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Off-Topic: Graphical glitches on XP


FlyersHockey1967

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Every time I opened Gens emulator, the screen would turn dark ("flash") for a quick second, and when the screen came back, the Gens emulator would be opened and ready to go. I've noticed that after this flash, there are some graphical glitches, with small white outlines appearing on all icons, some icons such as the quick launch Firefox and IE looking weird with rough edges, the yellow folder icons looking weird as well, and most notably, the normally blue winamp mp3 icons turning white. But I every time I closed Gens, the screen would flash again, and the graphical glitches would disappear.

Well, about a week ago, Firefox crashed for some reason and my taskbar disappeared, leaving a strip of black where it should be. I couldn't click on the Start button, the quick launch, or the icons on the right of the taskbar. So I tried rebooting Firefox multiple times and waited a few minutes, with nothing happening.

It was at this time that I decided to open the Gens emulator. Well, that didn't happen. It was basically "frozen;" I could move the mouse around and open folders, but when I opened applications, they wouldn't open and the task manager wouldn't show them running. I was forced to shut down manually with the power button. Next time I booted up, I noticed that although Gens was not open and was not running under processes in taskbar manager, the graphical glitches were still there. I tried opening Gens emulator this time, but when it started up, there was no screen flash. There was no split-second of darkness. It just opened. No flash. I closed it. No flash as well. The glitches are still there, and Gens opens without a flash, as if it were perpetually open or something.

Now, I realize this is a pretty small problem, but it is annoying me to no end. I'm not sure what to do. If anyone is willing to give me some help, I would greatly appreciate it. Below are examples of these graphical glitches.

31987873.png

49218297.png

62030850.png

1st picture: those icons to the left are normally blue. Now they are white.

2nd picture: folder icons that are usually sharp now have rough edges.

3rd picture: most notable are the Halo icon and CCleaner.

Additional information if you need it: I am currently using a Dell Inspiron E1405 laptop that is about 2 years old. None of the music is downloaded, it is all ripped from CDs in FLAC, put in those folders you see in the second picture, then converted to mp3 and put in one big folder in the first picture. I've tried deleting Gens and downloading a new file, but it hasn't helped. I'm using the most recent version from the Gens website (2.13?).

Edited by FlyersHockey1967
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The reason the screen goes black for a moment and then everything comes back is because Gens is old and needs to run in 16-bit colour graphics mode (whereas a modern computer uses 32-bit graphics). So, when it starts, it forces your computer to use 16-bit graphics. When you close Gens, it switches it back to 32-bit. If Gens crashed and you're left in 16-bit mode, you might have problems.

To fix it:

  • Right click on the desktop and select "Properties."
  • Go to the "Settings" tab
  • on the right side, there will be an area called "Color quality" -- change it to 32-bit (might be called "Highest" or "Millions of colours" instead)
  • Click the OK button. You'll get that screen blanking. Then things should be ok...

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Thank you! Everything is fine now. :lol:

And thank you to whoever moved this thread to this forum. I tried making a thread here but it wouldn't let me?

I have that same problem... "Sorry, you do not have permission to start a topic in this forum." What's up with that, admins?

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I have that same problem... "Sorry, you do not have permission to start a topic in this forum." What's up with that, admins?

I'll pass along the note for Evan.

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