11 replies to this topic

[pkflipper]

Hi all, just joined the other day and I'm still figuring out the program. I do like it, though, but I'm having a major issue which it seems some here have had before, that being the somewhat infamous "back buffer" error. I've tried adjusting every setting in VP that I can think of, but nothing's helped. I run it in administrator mode, take the resolution down to 16bit, and still no joy. If I uncheck the hardware acceleration box, the table goes to render but just hangs with a black screen and a white box where the score display would be.

Gateway with a 1.6 Ghz processor
4GB of RAM
Win 7 32bit
Nvidia GeForce 210 video card with 1GB dedicated video memory

The table I'm trying to run is The Addams Family (I loved playing on this table in a real arcade back in the day, it's my alltime favorite). It actually played fine when I first installed VP, but I had been adjusting settings to try and get VP to work with 3DArcade (which is awesome, btw). But now I can't get the table to run even outside of 3DArcade on its own. Nor the default table that comes with VP. I've got my desktop resolution currently set at 1024x768 since 3DArcade works best that way, and I had set VP to match. I had originally gotten the table to work normally in both fullscreen and windowed mode (was experimenting with the best way to run it in 3DArcade). Somewhere in that process this error message came up (it first happened while I was trying to run the table inside 3DArcade). Just trying to give the context of the situation in hopes that that helps with finding a solution. Any help you guys could give would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[GSGregg]

.....I'm having a major issue..... that being the somewhat infamous "back buffer" error. If I uncheck the hardware acceleration box, the table goes to render but just hangs with a black screen and a white box where the score display would be.

Gateway with a 1.6 Ghz processor
4GB of RAM
Win 7 32bit
Nvidia GeForce 210 video card with 1GB dedicated video memory

Hello, pkflipper;

While I've been learning as I go, and I've been 'going' for two and a half years, there may be some who feel that I haven't learned much. "Cannot create back buffer, or.....offscreen surface" indicate insufficient video memory; your GeForce 210, however, has the recommended 1GB, so I wonder if your computer (laptop? 1.6Ghz is slow for a desktop) is set to onboard/integrated graphics, with a shared-memory allotment far below 1GB.

The table I'm trying to run..... The Addams Family..... actually played fine when I first installed VP, but I had been adjusting settings to try and get VP to work with 3DArcade.

Afraid I'm unfamiliar with 3DArcade and what effects related adjustments will have.

I've got my desktop (Woops! I was assuming laptop---GSG) resolution currently set at 1024x768 since 3DArcade works best that way, and I had set VP to match. I had originally gotten the table to work normally in both fullscreen and windowed mode (was experimenting with the best way to run it in 3DArcade). Somewhere in that process this error message came up (it first happened while I was trying to run the table inside 3DArcade).

What is your monitor's native resolution? My 17" CRT is also 1024x768, and while I perceive no difference between windowed and fullscreen, there may be losses from scaling if what you're running is not native.

About the GF 210: I enjoy 'crunching numbers' and spend a fair amount of time at gpureview.com; their database seems to indicate that GF 210 is a one-card series (I didn't see a GF 220 or 230, etc.). The PCI-e interface is desirable (believe me and all the others---I'm still running AGP-8X) but the base card's 64-bit buswidth and 8GB/Sec bandwidth are primitive. If your card is one of the 128-bit versions with a somewhat faster memory clock, your bandwidth could approach triple the base spec. However, bandwidth and CPU freq. are speed-related, and affect gameplay smoothness, while Backbuffer and Offscreen Surface errors are rendering problems involving inadequate memory.

(Gol-dang, I hope I got that right!)

Another thought: Are your Addams Family and your VP version both VP9.1.2? Backwards Compatibility isn't what it used to be, with Alpha Transparency in the mix.


Stiff upper lip, and all that; you'll nail it before long!

Gregg

[pkflipper]

Thanks for the response, Gregg. My monitor's native res is 1680x1050 (it's a 21" widescreen monitor). I've discovered also that DirectDraw is disabled, but there is no enable button in DxDiag. And the Change Settings button under Display's Advanced Settings Troubleshooting tab is greyed out. So I'm not quite sure how to re-enable DirectDraw. I ran a registry cleaner and that didn't help, I also uninstalled and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers and that didn't help either. Anything I'm missing, or do I have to reformat and reinstall Windows? I've got all my data on an external drive already anyway (I've had hard drives fail on me before so I've learned to be more cautious), but I still would rather not go that route unless there's no other way.

.....I'm having a major issue..... that being the somewhat infamous "back buffer" error. If I uncheck the hardware acceleration box, the table goes to render but just hangs with a black screen and a white box where the score display would be.

Gateway with a 1.6 Ghz processor
4GB of RAM
Win 7 32bit
Nvidia GeForce 210 video card with 1GB dedicated video memory

Hello, pkflipper;

While I've been learning as I go, and I've been 'going' for two and a half years, there may be some who feel that I haven't learned much. "Cannot create back buffer, or.....offscreen surface" indicate insufficient video memory; your GeForce 210, however, has the recommended 1GB, so I wonder if your computer (laptop? 1.6Ghz is slow for a desktop) is set to onboard/integrated graphics, with a shared-memory allotment far below 1GB.

The table I'm trying to run..... The Addams Family..... actually played fine when I first installed VP, but I had been adjusting settings to try and get VP to work with 3DArcade.

Afraid I'm unfamiliar with 3DArcade and what effects related adjustments will have.

I've got my desktop (Woops! I was assuming laptop---GSG) resolution currently set at 1024x768 since 3DArcade works best that way, and I had set VP to match. I had originally gotten the table to work normally in both fullscreen and windowed mode (was experimenting with the best way to run it in 3DArcade). Somewhere in that process this error message came up (it first happened while I was trying to run the table inside 3DArcade).

What is your monitor's native resolution? My 17" CRT is also 1024x768, and while I perceive no difference between windowed and fullscreen, there may be losses from scaling if what you're running is not native.

About the GF 210: I enjoy 'crunching numbers' and spend a fair amount of time at gpureview.com; their database seems to indicate that GF 210 is a one-card series (I didn't see a GF 220 or 230, etc.). The PCI-e interface is desirable (believe me and all the others---I'm still running AGP-8X) but the base card's 64-bit buswidth and 8GB/Sec bandwidth are primitive. If your card is one of the 128-bit versions with a somewhat faster memory clock, your bandwidth could approach triple the base spec. However, bandwidth and CPU freq. are speed-related, and affect gameplay smoothness, while Backbuffer and Offscreen Surface errors are rendering problems involving inadequate memory.

(Gol-dang, I hope I got that right!)

Another thought: Are your Addams Family and your VP version both VP9.1.2? Backwards Compatibility isn't what it used to be, with Alpha Transparency in the mix.


Stiff upper lip, and all that; you'll nail it before long!

Gregg

[hmueck]

[...] Anything I'm missing, or do I have to reformat and reinstall Windows? I've got all my data on an external drive already anyway (I've had hard drives fail on me before so I've learned to be more cautious), but I still would rather not go that route unless there's no other way.

A reinstallation of Windows will not help you.

There is a high chance, that your GT210 has less then 1GB dedicated memory, even if Windows says otherwise. The GT210 uses a technology called "Turbocache", which will tell Windows that the shared memory of the graphic card is dedicated memory - even if it isn't.
Try a little program called GPU-Z. It should show you how much dedicated memory your GT210 really has.

[pkflipper]

[...] Anything I'm missing, or do I have to reformat and reinstall Windows? I've got all my data on an external drive already anyway (I've had hard drives fail on me before so I've learned to be more cautious), but I still would rather not go that route unless there's no other way.

A reinstallation of Windows will not help you.

There is a high chance, that your GT210 has less then 1GB dedicated memory, even if Windows says otherwise. The GT210 uses a technology called "Turbocache", which will tell Windows that the shared memory of the graphic card is dedicated memory - even if it isn't.
Try a little program called GPU-Z. It should show you how much dedicated memory your GT210 really has.

GPU-Z shows the video card as having a memory size of 1024 MB, which is 1 GB. So do I need a new video card, or is there another way to re-enable DirectDraw? Also, I might have misread the info when I was getting my computer's processer, I think it's a dual core with 1.6 Ghz per core, not altogether. It's a refurbished comp that's a few years old but that's been pretty solid in all the time I've had it. Here's a snapshot of the GPU-Z display if that helps:



I hope I won't need a new graphics card, and I'm not sure why I would since the table was working and playable when I first installed VP. I'm just trying to figure out why DirectDraw randomly got disabled and how to get it back on, since I think that will fix the issue. But if you guys know better, by all means share. I'm open to ideas.

[hmueck]

GPU-Z shows the video card as having a memory size of 1024 MB, which is 1 GB.

Okay, now i'm surprised.

So do I need a new video card, or is there another way to re-enable DirectDraw?

I found this article from Microsoft with the "Top 8 ways to re-enable DirectDraw".
Stuff like "Configure Hardware Acceleration to use the Full setting" and "update to the latest driver".
And actually there is an updated driver for your Gforce 210.
Hopefully one of this will re-enable DirectDraw.

[maceman]

Keep it at 32 bit, keep HR On, lower your texture size to 512, reload vp and report back.

Maceman

[rob046]

Yeah you need to get DirectDraw enabled. It should be easy to enable unless there is a reason why it is crapping out.
Also, I highly recommend NOT running a front end like 3D Arcade with a lower end GPU & such a slow CPU... you want all the performance you can get, so using a heavy front end like that won't help you. Performance might be just a little better without that running (once you get DirectDraw running again).

Yeah, 1.6ghz on the CPU is awfully slow for VP. Often 3ghz is recommended to play most tables comfortably at your native resolution without making sacrifices. If you were on a higher resolution I'd say maybe even go higher. I'm at 4.3ghz.
But your graphics card should be OK (unless it is crapping out, causing the directdraw problem) with the 1gb of video memory, since your monitor is only 1680x1050 (& you run VP even lower than that). Though it is always best if you can run VP at your native resolution, especially since VP has no antialias. running tables at 1600x1200, 1920x1200, or at least 1920x1080 (or 4:3 which is I think 1440x1080)... is the way to go if you can do it.

[pkflipper]

I installed the driver update and did what maceman said, but still nothing. I don't know how I'm supposed to re-enable DirectDraw when, as I said, there is no Enable button in DxDiag and the Troubleshooting tab where you go to adjust the HD acceleration is greyed out. Is there any other way to re-enable DirectDraw? About half the things on that list hmueck mentioned don't even apply since I'm using Win 7, not XP, but I tried them anyway. Others I couldn't do because of the above issue. Any other possibilites?

And actually, robo, I believe what I have is 1.6 per core on a dual core machine, which comes out to 3.2 overall. 3DArcade's been pretty much smooth for me and runs quite well.

[rob046]

I installed the driver update and did what maceman said, but still nothing. I don't know how I'm supposed to re-enable DirectDraw when, as I said, there is no Enable button in DxDiag and the Troubleshooting tab where you go to adjust the HD acceleration is greyed out. Is there any other way to re-enable DirectDraw? About half the things on that list hmueck mentioned don't even apply since I'm using Win 7, not XP, but I tried them anyway. Others I couldn't do because of the above issue. Any other possibilites?

And actually, robo, I believe what I have is 1.6 per core on a dual core machine, which comes out to 3.2 overall. 3DArcade's been pretty much smooth for me and runs quite well.

Also, cores don't work like that. If you have 1.6ghz on each of 2 cores, it is still a 1.6ghz CPU. If this was true, I would have like a 19ghz CPU! So yeah the CPU clock is per core, but also overall. The multiple cores can help though with processing & especially multitasking. But for VP, all that really matters anyhow is what is on each core, because VP is only a single core (single threaded)program. So even if that was true about the ghz getting multiplied, it still wouldn't matter for VP.

Did you try the 4 things that do apply to win7? Here, I actually still had the files from the the speed fix from Scapino, I think they are all there (its just 3 files & a text file), so I zipped them up. Read the read me for how to use it, but its simple. & if that still isn't enough to fix things just try some googling. & with the speed fix, remember what you are aiming for is actually the opposite of what most people used to use this for. Back in the day (& maybe still today for ppl with lower end systems, IDK) people would run this to get better performance by disabling directdraw. but today not only can most systems handle it just fine, but it is actually a detriment if it isn't running. but if you use the speed fix as described in the text, I guess what should happen is directdraw should re-enable (or enable in your case) once you exit VP. Or, simply double click the reg file that says "turn on". you'll have to OK it.

btw, when you updated your driver did you do a clean install? you should try that if the above doesn't work. completely uninstall the driver, then delete any leftover files (likely in C:\Nvidia), then on top of that maybe run something like ccleaner to clean temp files & registry. Then restart the computer, then go ahead & install the new driver. for more info on a clean driver install just google it. there might be better ways to do it.

Attached Files

•  VP_Speed_Fix.zip   1.14KB   14 downloads

Edited by rob046, 16 July 2012 - 10:50 PM.

[pkflipper]

I installed the driver update and did what maceman said, but still nothing. I don't know how I'm supposed to re-enable DirectDraw when, as I said, there is no Enable button in DxDiag and the Troubleshooting tab where you go to adjust the HD acceleration is greyed out. Is there any other way to re-enable DirectDraw? About half the things on that list hmueck mentioned don't even apply since I'm using Win 7, not XP, but I tried them anyway. Others I couldn't do because of the above issue. Any other possibilites?

And actually, robo, I believe what I have is 1.6 per core on a dual core machine, which comes out to 3.2 overall. 3DArcade's been pretty much smooth for me and runs quite well.

Also, cores don't work like that. If you have 1.6ghz on each of 2 cores, it is still a 1.6ghz CPU. If this was true, I would have like a 19ghz CPU! So yeah the CPU clock is per core, but also overall. The multiple cores can help though with processing & especially multitasking. But for VP, all that really matters anyhow is what is on each core, because VP is only a single core (single threaded)program. So even if that was true about the ghz getting multiplied, it still wouldn't matter for VP.

Did you try the 4 things that do apply to win7? Here, I actually still had the files from the the speed fix from Scapino, I think they are all there (its just 3 files & a text file), so I zipped them up. Read the read me for how to use it, but its simple. & if that still isn't enough to fix things just try some googling. & with the speed fix, remember what you are aiming for is actually the opposite of what most people used to use this for. Back in the day (& maybe still today for ppl with lower end systems, IDK) people would run this to get better performance by disabling directdraw. but today not only can most systems handle it just fine, but it is actually a detriment if it isn't running. but if you use the speed fix as described in the text, I guess what should happen is directdraw should re-enable (or enable in your case) once you exit VP. Or, simply double click the reg file that says "turn on". you'll have to OK it.

btw, when you updated your driver did you do a clean install? you should try that if the above doesn't work. completely uninstall the driver, then delete any leftover files (likely in C:\Nvidia), then on top of that maybe run something like ccleaner to clean temp files & registry. Then restart the computer, then go ahead & install the new driver. for more info on a clean driver install just google it. there might be better ways to do it.

Got it! The turn on reg file worked! Thanks, robo. And the rest of you, too. I didn't know the processor speed on dual cores didn't add up, btw, but then I don't have a lot of experience with hardware and that sort of thing. Good to know, though, so thanks!

[GSGregg]

EDIT: Never Mind..... Somehow I missed the part where you said "Got it!"

(I just DL'ed the Fix, too, for a 'rainy day'.)

Edited by GSGregg, 17 July 2012 - 06:16 AM.