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Topic: Virtual DJ freezes pop up windows - Page: 1

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I have been using VDJ with windows 7 64 bit and it is very irritating when it will not allow windows to release pop up windows. Won't allow the windows to close after clicking ok or the x button. It is like somehow after the window pops up and you make your selection the window should close and dissapear but instead it just sits their and no way to close it and get it to dissapear off the screen unless you shut down VDJ. Any one know why this happens and if their is a fix for it???

Thanks,

DJ James
 
Posted Sun 20 Jun 10 @ 4:16 pm
Has this always been happening?

i'm curious because the "freeze" issue with the 64bit users was reported a year? ago, yet no one reported it then?
Now a few cases has popped up..
 
Yes I believe I mentioned something about it then but never heard anything back about it. The problem does not stop VDJ from working but is just a real pain in the royal behind. Like when you stop a song while it is playing or load a track into a deck that is playing and that little window pops up to ask you if you are sure you want to stop the song. Sometimes that little window will pop up behind the VDJ skin and you can't see it unless you move VDJ out of the way and then because of the layering of the desktop it won't let you click on VDJ until you answer Yes or No but you can't because the window is behind VDJ. Only way to fix it is to do CTRL ALT DELETE and exit VDJ. Then all the windows show up where they are supposed too and close out easily. I think people just put up with it cuz it can be fixed by restarting VDJ. It is more of a pain for me now though because I use firetext administrator and have to keep jumping back and forth between the two windows and gets stuck alot. Not sure why it is doing this but no other programs on my laptop cause this, only VDJ.

DJ James
 
jamesvanek wrote :
Yes I believe I mentioned something about it then but never heard anything back about it.


jamesvanek in video Freeze thread wrote :
My solution to throw another track in immedietly after crossfading is the only way that I have found to avoid overloading the video card. As long as I do this, VDJ will continue to work flawlessly throughout the night wth no problems and displaying crystal clear HD video and graphic plugins as well as HD clips with clipbank.


I was wondering if maybe it started happening AFTER you applied the Registry Fix? (forcing VDJ to only use 512 video memory)

I'm already thinking theirs a weird connection of some sort.. as some of the same people are having this problem?
 
The problem started with Windows 7 64bit upgrade. Did not get this in Vista but still got the video freeze. I believe that this is just another OS problem that is inherint with using WOW64 to run VDJ instead of just coming out with a 64bit version that is designed to work with the newer and faster machines as well as the newer direct x. VDJ is still operating as if it is running on an old XP 32 bit platform running through a lot of interpreters. One day we will get an updated version designed to work on todays machines insteaad of 10 year old machines. Maybe when Windows 20 256bit comes out we will get a windows 7 64bit version. lol JUST KIDDING DEV CRUE. I am not sure if any of the atomix programmers can program 64 bit machines or the newer direct x. Maybe they can but just can't do it within the current VDJ platform and would have to rewrite the whole thing. Instead we just keep patching the problems and doing workarounds.

JMHO - DJ James
 
 
Glad to see that their are others speaking up on this issue and I am not the only one with this problem. I did kind of ignore it earlier because it could be fixed fairly easily and did not happen that often but now that I am using another active window with my firetext plugin, it has become a major problem. It's as if VDJ is grabbing the desktop and putting a hold on it. Maybe it has something to do with the new desktop layering security features of windows 7 that are designed to stop hackers. I wonder if their is a way to disable that feature to check and see if that the problem. Or if it is advisable to do so.

DJ James
 
 
Look at this info from wiki. No wonder it is so hard for the dev guys to get all the bugs out.

During full-screen applications, such as games, the DWM does not perform window compositing and therefore performance will not appreciably decrease.

[edit] Redirection
For rendering techniques that are not DWM-aware, output must be redirected to the DWM buffers. With Windows, either GDI or DirectX can be used for rendering. To make these two work with DWM, redirection techniques for both are provided with DWM.

With GDI, which is the most used UI rendering technique in Microsoft Windows, each application window is notified when it or a part of it comes in view and it is the job of the application to render itself. Without DWM, the rendering rasterizes the UI in a buffer in video memory, from where it is rendered to the screen. Under DWM, a buffer equal to the size of the window is allocated in system memory. GDI calls are redirected to write their outputs to this buffer, rather than the video memory. Another buffer is allocated in the video memory to represent the DirectX surface, which is used as the texture for the Window meshes. The system memory buffer is converted to the DirectX surface separately, and kept in sync. This round-about route is required as GDI cannot output directly in DirectX pixel format. The surface is read by the compositor and is composited to the desktop in video memory. Writing the output of GDI to system memory is not hardware accelerated, nor is conversion to DirectX surface. When a GDI window is minimized, by the limitations of GDI, the buffer is no longer updated. So, DWM uses the last bitmap rendered to the buffer before the application was minimized.[8]

For applications using DirectX to write to a 3D surface, the DirectX implementation in Windows Vista uses WDDM to share the surface with DWM. DWM then uses the surface directly and maps it on to the window meshes. For WPF applications, which are DirectX applications, the compositor renders to such shared surfaces, which are then composited into the final desktop.[8] Applications can mix either rendering technique across multiple child windows, as long as both GDI and DirectX are not used to render the same window. In that case, the ordering between DirectX and GDI rendering cannot be guaranteed, and as such it cannot be guaranteed whether the GDI bitmap from the system memory has been translated to the video memory surface. So, the final composition may not contain the GDI-rendered elements.[8] To prevent this, DWM is temporarily turned off, as long as an application which mixes GDI and DirectX in the same window is running.

This is very confusing. Glad I don't do programming for a living. If I Stuck all that in my head and tried to render something to the screen I think I would get a very nice colored BLUE SCREEN.

DJ James
 
is this the same as when you have windows aero enabled, and you swap open windows too often, and you get stuck with a ghost of an open window on screen (usually if you ALT n TAB to Notepad too often) ???

that happens to me with win7 32bit and all recent VirtualDJ builds.


if that i say is not what you mention above, i will post this in software issues forum...
 
marksmolinski wrote :
is this the same as when you have windows aero enabled, and you swap open windows too often, and you get stuck with a ghost of an open window on screen (usually if you ALT n TAB to Notepad too often) ???

that happens to me with win7 32bit and all recent VirtualDJ builds.


if that i say is not what you mention above, i will post this in software issues forum...


Yes this is what is happening. Also I noticed that after a "ghost" window gets stuck on the top layer of your desktop if I try to move my VDJ a second instance of VDJ moves behind my active VDJ screen instead. Both are actively playing video's but only the second instance behind the first instance will respond to mouse clicks. So it would seem that not only the window has turned into a ghost but also VDJ itself has turned into a ghost with a new instance directly behind it. This is crazy and very irritating. Should be fixed ASAP. Only solution I have to fix it is to close down VDJ and restart. As soon as I hit X and close it out, all the ghost images dissapear and desktop is back to normal. So it is not the OS that is causing this but VDJ is somehow actively holding these ghost layers in place.

DJ James
 
@hippydog

The occurance of this phenoma is completely random. Sometimes it starts doing it right away and other times takes a while to start doing it.
I don't know about the registry hack. I have set mine at 256 and have not gotten the video freeze since then so I am not messing with it.

DJ James
 
Today, I've admitted defeat with this problem and am restoring my laptop back to Windows Vista (gawd it's taking ages with the updates) Virtual DJ worked great before I upgraded to 7

Out of curiosity, can those with this problem tell me if their pc's came with Windows 7 pre installed..or did you do an upgrade from a previous operating system?

I'm trying to work out why very few seem to be experiencing this
 
@Allan

My laptop came preinstalled with Windows Vista 64bit. I have two hard drives so I installed a full version of Windows 7 64bit on my secondary Data drive. That allows me to choose which version to use at startup and I can switch back and forth if I need too.

DJ James
 
Typical. After restoring my laptop to Vista, I think I've found a fix for this problem on Windows 7.

Go to Control panel, Appearance and personalisation, click on personalisation, then scroll down to windows 7 basic. This switches off the areo system.

I've been running it for 2 hours with no stuck windows while using MSN, Firefox, IE8, and explorer folders open.

Worth a try!

I notice on Vista, It automatically resorts to Vista basic whe the desktop is extended, Perhaps Windows 7 doesn't do this and could be the problem
 
Gonna give your solution a try. You may be on to something here. I'll let you know after I have had time to test it.

DJ James
 
Definately works for me. Ran for 6 hours and it was fine. Even opening and closing windows is more responsive and quicker. Seemingly using the aero functions take a lot of resources. Also, my laptop is running cooler than before.
 
I have tried your idea and it appears to have stopped. One other thing I have noticed is that I have never had this problem on my main computer since I upgraded my Graphics card to a ATI the old one was a geforce which is the same as my laptop graphics card.


Mark
 
I have a geforce on my desktop and an ATI on my gigging laptop and it had the same problem on both. Now fine when switched to Windows 7 basic. It's definately to do with the Aero system that causes it, but whether it's Windows 7 or various graphic cards that's the problem, or if there's a tweak available in Virtual DJ..who knows. Over to you nice mods/developers at Atomix!
 
Alan Todd wrote :

Go to Control panel, Appearance and personalisation, click on personalisation, then scroll down to windows 7 basic. This switches off the areo system.


I had the same problem at the weekend, ghost windows appearing stuck over the live vdj window, not being able to control vdj as a result - this on a windows 7 64 bit laptop. Thanks for the tip Alan.

Pete
 
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