[nessus]

First of all this was first posted in the Windows 7 thread but since is not a windows 7 issue and do the lack of any response i created a new tread. I did a search in the forums but i dint find any similar post except a question (with no answer) for the aero issue.

So here is the thing...

All the latest drivers that include NVIDIA PhysX Technology they have the following strange behavior : When you open XBMC in Windowed mode and you toggle Full Screen you loose the Windows Aero future until you shutdown XBMC. If you open XBMC and you stay in Windowed mode no problem the Aero thing is working. The minute you go fullscreen...that's it...Aero is dead. Even if you come back to Windowed mode with the ToggleFullScreen (backslash) key.
In any scenario everything is working fine on XBMC no problem.

This is happening in all Windows versions (XP,Vista & Win7), and with all the latest drivers versions from NVIDIA. So i went back to version 175.19 which NVIDIA PhysX™ Technology is not included and...voila. Aero is allways on. Fullscreen, Windowed mode and ToggleFullScreen.

Any ideas.

One more thing. After i install the latest XBMC version 9.04 Babylon-Beta1 the ToggleFullScreen (with backslash key) function is gone. Even the middle window sign for maximizing is disable.

Is that something well known for the latest beta or is something wrong with my XBMC installation ?

[natethomas]

This sounds like an interesting problem, but...

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42708

[nessus]

This sounds like an interesting problem, but...

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42708

Ok.
What information do i have to post since the XBMC is not crashing and is not a skin issue ?

[natethomas]

I'd go ahead and post what it says to post in that thread; however, you'll probably want to post a log that shows you toggling full screen, so it's clear exactly what XBMC is doing at that moment.

[nessus]

Ok. This is the info according to "HOW-TO post a problem" thread :

1. "Latest" is NOT a revision, of ANYTHING! (See below)
2. Windows Version : Vista SP1, Windows 7 Builds 7057, 7068 & 7100 RC.
3. CPU : INTEL 540 LGA775 P4 3.2 GHz
4. RAM : 2GB/400Mhz DDR
5. Video Card and Driver version : NVIDIA 8500GT 512MB PCI-X with any driver version from 177.92 to 182.50 including the 181.71 release for Windows 7. The version that the Aero issue is fixed is 175.19 which the NVIDIA PhysX Technology is not included. I didn't test any older versions.
6. Sound Card and Driver version : Realtek 8-Channel AC'97 Audio intergraded in this M/B with driver version provided from Microsoft Update. Never had a problem.
7. Other devices related to issue : None.
8. XBMC Revision : 8.10 Atlantis, 9.04 (Babylon ) Alpha 1, 9.04 (Babylon ) Beta1. All them have the aero issue and the ToggleFullScreen key is disable only in the latest 9.04 (Babylon ) Beta1.
9. Detailed Instructions to Reproduce the Problem: See the first post.
10. FULL Debug Log : Debug Log with nvidia driver v181.72 (with NVIDIA PhysX) & Debug Log with nvidia driver v175.19 (no NVIDIA PhysX)
11. MediaInfo output : little help here.

Thank you in advance for any help.

[nessus]

Well....111 views and 2 posts to advise me to post full info.

[natethomas]

The devs might want to look, but I'm not seeing any important difference between the two debug logs.

Have you tried looking through the Nvidia forums regarding OpenGL and PhysX interfering with each other and aero?

[LaTropa64]

This is definitely an nvidia problem because it happens to me not only on fullscreened XBMC, but also winamp visualizations in fullscreen, the game warsow, basically ANY opengl app that runs fullscreen.

I would just drop back to an older version of the nvidia drivers but it wasn't until some of the more recent drivers that DXVA started working correctly with Media Player Classic and since I use that for a number of videos that XBMC can't handle, I'm kind of stuck with no areo when I use XBMC.

[nessus]

Thanks for your response both of you.

I don't know if they use OpenGL but Media Player Classic, VLC and KMPlayer with ffshow codecs only installed in my Win7 Bulid 7100 setup, they don't have any issues with Aero.
Like i say this is happen only with PhysX installed. I took look on nvidia forums but nothing there. I will look again more deeper in case i miss something.

thanks

P.S. Is really the ToggleFullScreen function disabled in XBMC 9.04 Babylon Beta ?

[natethomas]

I don't believe any of those other players use OpenGL. None of them really need to, as they aren't displaying their own graphics or creating any graphical overlays. Could be wrong about that, of course. Plus, I'm relatively certain MPC uses DirectX, and I'm almost completely certain that MPC-HC uses DirectX.

I'm not sure about the toggle fullscreen function, as I rarely toggle. On the rare occasions I want to get out of XBMC, I typically use alt-tab.

[LaTropa64]

Like i say this is happen only with PhysX installed. I took look on nvidia forums but nothing there. I will look again more deeper in case i miss something.

I tried disabling PhysX in the Nvidia Control Panel. That didn't help so I completely uninstalled Nvidia PhysX and that made no difference either. Aero just doesn't work with XBMC (at least not with my 8600GT or 9500GT).

I haven't tried older nvidia drivers. I'll look around for 175.19 and see if it makes a difference.

[LaTropa64]

Well, you are right that it definitely has something to do with the newer nvidia drivers. I just installed 175.19 and Aero works beautifully in fullscreen OpenGL apps. I could finally do this:



I don't know how much Physx has to do with it though because even after installing the old drivers, Physx remained installed on my system.

Unfortunately, I can't just continue using the older nvidia drivers because of other unrelated issues so it doesn't look like this problem will ever be resolved for me unless nvidia fixes it in a new driver release.

[nessus]

I follow the same procudere with you and i got the same results.Also i did one more thing that someone recommend it in nvidia forums.
I decompress first the nvidia driver and deleted the Physx setup executable file from the nvidia driver installation directory so that Physx wont install. No luck again. After finessed the nvidia driver installation and reboot, the Physx option it was on in the Nvidia control panel again and the aero problem was back. I wonder if anyone from nvidia knows this bug from they famous PhysX Technology ?

Anyway...went back to 175.19 version which is working fine for every day use (TV Shows mostly), and when i want to watch some "Heavy Stuff" (HD 1080p & 720p movies) in my 6 years old computer the choice is one and only : Ubuntu. I am booting Ubuntu (8.04) with XBMC fullscreen in startup and watching flawlessly 1080p content with 40-50% P4 3.2Ghz CPU usage.
The triple boot with Windows(Vista & Win7) and Ubuntu always saves me from a lot of trouble.

[natethomas]

The triple boot sounds like a great deal of hassle, but to each his own! I have to admit, I'm often curious about the people who have an Nvidia card and can get everything working in ubuntu, but still use Windows. As a person terrified of the linux environment who has never had a good experience with alsa and almost never had a good experience with the video driver file (xorg or whatever), I could never make the switch, but there seems to be so much benefit over there if you don't have my problems.

[LaTropa64]

Well, according to the first reply I've got on the nvidia forums, the bug is that it ever worked at all.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=95861