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Topic: Display problem (Read 8620 times) previous topic - next topic

Display problem

I recently upgraded the driver for my graphics card to fix a problem my son was having with a new game. The game works fine now but... something seems to have screwed up NWC's display. As I noticed this the next time I used NWC after installing the new driver, I guess the advice will be "wait until the driver gets fixed". However, on the offchance that I have uncovered a glitch in NWC, I relate my symptoms and current set up here.

THE SYMPTOMS:

When I scroll left (i.e backwards) through a score I get spurious horizontal lines (I can provide a screen shot if it would help). I note that Steve Allen reported similar behaviour in the Forum recently and was advised to use F9 to redraw the screen (see https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=1425). However, I find that F9 often does not get rid of the lines.

Having played around some more I find that the spurious lines are always attached at their left hand end to some element of the score that extends beyond the left hand edge of the screen, generally a note that is within a beamed group, a tie or a slur. (The lines appear as if the topmost part of the element has been smeared to the right). If any part of the score element to which the spurious line is attached is off screen to the left, F9 does not remove the line but instead extends it to the right hand side of the screen. However, if I scroll further left so that I can see the whole of the element to which the spurious line is attached (i.e the whole of the beamed group of notes or the whole slur or tie), F9 removes the spurious line. If there is a mixture of on- and off-screen attached elements, F9 only removes the spurious lines attached to those that are wholly visible.

The problem disappears if I set the graphics hardware acceleration to notch 2 (basic acclerator functions).

Display resolution and colour depth seem to have no effect on the behaviour - i.e. it still happens.

The speed at which I scroll left does not have any influence on the behaviour.

The lines consistently appear whenever the result of scrolling leaves a score element straddling the left hand screen boundary.

The lines also appear when NWC scrolls the sore left during playback as as result of a repeat.

THE SET UP:

CPU: Pentium III @ 500 MHz

RAM: 128Mb

Graphics card: ATI Rage 128 with 32 Mb Ram

Graphics Driver: ATI2DRAA version 4.12.01.6269

NWC version: 1.70 32 bit.

With the graphics acceleration fully enabled NWC is just about unusable [:o( with it disabled most games are just about unplayable [:o( so I get it in the neck when I forget to re-enable acceleration after my session with NWC.

Any thoughts please?

Stephen Randall

Re: Display problem

Reply #1 –
I too have an ATI Rage, and had bizarre problems under Win95 (all was --and still is-- well under 3.11). In my case the symptom was a strobing mouse cursor, and occasional glitches as you describe. As in your case, the problem(s) went away if I used "basic-only" hardware acceleration settings. I took the problem to ATI, who (to their credit) spent quite some time stepping me through installing the latest drivers, etc. etc. The problem persisted - until one especially bright tech asked me to try turning off the "3d" mouse cursors. I did that, restoring the good old boring mouse cursor, and all my troubles vanished. (Needless to say, I got rid of /all/ that buggy "Plus!" stuff post-haste!) Haven't had a display problem since.

HTH...
Fred

Re: Display problem

Reply #2 –
Just to reiterate what we have stated in the past: when a display driver fails to adequately implement some of its graphics functions, there is nothing that we can do from within NoteWorthy Composer to overcome this. The only true solution is for the manufacturer to correct the bug(s).

Re: Display problem

Reply #3 –
As ever, NW-Online is right. ATI Support provided a long list of suggestions, the last of which was to try some beta drivers that are hidden away in a dark corner of the ATI web site. After exhausting the other suggestions (and myself), I crossed my fingers and went for the beta drivers.

I am happy to report that my display now does what NWC tells it to, and my fears about using beta system software seem to have been unfounded in this case - the new drivers haven't introduced any unwanted "features" elsewhere.

Three cheers for ATI Support!

Stephen Randall

Re: Display problem

Reply #4 –
Hi i have some problems like that too, i got some vertical lines in the screen: in every character and image. For example  when a website loads, the letters are ok but when you scroll with the bar of the website or you drag the windows to move it somewhere else, all the characters become a mixture of red and black, if i press F9 the problem continues but if i click over the letters  the characters get  the original colour again. Could someone help me to solve that?, thank you.

Re: Display problem

Reply #5 –
The faq #77 provides a work around for many display driver bugs (most bugs are related to hardware acceleration).