BSOD when using Deskscapes 3

What video hardware do you have, which dream did you apply and which OS are you on?

If your video drivers are old, please try upgrading them.

I have the Radeon X1300 (driver version - 8.56.1.15), I am on Windows 7, and I applied all kinds of different dream files and got the same result.

That video driver seems to date from April and we had a similar bug report of a BSOD (but not on apply, on PC shutdown) using April ATI drivers.

I also found this thread : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprohardware/thread/b0eb970d-cca2-4997-be4f-48d406ffad46 which suggests someone else had a BSOD when playing fullscreen video with those drivers which is similar in nature to Deskscapes.

Could you update to newer drivers?

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.7&lang=English seems to be the latest for your hardware.  As you can see ATI do not actually support your card on Windows 7, but suggest that the Vista drivers should work, though you will be losing out on some of the benefits of Windows 7 as WDDM 1.1 drivers are more memory efficient.

I have updated to the most current driver for my video card, and the same damn thing is still happening!

What does the BSOD say?

I cannot really read it all that great, it only shows for like 3 or 4 seconds.

What version do your video drivers say now and do you use any tools like ATI Tray Tools?

I downloaded the revision 9.8 and my driver is 8.593.100.0. As for using ATI tray tools, I do have the CCC installed now, but before I installed that today, I was still experiencing the same issue.

Is anyone else experincing this same issue, or can throw a little input my way about my problem, feel free to contribute. Obviously, Stardock is not gonna help me figure this out.

I don't see how you can make that statement,as one of (if not the) developers is personally trying to sort this out for you. A little patience will go a long way.

I hope your right, cuz this is very frustrating.

rkyle2k5 -

Have you emailed support@stardock.com and started a trouble ticket?

The forums here are mainly used for members to help other members and the 'official' Stardock support is through the trouble ticket or phone call system.

eSupport

ATI has officially stated that they are not supporting your video card in Windows 7 and are suggesting that owners use a driver for another OS. There are bound to be issues with that set up.

Not sure how you can blame Stardock since they are not the supplier of your hardware or drivers.

I understand you're frustrated but it's clear that you have the developer's attention.

All that aside, have you tried running the default Microsoft driver for your card? I'd uninstall the ATI drivers and give the ones that shipped with Windows a shot.

CarGuy1 has a great idea so I would try that first.  Otherwise, I would try the driver for Vista (assuming you were running that before) as Windows 7 is supposed to be using the same drivers.  As for Stardock, Neil is about as tech savvy as anyone can be but he can't solve what appears to be a hardware issue.  Good luck and hope the Vista driver or built-in Windows 7 driver works. 

If you need to update or roll back the driver, you can do that by going to Control Panel, System, Device Manager.  Then click on Display Adapters, select your video card and click on the Driver tab.  Then you can update or roll back the driver.  If that doesn't work, you will need a new video card.  Personally, I like NVidia but ATI has some great new cards out now too. 

The problem I have is that I just paid to upgrade to Deskscapes 3, and to not be able to use the software I purchased is a little frustrating. I realize everything you guys are saying, but know this. I have had this Radeon X1300 card for like 3 years or so. It ran beautifully with Vista. I had beta of Windows 7 for like the last 5 or 6 months, and it ran beautifully with that. Now I have the final version of Windows 7, and I only have 2 problems here. Full screen video is a little choppy, and I can't use Deskscapes 3. I had the Windows driver installed & the ATI driver installed, both gave me the same result. I now have the Vista driver installed on my PC because I know ATI will not be supporting the X1300 video cards, so there is no driver available. Considering that I can't play full screen video, or Deskscapes, I think my graphics card does a great job. I was hoping there would be a simple fix to this problem in order to get my video running smoothly, and run Deskscapes normally without getting the BSOD. I have found out in the last 24 hours that ATI thinks I should invest my money into another video card called the "PCI 2400" by Vision Tek. That is about the best video card I can get to my knowledge because I have PCI Slots, which sucks, but my system cannot be upgraded in that department, I believe. Do not buy Dell's I guess, lol.

So after a little research, and actually catching what the BSOD was saying, I have a few updates. First off, the error on the BSOD I am getting is a video scheduler error. Secondly, after playing around with the Deskscapes 3 program a little more. I have found out that the actual .dream files will run on my system, pretty nicely, might I add. My PC crashes when I select on a video file and try to apply it basically. Which I am sort of confused about because I have a .dream file called "Hypnotic Flower", and it shows up in the video section of Deskscapes. That .dream crashes when I apply it.

Also would like to add that this specific dream used to run without any problems on my PC. This is so f'd up!

There are a few different styles of dreams. Most are video dreams which can be either WMV or MPEG format. Hypnotic Flower is MPEG2 format.

What version of Windows 7 are you running and do you know if it has native MPEG2 support?

I have the final version of Windows 7 Home Premium. As far as knowing if it has native MPEG2 support, I have no idea.

So are you saying the issue happens with just one dream?

No, I am saying it happens when I apply any file that is in the "videos" section on Deskscapes. Every other file under "Dreams" or "Hybrids" are fine.

Will the videos preview in the UI?

If not, what happens if you play a mpeg video file in Windows Media Player?

If your asking if I click on one of the dream files in Deskscapes under videos, and am able to preview it in Deskscapes, then the answer is yes. As far as playing a mpeg video in WMP, I have not had the chance to do so yet. Let me see if I can find one, and I will get back to you on that.

Seems ok when I play mpeg files in WMP. I even tried in full screen mode and everything was good.

Since this reminds me on a similar problem I had a year ago, do you have a TV Tuner card with an ATI chipset installed (TV Wonder, Theater PRO)? If so, try the latest driver for this device as well.

No, I dont have a TV tuner. It is just a ATI Radeon X1300 256 mb (PCI Slot).

The oddest thing about this whole situation is that all these dream files that are crashing my PC, they all used to play just fine on Deskscapes 2.

Is it possible that I could be missing a certain codec(s) or something? I did just do a fresh install of Windows 7.