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
    2011-05-21T12:20:09+00:00

    All,

       As with any forum, when in doubt, create your own thread.  It is the best thing to do to get assistance with your specific issue.  This thread was started to discuss DirectDraw issues specifically.  If you have a problem with a game and you are unaware if it uses DirectDraw or not then it is probably safer to start a new thread.

    Squall,

        Most of the games you have listed are either not Windows 7 compatible or are currently unknown in their compatibility.  Make sure to check the Windows 7 compatibility center for any software before trying to install\run it on a Windows 7 machine.  

    Starcraft (information pending)

    Worms (not listed for Windows 7, listed not compatible with Vista)

    Sierra's Pharaoh/Cleopatra (not listed for Vista or Windows 7) 

    So with that in mind the only thing I could suggest would be to right click the game .exe file and change the compatibility mode to XP.  Also depending on what version of Windows 7 you have, you may able to install XP Mode and run it with that. 

    Mike - Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

    Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

    a couple of these games i was wrong in indicating, DirectDraw applications that use 16bpp work fine, these include HOMM3, Pharaoh.

    However Starlancer semi freezes, with CAD working to get out of it, whilst games that mix DirectDraw (DirectMedia video's) and D3D, and straight DDraw 256 colour titles freeze the system entirely, these include Starcraft and Age of Empires 1 and 2, of which of which you mark Starcraft and Rise of Rome as compatible with windows 7, where the hardlocks are still happening as well as color palette corruption.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-03-26T08:40:23+00:00

    March 2011, and the closest this is to being fixed is third party wrappers.

    come on microsoft, this shouldn't take you more then an hour to fix the broken palette lock.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-11-16T12:10:19+00:00

    targets XDDM drivers, but you never know, it might fix this issue as well

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980731

    didn't help

    on another note, starcraft was playing fine until WLM was opened.

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-10-31T22:27:58+00:00

    halfnhalf altwinpos

     

    not

    halfnhalf

    altwinpos

    had that, as I said, no new lines, tried even without halfnhalf since it is redundant I think

    but what does fix this for me is launching through chaos launcher... don't know why

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