Unuseable in windows 7 x64. Hangs the system completely.

[dedica]

It seems there is currently a huge bug in Video Enhancer,
regarding Windows 7 x64:

Everything goes wrong when you try to Enhance a video
with super resolution, no matter what settings/filters/codec
you pick. This is a fresh install of windows with no codecs
installed, so codecs can not be the problem.

Your video starts to edit but your screen starts going
black for seconds at a time. A message pops up, saying
your display adapter has stopped working. Your pc
quickly becomes less and less responsive until it freezes
entirely, all while you keep getting black screens for longer
and longer.

To test for yourself and see it's true:

Do a fresh install of windows 7 x64.
Finish windows update and all that.
download/install the VE trial from here:
http://www.thedeemon.com/VideoEnhancer/

The trial works fine on windows xp on the same machine.
The video card is a 9800 GTX +, but since VE
doesn't use VGA that may not matter.

This is with a completely stock, unaltered download
of the program directly from this site, so it's not a
product of tampering.

If anyone could point out what's causing this and
how to fix it, I'd love that. Since crapReveal made
its vga feature useless by limiting it to low-res, this
program looks like a much safer one to get.

[Dee Mon]

I use it in Win7 64bit with no problems at all. So the effect must be specific to your configuration.

[dedica]

Could you be more specific? (What about my config can VE not handle?)

-Are desktop themes/acceleration turned off on your machine?
-Could it be a conflict with graphics drivers, even though
VE doesn't use graphics cards? Are you using one?
-What hardware (CPU, GPU ETC) are you using?

I think this bug might be in VE's desktop theme compatibility,
because the only thing that fixes it is doing this:

1:Right click on the Shortsut on the desktop and choose properties.
2:Choose -> TAB = Compatibility
3: Check Run this program in compatibility mode
= Windows NT 4.0
4: Check the 3 boxes as follows
*Disable visual themes
*Disable desktop composition
*Disable display scaling on high DPI settings
:Then
Check the box
= Run this program as an administrator

[Dee Mon]

We're probably using slightly different versions of Win7. I use spring's Release Candidate (don't remember the number, I'm out of office now) with full Aero turned on with no theme weaking on a powerful ATI videocard and Intel Core 2 Quad CPU. No tweaking for Video Enhancer was performed, VE worked out of the box with no changes.

[dedica]

We're probably using slightly different versions of Win7. I use spring's Release Candidate (don't remember the number, I'm out of office now) with full Aero turned on with no theme weaking on a powerful ATI videocard and Intel Core 2 Quad CPU. No tweaking for Video Enhancer was performed, VE worked out of the box with no changes.

Looks like it's either the down to NVIDIA or the no-themes thing, because
the freeze happens on a fresh install. Maybe VE is having issues with the
NVIDIA drivers for windows 7?

I'm using the RC version of windows which says "Build 7100" in the corner.

[Dee Mon]

I wonder when exactly these effects happen and when not.
Does this happen if you load a file in VE and press Play it in the right side of VE's window?
Does this happen if you go to Advanced mode and with an empty list of filters and no SR press Preview?

[son165]

Its the same for me. (Win 7 x64).
It only happens when using SR and pressing preview/Start (not 'play')
Would be really nice to see it working on Win7.
Its such a great software.

[Shaun]

Hello Folks,

Same issue here on the retail version of Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit.
Works with the prescribed Compatibility settings though.
I'm using Nvidia 8800GTX with 191.07 drivers.

Bests Shaun

[Dee Mon]

Thanks for info! One more thing to check. Does it depend on video resolution?
Please try preview in 3 modes:
a) SR 320x240->640x480, b) 640x480->1280x960 and c) 640x480->640x480 (no SR, empty filters list)

[son165]

Here my results:
a) doesn't work
b) doesn't work
c) works with no problems

so it seems to depend on SR

[dedica]

Thanks for info! One more thing to check. Does it depend on video resolution?
Please try preview in 3 modes:
a) SR 320x240->640x480, b) 640x480->1280x960 and c) 640x480->640x480 (no SR, empty filters list)

a) Crashing still occurs. Tested with .wmv of 320x240, previewed with super resolution (better quality mode), to 640x480 (default).

b) Crashing still occurs. Tested with .avi of 640x480, previewed with super resolution (better speed mode), to 1280x960 (default).

c) The problem does not occur. Running the same video from b) through 'preview' with no alterations and a completely blank "Filters sequence" equals a smooth playthrough.

Each test was followed by completely closing the program and then re-opening it for the next test.

In situations a) and b), the black screening happens almost immediately after you press 'preview'. The computer becomes so unresponsive it's hard to press 'stop' in time. If you manage to stop the preview before your computer freezes, the error message is "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered".

[Dee Mon]

Thanks a lot!
I wonder what MS broke in this version of Windows (since other versions work fine).
It seems that the issue is related to multithreading and threads synchronization. I had some other ideas but thanks to your answers now I know they are not the case. We'll try to reproduce the behavior and fix it. Until then use the compatibility mode.

[dedica]

Some interesting results arise when googling "display driver stopped responding and has recovered".
Apparently, there was a similar problem with programs back in vista. It was supposedly related to
nvidia cards, aero, and more than 2 GB of ram. The posts themselves go into more detail.

Could this be a clue to what's happening here?

[Dee Mon]

My PC with Win7 64bit was temporary unavailable due to motherboard replace. Now it's back and I see that it's evaluation version Build 7068 (pretty old). Graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 4670, CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad and there's 4 GB memory. Just an example of a working configuration.
We're gonna test the release version of Win7 soon.

[son165]

I just wanna say:
I got the feeling that only Nvidia cards are causing this problem...