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
    2010-09-25T23:08:24+00:00

    Why? Does one of Chaoslauncher's plugins conflicts with DDHack?

    Also, do you have an idea why the mouse is laggy when using DDhack?

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-09-25T20:36:42+00:00

    Well, the closest thing we have to a real solution is definitely DDHack , but as already said, it's not really an ideal for Starcraft just yet.

    Here are some of the side effects that happens when using the DDHack with Starcraft:

    http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=151063#8

     

    Now since DDHack is an open source project, the question is, who will rise to the challenge to make it work with Starcraft? I already e-mailed an author of this hack and he has no plans on continuing the work on it.

    DDhack uses opengl, so the nvidia/ati scaling settings will work on it to stretch or maintain aspect.

    also.... wth are those guys doing trying to use ddhack with chaos launcher lol.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-09-25T19:28:34+00:00

    Well, the closest thing we have to a real solution is definitely DDHack, but as already said, it's not really an ideal for Starcraft just yet.

    Here are some of the side effects that happens when using the DDHack with Starcraft:

    http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=151063#8

    Now since DDHack is an open source project, the question is, who will rise to the challenge to make it work with Starcraft? I already e-mailed an author of this hack and he has no plans on continuing the work on it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-21T11:33:00+00:00

    Guys, I gotta tell you that my problem with StarCraft solved itself... What did I do? I changed my integrated nvidia graphics card for an ATI Radeon and the crashes just didn't happen anymore. 

    don't even try that ____,  there are as many people with this issue on ATI as there are on nvidia and intel.

    The first time i even experienced the issue was on a Radeon 3200, and reproduced shortly after on a Intel and then nvidia graphics chip.

    The other game issues i experienced on the radeon also keeps me off them.

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-09-21T04:02:04+00:00

    Guys, I gotta tell you that my problem with StarCraft solved itself... What did I do? I changed my integrated nvidia graphics card for an ATI Radeon and the crashes just didn't happen anymore.

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