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View Full Version : Loss of DirectDraw Overlay and VMR9 after upgrade/update


Brazil2
7th July 2008, 06:01
Hello,

After I've upgraded and updated my computer I have lost the ability to use DirectDraw Overlay and VMR9.

It was a major hardware upgrade as I've changed the mobo (from Abit IC7-Max3 to Abit IP35 Pro with 2GB of OCZ PC2-6400), the processor (from P4 2.8GHz HT to Core2Duo E6850) and the graphics card (from GeCube ATI Radeon 9800 Pro to ASUS ATI Radeon HD 3870).

I had no problem during the installation of the drivers and never got any error nor warning message. Of course I have properly uninstalled the ATi drivers before installing the new ones.
However I have updated DirectX to the latest version (March 2008) and I haven't installed Catalyst Control Center (and never ever did) but I'm using Ray Adam's ATI Tray Tools instead. The OS is Windows XP 32 bits.
Everything is running at stock speeds and voltages, no overclocking at all.

Before the the upgrade/update everything was working fine, I was even able to watch at H264 DVB programs, even though it was sometimes a bit slow and using a lot of CPU.

But after the upgrade/update, my old bundled version of PowerDVD, which never had any problem, started to complain about DirectDraw Overlay missing:
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/4015/powerdvderrorpw1.png

In other apps like ProgDVB or Media Player Classic, VMR9 is not working anymore, it automatically switches back to the standard VMR.
And also in Graphedit I'm not able to load VMR9 anymore, I got this error message:
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9908/vmr9ho3.png

I've searched for the error number 0x80040273 (VFW_E_DDRAW_CAPS_NOT_SUITABLE):
"Either Microsoft DirectDraw has not been installed or the video card capabilities are not suitable. Make sure the display is not in 16-color mode."
DirectDraw test is working fine in DXdiag and of course I'm using 32 bits colors.

For a test, I have also completly uninstalled the ATI drivers and ATI Tray Tools, deleted every ATI related file on the HDD and also deleted any ATI related key in the registry. After a reboot, and using the standard VGA driver, I still got the same error message in Graphedit when trying to load VMR9.

I have reinstalled DirectX again once in VGA standard mode, updated the video drivers to v8.5, reinstalled DirectX again with the ATI drivers, but it didn't help.
I have the feeling that the update of DirectX may have screwed something, but what and how to fix it ?

VMR7 is available, can be selected and it's working fine in apps like ProgDVB and MPC - MPC-HC.

Of course, the idea is not to reinstall from scratch.
I'm searching for a solution for over one month so any help is appreciated :)

Brazil2
13th July 2008, 10:25
I forgot to mention that I don't have any .NET framework installed, if that does matter (the main reason why I haven't installed CCC).

Only the display driver is installed.
AVIVO isn't installed either.

But I still don't understand why everything was working fine with the previous hardware and why I've lost these features after the upgrade.
Although I can't get DXVA working with MPC-HC even with VMR7 windowed nor Overlay Mixer (that's only for the info, I'm not asking for help about DXVA but about VMR9/DirectDraw Overlay).

setarip_old
13th July 2008, 22:43
Hi!

If you haven't already done so, bring up "System Information" and click on the "Tools" dropdown menu and select "DirectX Diagnostic Tool". You may find some meaningful information regarding your difficulty.

Brazil2
14th July 2008, 09:15
Thanks for the answer :)

I've done that already and found nothing special.
No errors in DirectX files, the graphics card is properly detected and so are the monitor and the driver, all DirectDraw and D3D7-8-9 tests were successful.


Two things just came up to my mind:

- I have a LOT of services disabled because this PC is dedicated to gaming and video only and it's optimized for performance.
Should I enable back some of the services before installing the video drivers and/or DirectX ? And if so, which ones ?

- The Radeon HD 3870 has 512 MB of video memory but it's also using the so-called HyperMemory system which is using a part of the RAM if needed. I have no option in the BIOS to disable this feature so many tools, including DXdiag, are reporting the video memory to be 1024 MB.
Could this be a part of the problem ?
However, as I already said, VMR7 is available and working fine.