Flickering Stardock items when playing video

from Stardock Forums

I've been trying out some Stardock products, and currently have Object Dock, WindowBlinds and DesktopX running. When I play video through a media player that uses overlay, it causes all of my docks and widgets to flicker like mad for a while. When the video kicks in, things settle down, unless I resize or move the video window, then it starts up again and things flicker for another 10 seconds or so. It's horribly irritating!

Also, if I try to display a standard window over the top of one particular program (CB Model Pro), then the window background flickers on and off, and i can't click the X to close it. Have to alt-tab it away, then go from there.

GFX card drivers up to date.

Any ideas? I love these programs, but can't live with this annoyance and won't buy them if it can't be fixed

Thanks!
6,122 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What you are experiancing is actually a MS issue, not a Stardock one.  And they apparently have no motivation to fix it.
Assume you are using OD Free.  What version?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm running the latest version, just got it a few days ago. If it is in fact a MS issue, why is it only only causing problems with Stardock software? Doesn't quite make sense to me... At any rate I really don't care where the blame is placed, I just want to figure out how to fix it.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If it is in fact a MS issue, why is it only only causing problems with Stardock software?
End of quote
It also affexts Y's dock skins with shadows and a few other apps I've seen over time.

Try puting yoru dock on the side of the screen.  I've heard that helps sometimes.  Or you could create a shortcut on your dock that launches your media player and unloads OD.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I bet it's not just Stardock software - I bet it happens to ANY software that uses layered windows (i.e.; those cool, semi-transparent windows with background blending shadows and all that).  

What media player are you running when this happens, Quicktime (or it happens with all of them)? Have you tried turning off the video overlay option or does that result in an un-acceptable performance hit on your system? What video card do you have?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Using Quicktime seems to work alright on this end. Winamp seems to be the opposite. The Z order "flicker" thing is well documented. I think Zubaz is right on how fast MS will be jumping on this one.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just hit F10 and your Desktopx objects/themes/widgets will hide nd make no problem Then again hit the F10 key to have them back. It solves the problem atleast for Desktopx.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

i was getting the flicker with my dock, with my desktopx widgets, with the windowblinds border around open windows, and with rainlender. the only media player i use is kmplayer so i didn't try any other program because i don't have any others installed. i tried everything and couldn't get it to work properly. whatever skin i chose, even ones with no transparency, messed up. so i just uninstalled everything and went back to the old reliable (and much faster) classic windows skin. i like using kmplayer more than i like having a snazzy desktop. anyway these stardock programs kept crashing on me and took up more resources than i was willing to part with...

thanks to those who replied!