Curse

Junato · Aug 22, 2010, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Not sure if this is either software of hardware, but my guess its software related

Software
ATI Radeon HD 4200
DirectX 11
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Monitor in Device manager named Generic PnP Monitor

Hardware
Hp paviliion
AMD Phenom II x4 810 Processor 4 CPUs ~2.6ghz
Dell monitor 1907Fp

My question is how come my game gets black screen flashes when I tab back in the game twice. First one is one second apart from the next one.

Hooper287 · Sep 04, 2010, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Oh you mean when you alt tab or hit alt+enter, and the screen starts flashing and all you can do is spam alt+f4 until it closes? Yeah, it's happening to me too and I friggin hate it.. I'm looking for a fix now, it seems to be happening mostly on ATI cards. I'll get back to you ASAP.

Draikin · Sep 04, 2010, 11:21 AM // 11:21

I'm experiencing the same problem and I suspect it has something to do with the "Snap" feature of Windows 7 (for example where you drag a window to the left and it automatically resizes to take up half the screen). So far I only seem to experience this problem when I snap the window. At some point when alt-tabbing, the game seems to get stuck between fullscreen and the desktop. In my case even alt-F4 doesn't help. Hooper287, are you using Windows 7? I have Windows 7 Professional 64 bit and an ATI Radeon HD 5850.

EDIT: I just tried to snap the window to the right, then Alt-Entered, then Alt-Tabbed, at which point activating another window triggered the flashing. Luckily I could Ctrl-Alt-Del out of it this time around, sometimes I have to reboot my pc altogether.

Elder III · Sep 04, 2010, 02:00 PM // 14:00

which ATI drivers are you using?

Junato · Sep 04, 2010, 11:20 PM // 23:20

I downloaded the latest ones, since starcraft II requires it

Hooper287 · Sep 18, 2010, 03:59 AM // 03:59

It seems to be happening on most ATI cards regardless of drivers, i've tested it with stock drivers, then latest drivers. I have a feeling you may be right with the snap feature, I'm running windows 7 on a asus laptop the video card is a 5870, i remember it happening on my old 4850 desktop....Windows 7 is great but I have to admit there are some things that piss me off..

Undead Cheese · Sep 18, 2010, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Happens to me aswell, but I avoid it by just running Window mode.

Haggis of Doom · Sep 18, 2010, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Black screen flashing may be caused by display driver crashing and then restarting successively. This may or may not be accompanied by the bubble message "The display driver has crashed and recovered".

If you experience it more often later on, especially during normal gameplay without alt-tabbing, your graphics card will be dying soon. When the display driver stops recovering (i.e. you get stuck on a certain screen and cannot do anything but manually reboot), it is time to start looking for another graphics card.

Chrisworld · Sep 18, 2010, 08:37 PM // 20:37

I have the same infamous screenflashes, Radeon HD 4870. I think it's the drivers or something. Very common among the HD series.

Junato · Sep 18, 2010, 10:00 PM // 22:00

I came up with a solution. I started playing SC2

Undead Cheese · Sep 19, 2010, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggis of Doom

Black screen flashing may be caused by display driver crashing and then restarting successively. This may or may not be accompanied by the bubble message "The display driver has crashed and recovered".

If you experience it more often later on, especially during normal gameplay without alt-tabbing, your graphics card will be dying soon. When the display driver stops recovering (i.e. you get stuck on a certain screen and cannot do anything but manually reboot), it is time to start looking for another graphics card.

It's a Windows 7 problem, I don't get the same thing on my Windows XP Partition.

Junato · Sep 19, 2010, 04:58 PM // 16:58

But cheesse do you have the same Hardware and software as us?

tijo · Sep 19, 2010, 08:39 PM // 20:39

The black screen flashing (without freezing) is an issue that plagues the recent ATI video cards. I also have an asus G73 with the mobility 5870 and i get the black flashing screen. My laptop never froze during the black screens though. If your computer is freezing, then there's definitely a problem, however of you only the black flickering screen withiut freezing, then i don't think there's much you can do about it yet.

Draikin · Sep 29, 2010, 10:40 PM // 22:40

So can anyone who has this problem confirm it only happens when using the "Snap" feature in Windows 7 combined with an ATI card?

Hooper287 · Dec 31, 2010, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Maybe it has something to do with windows "Aero" or whatever those desktop effects are called?

Snograt · Dec 31, 2010, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Hopefully he got it sorted in the three months since he last posted, Hooper

Hooper287 · Jan 18, 2011, 04:29 AM // 04:29

I'm still having this problem, it just gets more frustrating 3 months later..please someone help us with this?

Mid · Jan 25, 2011, 04:06 AM // 04:06

I am experiencing the same problem. within the last 2 days. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate. I don't think that it has anything to do with the "snap" feature. it could be the graphics card... i am trying taking out my external graphics cards and using my on-board one... it hasn't happened yet.. (knock on wood).

Junato · Jan 25, 2011, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Get the latest drivers. This problem is resolved ever since I went to the graphic card's website, downloaded and installed the latest drivers.

Tips
Control panel>Appearances and....>Display>Screen resolution 1280 x 1024
My display unit is Dell 1907FP

Leading solution: If you have a Monitor with 2 wires that can be connected to the computer you only need one wire to be connected the other is for connecting another device like a laptop

ATI Radeon HD 4200
DirectX 11

If you have both of these and still have the issue. The issue can only mean that you need to update your ATI card through this website: http://www.amd.com/us/products/Pages/graphics.aspx

And that's all folks!

-edit-
Do me a favor if anything from above does not solve the problem go to search bar in the windows start button and type dxdiag then give me all the info under OS and in the Display tab

Rushin Roulette · Jan 25, 2011, 03:14 PM // 15:14

This is not an ATI only problem. I have an Nvidia card (Cant remember which one atm though as im not at home) and I also get the annoying Black falshing screen if I use the Snap function of Windows 7 Ultimate (64 Bit).

It seems to be a compatibility problem between Guildwars and Windows 7 (maybe only the 64 Bit version as I only see people posting that they have various 64 Bit Windows 7 versions). This is the only correlation I see here now after my post (ruling out ATI cards and drivers) and the post by Undead Cheese saying that it only happens on his Windows 7 partition and the same PC doesent have a problem if GW is running on his XP partition.