DirectDraw applications Freeze on Windows 7 anywhere between 1 minute and 3 hours into running them.

Anonymous
2009-11-20T04:44:45+00:00

Scouring the web, I have come to the conclusion that this is a Windows 7 issue, and there is no link between hardware, or drivers as it occurs on ATI, Intel and Nvidia chips.

Games such as Starcraft may freeze as soon as you hit the first menu screen, or as late as half way through a mission.

Age of Empires * games freeze on a black screen between the last intro video and the main menu (but as tested so far once in a mission will not freeze)

Warcraft 2 BNE is the same as Starcraft.

Worms Armageddon is effected randomly as well.

Heroes of might and magic 1 and 2

Starlancer (between missions or on he main menu)

Blood Omen during during movie sequences

So far i've verified that

Affinity does not fix it.

Process Priority does not fix it.

End tasking or pausing Explorer does not fix it.

Selective startup does not fix it.

Running without drivers will not fix it (don't even bother suggesting it).

This is an issue that doesn't have any correlation to system configuration,  The game that gets the most coverage with this issue is Starcraft and though that might get a Patch, its no doubt that the Age of empires games won't.

The freeze is not a hardlock,  rather its a freeze of the display and input controls.  Processes in the background continue running and if you are in a chat on skype or xfire these continue as well according to some users.

Someone mentioned a Race issue between Ddraw and WDDM, but i've no idea how to verify that.

Specific Starcraft issue is here http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/11659-starcraft-freezes-after-1-5-minutes-playing.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/10190-starcraft-system-crash.html

but Issues for Age of empires and worms can be found across the internet.

theres even on here

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproappcompat/thread/bde26b63-e8fc-46ac-8541-7f8154c8328d

Note:  All the fixes known to work on Vista, do not work on Windows 7.

This issue only occurs in games that also have the bad colours issue, so basically any 8bit/256 colour titles. 16bpp appear to be fine.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Gaming

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-05-24T06:44:50+00:00

    Sry i am noob ^^.I jst checked my directx settings,(using dxdiag) and it says both the  D3d AND DDraw  are not available.What does it mean.I have the latest Directx btw (OS is windows 7).

    Any help will be appreciated.Ty.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-05-24T06:05:54+00:00

    I faced a similar problem with warcraft in W7.1st i get the error "Warcraft 3 needs latest directx version etc".On installing directx 11,i got no error message,but the game doesnt strt either.It freezes at the load screen indefinitely.And yes i dont think its a driver related problem.Any suggestions,to make the game run in Windows7,or is the only way out to install vista?

     

     

    Read before posting.

    WC3 is D3D, this is a DDraw topic. your issue is unrelated.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-05-24T05:54:53+00:00

    I faced a similar problem with warcraft in W7.1st i get the error "Warcraft 3 needs latest directx version etc".On installing directx 11,i got no error message,but the game doesnt strt either.It freezes at the load screen indefinitely.And yes i dont think its a driver related problem.Any suggestions,to make the game run in Windows7,or is the only way out to install vista?

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-05-14T20:03:49+00:00

    Haven't had any freezes under Vbox.

    as to your other question,  theres no way in ____ it'd fix it as long as it stuck to using the 8bit palette.

    and it does, indeed seem to nly be the games that use a 8bit ddraw pallette,  basically any game effected by the colour bug is also effected in some way by the freeze bug.

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-05-14T19:48:34+00:00

    I feel very frustrated, the game keeps freezing even when I use VMware or VirtualBox. I was wondering if you've heard any news on whether the classic StarCraft that will come with the collector's edition of StarCraft II will solve this problem?

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