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
    2009-12-06T20:00:59+00:00

    I have the same problem of Starcraft freezing in Windows 7. Happens every 30 minutes or so.

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  2. Anonymous
    2009-12-05T05:53:53+00:00

    i have done further looking into this with multiple applications which make use of double buffering or triplebuffering (and vsync). The results are that these applications when run in DDraw fail to lock the primary buffer and result in Screen tearing and also the drawing of the windows startmenu orb and flashing taskbar buttons to display on top of the application in fullscreen. Had the primary framebuffer locked, this would NOT occur. That said. This is a windows 7 bug spanning both X32 and x64, and video drivers have no bearing what so ever. The same applications work fine on Vista. The only thing i can think of is these applications are displaying the behavior of an application manifested for Windows 7, rather then older versions and so are unable to lock the primary buffer. more info here http://www.codenamewindows.com/?p=58

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-11-30T16:38:09+00:00

    Windows 7 appears to be preventing the games from locking the primary Buffer! even with DWM disabled.

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-11-30T10:46:40+00:00

    A very good coverage of the problem, have been having it for months now since I started using the RC. No driver updates helped and neither did other suggested solutions. I use W7 32bit but the issue still remains (played for a few hours for the first time I upgraded to full Win7, was happy that it was resolved, but the next time I played it happenned again)

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  5. Anonymous
    2009-11-24T04:14:08+00:00

    Already verified that to be not the case,  If it was the sound, then running in windowed mode wouldn't prevent the issue. Running fraps or any other software which can raise a window above the game makes it freeze faster.

    In that case, its more likely to be the GUI Drawing in these apps, rather then the sound.

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