. However when I tried to maximize it again after alt-tabbing it collapsed. Think the fact that I started program that uses audio drivers caused the crash when I wanted to maximize it again? Edited June 27, 2008 by DragonSpawn

[DragonSpawn]

Ok I just launched it with teamspeak already on before launching it. The launch failed and I crashed.

 

 

 

I then next time decided to launch the game without teamspeak on. It launched perfectly again. I then alt-tabbed and it crashed me.

 

 

So judging from these tests I should not alt-tab the games. But still after the driver cleaner it seems to me the amount of successful launches to fullscreen increased by easily 75%. However crashes seem to occur as a rule if I have a program that requires audio drivers (such as a gaming chat tool such as teamspeak) running or if I alt-tab from the game once it launched fullscreen.

 

These info's helpful?

Edited June 27, 2008 by DragonSpawn

[Dalo Harkin]

Thats thrown me - who made the PC - you may have to get in touch with them.

[DragonSpawn]

Apparently it was a fluke or so. Since now again despite not doing anything I can't launch the games in fullscreen anymore. It's sporadic as hell it seems. Ah well thanks for trying anyways.

[Dalo Harkin]

the only think that I can think of that would cause something like that is a corrupt OS - or the memory on the GPU is bad

[Goku]

Hello Sean. I think the problem is with the fact that you are using TeamSpeak. Can you please uninstall it and then try to start the game?

 

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

I've had another thought. Could my Acer screen's drivers be the issue? I never updated them. And I used to use the screen for my old computer which used an ATI card. Any possibility this could have an adverse effect?

 

 

Also I'll uninstall teamspeak and try it in a bit again and bring back the results.

[DragonSpawn]

I ran another interesting test.

 

I started the game in windowed mode. The standard window is 640x400.

 

1) So I started playing the game at max settings with 640x400 to see if stress to the system causes anything. No, everything goes smoothly.

 

2) I open the console in the game, put in "setres" and expand the window. I go to 800x600. Again I play at max settings to see if any stress causes issues. The game played smoothly.

 

3) I put in setres again and do 1024x768, again all goes and plays smoothly.

 

4) Then as a last thing I put in the resolution of my desktop, 1280x800. It crashes immediately. It doesn't even allow me to join a match to stress it, the sheer fact that I in the menu changed the resolution to the same as the desktop, which would theoretically make the 1024x768 window fullscreen size. It went boom and did the usual BSOD and reboot.

[Goku]

I think you have finally got it Sean. The game is not able to stretch itself in full screen at such a high resolution and therefore it restarts immediately. For this I recommend you to lower your resolution to 1024 x 768 and run the games. Now I understand that the resolution plays an important role too in the functioning of the games. Thanks for the information. :)

 

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

1280X800 screen size?

I still think its a driver issue - are you 100% they are for the right OS, I know it seems daft but we have to check everything :)

 

Out of curiosity what is the game - Is an MMORPG - that updates itself?

[DragonSpawn]

The natural resolution of my 19° widescreen is 1440x900. But since no game has that res I changed the desktop res to 1280x800 the same res I put the game to, so the system wouldn't have to convert from 1440x900 to 1280x800 but could stay at the same resolution. Obviously didn't bring anything....

 

 

Which drivers for which OS? I use Windows XP home edition service pack 2.

 

 

The game is a steam game called Red Orchestra which hasn't had an update in months.

[DragonSpawn]

Should I try putting my desktop resolution to 1024x768, then try to launch the game at 1024x768? Or is that pointless?

[Goku]

Should I try putting my desktop resolution to 1024x768, then try to launch the game at 1024x768? Or is that pointless?

No it will surely not be pointless. Please try that and report back what happens. :)

 

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

Have a look on a site called widescreengaming.com and search for that game it will tell you how to set the game to any resolution - try that and see if it helps.

 

And the drivers I meant are the nvidia ones - are you sure you have the xp ones and not the vista ones from the website :)

[DragonSpawn]

I did what you said. I turned the desktop resolution to 1024x768. I then proceeded to launch the game in windowed mode, however I forgot that I last time put in the command "setres 1280x800" when testing the windowed mode. This led to this peculiar result where quite a bit of the window was offscreen:

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a364/DS16/Unbenannt-53.jpg

 

 

Since I couldn't reach the exit option in the game menu which was offscreen, I got rid of the windowed game per ctrl-alt-del and task manager, by killing the process.

 

 

I then decided to launch the game in fullscreen. In the launch options I put in " -autoconfig" for the game to best adapt to my system. It launched clean. I then went to check the configurations, in the ingame configurations it said the " -autoconfig" apparently made it launch at 800x600 resolution. I then to test it, in the display tab in the ingame menu attempt to change it from 800x600 to my current desktop resolution of 1024x768....and it crashes.

 

So does this mean it can play windowed games with resolutions making the window bigger than my actual screen, but it cannot play fullscreen at equal screen resolution?

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: Also I attempted to go on that website, all I got was a referral website with loads of links to ebay and the likes. You sure the site still exists?

[DragonSpawn]

Also since the site of the monitor said the natural resolution of the monitor is 1440x900, I returned to that one. Since apparently using the same resolution at desktop as is demanded in the game doesn't bring one anything as we saw.

 

Or should I change it to other resolutions for other tests?

[DragonSpawn]

Anyway just in case it interests you guys, this is how my temporary solution looks like. Have the monitor res on 1440x900 and play the games in a 1280x800 window mode:

 

 

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a364/DS16/Unbenannt1-6.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just sharing this so you guys don't break your backs trying to find an answer, since I am lucky enough that my issue is merely that the games play super, just not in fullscreen. But even then my windowed mode is probably a larger window than 75% of the PC users out there. So meh.

 

It's a shame but meh. If there is no solution to it, I theoretically can survive trying to live around the issue. With my specs I can even play Crysis in windowed mode without too much of a performance loss, so the general anti-window thesis is thankfully not applyable for me.

 

Although on the bright side of things windowed mode does have it's advantages in that I can multitask and simply chat message people at the same time as playing. >_>

 

Another thing. Theoretically all games can be window moded right? Or does one need to go .ini messing with them to window mode them to an appropriate size?

[Goku]

Sean, all games can run in Windowed mode so do not edit their .ini files unless absolutely necessary.

 

As I said before, you are trying to run the game at a very high resolution. Just try to play it in Windowed mode because as you rightly said, your Windowed mode is larger than most PC users' Full Screen mode. Thanks for posting the useful information as it may be very useful should there be some similar issues in the future. Also, glad you got it fixed. :)

 

Please ask any more questions or doubts you may have. :)

 

-- Goku