screen goes black

[sherlock1]

Playing AE since its release. Lately while playing, the screen will go black, clicking the icon on it will return with no probelms. This may happen during the first minute, or after an hour of play. No other game, I have many, do this. Using Unoffical public beta. Video drivers are the latest and no problems with computer. Any thoughts on this

[Spidery]

I have a similar problem except that the screen goes white. I have found that shutting down most other programs first reduces the frequency of occurrence. In particular, I have to close Firefox and I also close my email client. Also, I close WITP-AE between each turn resolution but not sure that is really necessary. This all suggests a memory problem.

The problem became more pronounced after I moved to a recent graphics driver which I had to do following a Vista security update.

Removing the "-dd_sw" switch completely fixed the issue but the lags and delays were unacceptable to me.

[btd64]

To the best of my recollection, AE requires full use of the screen, when using full screen settings. My system will do something similar, except it goes to the main window screen with all my short cuts. When a background program starts doing something this happens. Not often though....GP

[Lokasenna]

My suspicion is a Direct Draw issue also. I don't think you can really do anything about that, other than removing the -dd_sw switch, but that may affect your performance as Spidery experienced.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

To the best of my recollection, AE requires full use of the screen, when using full screen settings. My system will do something similar, except it goes to the main window screen with all my short cuts. When a background program starts doing something this happens. Not often though....GP

What do you mean by the bolded section? Can you give an example of the shortcut switches/flags that you are referring to?

[btd64]

One of the switches I use is -fd. Which is full screen, daily saves. I also use a single core switch to cut back the lag time when clicking on something/issuing orders. Theres one other but I don't have my game computer handy as I am using WIFI on the road right now. Hope this helps....GP