Playing cards flashing in Microsoft games

[SC Tom]

OK. A last shot that I get from;
http://tinyurl.com/d2f9ywp
Two methods; reduce hardware acceleration, install latest DirectX user
run-times

No hardware acceleration adjustment available with this Nvidia card, I
guess; the option is grayed out.

I ran the DirectX update, and that was no help either :-( I already have
DX11, so I think all that link did was update the DX9 compatibility.

 

[SC Tom]

OK. A last shot that I get from;
http://tinyurl.com/d2f9ywp
Two methods; reduce hardware acceleration, install latest DirectX user
run-times

Ed

P.S. If you've already tried any of these, please forgive my oversight.

I also tried logging in as THE administrator, and the problem occurs there,
too. So I guess it's not a corrupt profile (which I was beginning to wonder
about).

 

[Jeff Layman]

Ran it directly from the XP drive in Win7 (no Virtual XP in Win7 Home
Premium).


I have nothing 64-bit (other than my CPU )since I'm running Win7
32-bit.

Ah. I had assumed 64-bit. Since both sol.exe are 32-bit, why should
one be ok and the other not? Is the 32-bit Win7 sol.exe as bloated as
the 64-bit version?
Win7 x64 sol.exe 844kb
XP 32-bit sol.exe 56kb

 

[SC Tom]

Ah. I had assumed 64-bit. Since both sol.exe are 32-bit, why should one
be ok and the other not? Is the 32-bit Win7 sol.exe as bloated as the
64-bit version?
Win7 x64 sol.exe 844kb
XP 32-bit sol.exe 56kb

Almost- 717KB. Of course, it's a lot more animated than the XP version.

 

[SC Tom]

If anyone wants to see what it looks like, here's a video of it. Not the
best quality, but you'll get the idea:

http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=xDroBU9Q+PQ1EuhDa8XuA4h4l5k2TGxc

 

[Jeff Layman]

If anyone wants to see what it looks like, here's a video of it. Not the
best quality, but you'll get the idea:

http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=xDroBU9Q+PQ1EuhDa8XuA4h4l5k2TGxc

That /is/ weird. Does unchecking "Display animations" in the options
make any difference?

 

[Andy Burns]

That /is/ weird. Does unchecking "Display animations" in the options
make any difference?

It's almost like the TAB or an ARROW key is lodged down ... checked for
crumbs?

 

[Paul]

If anyone wants to see what it looks like, here's a video of it. Not the
best quality, but you'll get the idea:

http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=xDroBU9Q+PQ1EuhDa8XuA4h4l5k2TGxc

I took a look at it too.

It doesn't seem to be a video card problem. That's the good news.

The video output, seems to be valid responses to what the program
thinks is input. So the game is doing its best, to keep up
with what it thinks is coming in from the HID subsystem.

I fired up my Windows 7 laptop, and ran the Solitaire on there,
and the card "highlighting" is what makes the outer edge of the
card flash. So the effect you see, is what happens when a card
is selected. The game thinks the mouse cursor is sliding over the
stacks of cards, at high speed. (Yet, in your video, it's pretty
obvious the mouse cursor *isn't* flying around. It's just the input
events the program is getting, that make it think so.)

*Something* is flying over the playing surface, and selecting things.

So how can we do that ?

1) Some HID device has a book resting on top of it.
Maybe a jammed arrow key. An optical mouse with a problem.
A touchpad with a hardware problem. But we know that can't be
the case, because only a few games using the same APIs, suffer
from the problem. And the on-screen mouse cursor doesn't move either.

2) The effect is at super high speed. Note the effect on the menus
for example, where the program, at high speed, moves from one menu
selection to the next.

3) There doesn't even seem to be the normal amount of frames for menus
to fade in and out (Aero???).

Another possibility, might have to do with the "session" the program runs
in. Some things Windows 7 does, are effectively done in sort of a different
user account. I was thinking maybe the OS was flipping back and forth
between two different sessions, at high speed for some reason.

The speed of the effect, suggests to me the OS is in a loop
somewhere, rather than some input device being able to generate
an event stream to do it. And I haven't a clue, what it might be
doing, or how you can debug Windows 7 from that point of view
(dissecting screen elements and what subsystems they might think
they belong to).

Do you use something line Microsoft Intellipoint software ?
Has that changed recently ?

Looking at the video, it was hard to tell from the responses,
whether the input events are sliding purely horizontally,
or whether they're flying around in both dimensions.

Very strange...

Paul

 

[SC Tom]

That /is/ weird. Does unchecking "Display animations" in the options make
any difference?

I can open Options using F5, but I can't select anything since it won't
'settle' on any item. I tried tabbing between each and using the space bar
to try and select something randomly, but I'm obviously not quick enough to
do it. So, the answer is "I don't know."

 

[SC Tom]

It's almost like the TAB or an ARROW key is lodged down ... checked for
crumbs?

If that was the case, it would act that way in everything, not just MS
games.

 

[Jeff Layman]

I can open Options using F5, but I can't select anything since it won't
'settle' on any item. I tried tabbing between each and using the space bar
to try and select something randomly, but I'm obviously not quick enough to
do it. So, the answer is "I don't know."

You should be able to toggle the animation option with the "D" key.

If that doesn't work (and clutching at straws here), but looking at:
Control Panel | Performance Information and Tools | Adjust Visual
Effects | Visual Effects tab

Does it make any difference to what you see depending on which of the
four radio buttons is set?

I know it shouldn't be relevant as it should have the same effect on MS
and non-MS games. But this is Windows we are talking about...

If none of that works, sorry - I'm out of ideas.

 

[SC Tom]

Let me go back a few years. . .
A long time ago, I bought an Xbox360 controller for my PC (running XP at the
time). Every time I plugged it in, my sound would mess up; it would sound
like someone had slashed the speaker, like a Jimi Hendrix fuzzbox. At first,
I thought it might have been a driver conflict, but I figured out that the
controller was drawing almost 500mA of current from my USB bus, and that was
dragging the whole system down; hence the problem with my USB sound card
(device?). To solve that problem, I bought a powered hub to use for the
controller and any other USB devices, leaving the sound plugged directly
into the back of the MB. Worked like a champ throughout my XP years and
right into installing Win7 a couple of months ago on this machine.

About the same time that I installed Win7, my old UPS gave up the ghost
(battery died, and so did the charging circuit- I now have a spare battery
in the closet), so I bought a new one. It uses a USB port for the interface
with the computer for notifications, shutdown on power loss, etc. I plugged
it into the hub, and it would work fine for a while, then display "Lost
connection with UPS." I didn't have any spare ports on the MB, so I
unplugged my Sidewinder X4 keyboard from the MB, plugged the UPS USB cable
into there, and plugged the KB into the hub. Worked great, no problems, no
more error messages from the UPS.

Then this started with the MS games. After all the other things I had
already tried, I decided to uninstall both IntelliType and IntelliPoint and
see if either of them might be the culprit (after reading Paul's post).
Didn't make any difference (I had already tried rebooting without the KB
plugged in). Then I figured I'd plug in my PS/2 keyboard and mouse,
unplugging my USB KB and mouse dongle. Hallelujah, it worked! As I was
swapping all this around, I remembered the problem that I had with the UPS
program, and thought "Duh!" So I shut it down, plugged the mouse and KB into
MB ports (disabled the UPS notification program for now), booted up, and
everything worked as it should. I still hadn't re-installed the Intelli-
programs, so I installed them one at a time, rebooting and testing between
installations. It all is still working, except the UPS software since I
don't have a MB port for it. No biggie, though- I rarely leave my PC on when
I'm gone from the house, and I've got enough sense to turn it off if there's
no power.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions and ideas, especially Ed from
talking me out of reimaging my drive, since I would have had the same
problem again eventually. I still don't know why the problem didn't manifest
itself immediately; maybe it was triggered by a new update or something (I
haven't installed any new hardware or software since the UPS program). But
at this point, don't know, don't care. I'm just happy that everything's as
it should be. It's not that being without Solitaire would be an
earth-sending event, but I'm sure some of you other OC geeks know where I'm
coming from

Thanks again to all!

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Tom.

Congratulations! ;<)

And thanks for posting the eventual resolution. We all can learn from that.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3555.0308) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1


"SC Tom" wrote in message
Let me go back a few years. . .
A long time ago, I bought an Xbox360 controller for my PC (running XP at the
time). Every time I plugged it in, my sound would mess up; it would sound
like someone had slashed the speaker, like a Jimi Hendrix fuzzbox. At first,
I thought it might have been a driver conflict, but I figured out that the
controller was drawing almost 500mA of current from my USB bus, and that was
dragging the whole system down; hence the problem with my USB sound card
(device?). To solve that problem, I bought a powered hub to use for the
controller and any other USB devices, leaving the sound plugged directly
into the back of the MB. Worked like a champ throughout my XP years and
right into installing Win7 a couple of months ago on this machine.

About the same time that I installed Win7, my old UPS gave up the ghost
(battery died, and so did the charging circuit- I now have a spare battery
in the closet), so I bought a new one. It uses a USB port for the interface
with the computer for notifications, shutdown on power loss, etc. I plugged
it into the hub, and it would work fine for a while, then display "Lost
connection with UPS." I didn't have any spare ports on the MB, so I
unplugged my Sidewinder X4 keyboard from the MB, plugged the UPS USB cable
into there, and plugged the KB into the hub. Worked great, no problems, no
more error messages from the UPS.

Then this started with the MS games. After all the other things I had
already tried, I decided to uninstall both IntelliType and IntelliPoint and
see if either of them might be the culprit (after reading Paul's post).
Didn't make any difference (I had already tried rebooting without the KB
plugged in). Then I figured I'd plug in my PS/2 keyboard and mouse,
unplugging my USB KB and mouse dongle. Hallelujah, it worked! As I was
swapping all this around, I remembered the problem that I had with the UPS
program, and thought "Duh!" So I shut it down, plugged the mouse and KB into
MB ports (disabled the UPS notification program for now), booted up, and
everything worked as it should. I still hadn't re-installed the Intelli-
programs, so I installed them one at a time, rebooting and testing between
installations. It all is still working, except the UPS software since I
don't have a MB port for it. No biggie, though- I rarely leave my PC on when
I'm gone from the house, and I've got enough sense to turn it off if there's
no power.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions and ideas, especially Ed from
talking me out of reimaging my drive, since I would have had the same
problem again eventually. I still don't know why the problem didn't manifest
itself immediately; maybe it was triggered by a new update or something (I
haven't installed any new hardware or software since the UPS program). But
at this point, don't know, don't care. I'm just happy that everything's as
it should be. It's not that being without Solitaire would be an
earth-sending event, but I'm sure some of you other OC geeks know where I'm
coming from

Thanks again to all!

 

[G. Morgan]

If anyone wants to see what it looks like, here's a video of it. Not the
best quality, but you'll get the idea:

http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=xDroBU9Q+PQ1EuhDa8XuA4h4l5k2TGxc

Tom,

How about creating a new user in the control panel and login as that
user to see if It's a problem with your profile settings.

 

[SC Tom]

Thanks, and you're welcome! I don't know if anyone else has had that same
problem (if they did, it isn't on the web), but if they do, here's the
solution (or at least, it was for me) until the newsgroups drop it for age

 

[SC Tom]

Tom,

How about creating a new user in the control panel and login as that
user to see if It's a problem with your profile settings.

Read at the end of the thread and you'll see I figured it out.

One of the things I did earlier was log in as the hidden administrator, and
the problem repeated itself with that user also. That was why I didn't
create a new user for myself (and what a PITA that is, almost more so than
troubleshooting this ).

 

[Andy Burns]

If that was the case, it would act that way in everything, not just MS
games.

Yeah, that's why I said 'almost' though with n-key rollover you can get
some odd effects with a stuck key.

 

[Jeff Layman]

On 12/07/2012 14:55, SC Tom wrote:

(snip - see SC Tom's post for info)

Thanks for posting.

But I'd wondered why you'd said "Resolved" instead of "Solved". Why
should only the MS games have been affected?

I think your problem deserves a high position in the "Weird and
Unexpected" league!

 

[SC Tom]

On 12/07/2012 14:55, SC Tom wrote:

(snip - see SC Tom's post for info)

Thanks for posting.

But I'd wondered why you'd said "Resolved" instead of "Solved". Why
should only the MS games have been affected?

I think your problem deserves a high position in the "Weird and
Unexpected" league!

I'm not sure why it would only be the MS games. The only thing I can come up
with (and mind you, this is a pretty big stretch) is that there was some
relation between the KB API and the selection API in the games. Maybe
because they're both Microsoft games? Got me; I'm not that good of a
programmer (besides, I'm sure it wasn't written in Basic ); assembly
language was never my forte'.

The solution 'resolved' my situation, and it may 'solve' someone else's
similar problem, or, it 'solved' my problem, and may 'resolve' someone
else's also?

To quote from
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/3330-solve-vs-resolve.html

"Both words have meanings that overlap and those that don't. The word
"solve" is confined to "finding a solution". One can solve a problem, but
one can also solve a puzzle, solve a mathematics equation, etc. One does not
usually resolve puzzles or equations. One can also resolve a problem. This
can mean finding a solution, but it usually extends beyond that -- to making
the problem go away. "
"But to my best knowledge, to resolve also means to find a satisfactory
solution to a problem."

 

[G. Morgan]

Read at the end of the thread and you'll see I figured it out.

Just saw it, glad you got it!

One of the things I did earlier was log in as the hidden administrator, and
the problem repeated itself with that user also. That was why I didn't
create a new user for myself (and what a PITA that is, almost more so than
troubleshooting this ).

I was grasping too... I didn't see it on your list so I figured it
couldn't hurt. ;-)