Issue with changing screen res in windows aero = black screen.

[mike_bike_kite]

I’m trying to release a new version of my game and I’m getting a few issues. A knowledgeable user emailed me to say

“The new version will not work under Windows 7 64 bit (not sure about 32 bit) with the Aero theme – It distorts the 256 color palette or goes to a black screen. Found a way to get around it by changing the Desktop Theme to windows Basic (which turns off Aero and it’s effects)”

Can I get round this in code as it seems a bit much to expect users to have to do this?

I have a bat file that runs the program using

java -jar -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true AlienSwarm.jar

and this seemed to fix things for me but obviously not for him.

Game is here if it helps.

Cheers Mike

[princec]

Drivers.

Cas

[mike_bike_kite]

So people need to have the latest drivers to achieve 640x480 resolution gaming? ???
Mike

[princec]

No, they just need drivers that actually do what they’re supposed to do. Which usually means not the ones that come installed on the PC by the OEM which are invariably minimally tested and broken and rushed out the door.

Cas

[mike_bike_kite]

I asked one of my more knowledgeable users about the drivers on his PS and he replied:

I posted the bat file along with a link to the themeswitcher program I used in it in the thread. Feel free to use it or adjust as needed if you want to include a separate bat file for others with the problem.

It’s not a graphics driver issue but something to do with the aero interface and how it introduces transparency etc. for the desktop since windows 7 no longer supports 8 bit settings under aero (also default lowest resolution is 800x600 unless you go into advanced settings and have it display all modes ) – due to this somehow windows selects the wrong color palette when the game is launched resulting in a weird looking display ( like the photo I posted in the thread ) - Many older games experience the same problems and for many of them there are registry settings that can be done to reset which palette is used to fix it but since this game uses JAVA it does not have the registry keys or ID for compatibility to make that change like you can for an .exe ( see this thread for a discussion about the registry change for older games - http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/927140-win7-fixing-old-256-color-games-with-distorted-palettes/ )

I’ve run into the problem on a couple other older games but they had updates released (not sure what the update did but it might be making the registry adjustments :dunno ) - After reading a few articles on it I came across one for Wireshock that mentioned :

Modern PCs default to 32-bit true color graphics locally, but 256-color is
widely used to make remote desktops quicker and less bandwidth hungry. Hey,
even 16-color modes are used, and there's no reason Wireshark needs thousands
of colors even with colorized packet lists.

Note: If you want to test this with hardware and/or a Remote Desktop client
that doesn't let you set low color depth, save the .rdp file, open it in a text
editor and set "session bpp:i:8". Note also that on Windows 7 you don't want an
aero theme with 256 colors; choose something like the Windows Classic theme
instead.

So decided to try the Basic Theme and that fixed the problem - Not sure how else to fix it but this works and with the bat file it just slows the game launch by a few seconds so isn’t a big deal here. ( Not sure if any other Java programmers might know of a fix other than switching the theme back and forth but you might check some of the JAVA forums. )

I’d like to say I fully understand the issue (or the answer) but I don’t.

Mike

PS sorry for entering the centre quote as code but I can’t see how to indent that part or change it’s colour to make it clear it’s a separate piece.

[moogie]

I can confirm that it does not work for me (win 7) as well.

It is most definitely a product of how you are doing your rendering… having a look at your code it seems that you are performing unnecessary off screen image updates when you can just use the Frame’s BufferStrategy to do that for you. It will most likely be the cause of the incompatibility with fullscreen mode.

I would also suggest moving the code that updates the image out side of the AlienSwarm Paint method and just update the BufferStrategy’s graphics object and then call show() on the bufferstrategy once you have finished rendering a tick.

[mike_bike_kite]

Thanks for looking. Did you try clicking the bat file or the jar? The bat file normally gets round the black screen issue but just not for aero.

[moogie]

yes both did not work for me