GLBasic crashing on running programs

[Jetmans Dad]

Hi there,

Just giving GLBasic a bit of a test run to see if I can finally get my head around some coding, and I seem to have a problem with my machine and GLBasic ... every time I attempt to run a program, either within GLB or compiled into an EXE my screen resolution changes, I get a GLBasic box on the screen and the whole thing just hangs with the only way to solve it being to open the Task Manager and end the Task.

It does at least re-set my screen resolution to the correct size afterwards.

This is clearly a problem with my setup, since no one else seems to be having it, so does anyone have any ideas?

I am running a standard Acer PC with Windows XP Pro and Service Pack 2.

Thanx in advance,
jd

[PeeJay]

Welcome to the fold, JD! The obvious suggestion is to try and track down open GL drivers for your video chipset, as that is a prime candidate. Since Acer due tend to be built to a budget, they normally save a few quid by skimping on the video, and then to add insult to injury, using shared system RAM to drive the thing!

[Kitty Hello]

Is it the nvidia driver again? There's an option "Threaded optimization" or something, you should turn off.

[Jetmans Dad]

under 'projects' / 'Options', uncheck the checkbox on the lower part of the dialog, the one that says 'Fullscreen'.  Then in the Resolution field, select the size you want your windowed app to be.
If you indeed want full screen presentation, you have to include a SETSCREEN to the code you're testing and give it the proper resolution for your setup.  In this case, you do not want to uncheck the 'Fullscreen' checkbox mentioned before.
If either of your GPU or your graphics driver is below par, you might want to set 'Multisampling' (which actually is the full screen anti-aliasing setting) to  0 (zero).

Hope this helps.

Ocean

It's a little more fundamental than that, since it even crashes on the very first part of PJ's tutorial ... the file he very kindly produced for us. I should also apologise to Peej for initally blaming Manic Miner, since it is apparently how this machine plays with GLBasic rather than his remake specifically.

My home PC works fine on an ATI graphics card, where this one just won't play ball with an onboard Intel Chipset. I have just updated the drivers and will see if that makes any difference. There is no mention of wheth OpenGL support is included as standard in these chipsets/drivers though.

Will let you know how I get on.

Cheers,
jd

ETA ... just did a little more digging on the Intel website, and it does indeed state that my chipset does not have OpenGL support as part of the standard Windows driver for the chipset, nor the version available from Windows Update, but that it is included on the drivers available from Intel themselves. Those are the ones I have now installed. Will go restart my machine and see whether it works.

[Jetmans Dad]

OK ... that worked 

Thanks for the pointers guys.

Just one other thing, and this perhaps isn't an issue for this thread, but Peej, is it normal for your tut lesson 1 to take 3 and a half seconds to exit after pressing the ESC key? Or is there something else not quite right with my system?

Cheers,
jd

[Moru]

Is it possible to catch this error and give a helpful error message to the user that he/she needs to find some OpenGL drivers for their card?

[PeeJay]

Er, no, that does sound a little bit slow to exit I would think that you would probably have the same issue with everything else written in GL too, as it still sounds like a bit of a driver issue. Still, at least we are narrowing the problem down - I would try Google and see if there are any better third party drivers - I certainly use them on my *very* old Acer lappy, and it nearly runs Manic Miner at full speed!

[Jetmans Dad]

Apparently the chipset only supports OpenGL up to version 1.4. Is that likely to be where the problem lies?

ETA: Just tried Manic Miner again, and the game itself works fine ... it is just the final exitting from the program that takes 3-3.5 seconds like it did with the tutorial file. Frankly I can live with that one (since this machine is only going to be used on odd occasions). Just a little bit of an oddity.