Could be related to crappy graphics/directx stuff, maybe have a look
at the troubleshoot section in the readme (ie. up/downgrading graphics
drivers, the SDL_VIDEODRIVER= setting, different output= ).

Interesting thought, I'll give it a look, but again, it only happening when its full screen and not windowed makes me think it may be something else. The easy one would be to blame Vista, but w/e... I'll check it out, though, thanks a lot! Any other thoughts?

OK, my drivers in vista for my graphics card are the latest nVidia drivers (as in NOT the Microsoft one), but considering that the nVidia drivers for Vista really REALLY suck, that doesn't say much (the Microsoft ones probably have better DirectX support any way).

However, setting output to opengl actually fixed it perfectly (well, as perfectly as possible considering my monitor likes to complain about having it's mode changed from anything not 1600X1200 and this game likes to change fairly often). However, that would be the price to pay for old games!

Thank you!

Yeah, nvidia cards don't usually like 8-bit palette changes happening live much. Perhaps DOSbox could default to desktop color depth when in surface output (put the 8bit color in a special option of its own). It's not your particular card. It's been doing this since their 5th generation (fx5200 and up)

This is in the same area of having 22050hz as default sampling rates as most onboard audio don't behave well with that and expect 44k or 48k

Actually, in this case its because nVidia has really dropped the ball on drivers for Vista. Although they had the first DirectX10 cards, ATI was the first out with drivers for Vista.

I've had many problems in other programs (mostly non DirectX) that either crash themselves or cause the display drivers to crash. Second Life would crash the drivers a lot, then not crash itself, and Halo 2 would sometimes crash the drivers, but it would recover nicely.

I'm still gonna pin this particular problem (at least in my case) as a mainly Vista/nVidia issue. And apparently nVidia cards have other issues as well. I would guess that it was a combination.

Don't get me wrong, I love Vista, it makes a lot of improvements, but just like XP did when it first came out, it has many issues. Im just glad to have a solution.

Output=opengl

Thanks!

brwyatt wrote:

Actually, in this case its because nVidia has really dropped the ball on drivers for Vista.

This issue isn't limited to just Vista however. Win2k nvidia drivers have it too

brwyatt: you wrote that your monitor "complains" about mode switches. Are you aware that you can force DOSBox to use a fixed resolution for fullscreen? You can set it with the "fullresolution" option in dosbox.conf. Use any resolution, in the form of "800x600" or similar. If you're using a non-4:3 resolution, you should also set "aspect=true", i think.

It isn't a DOSBox-related issue. When Playing MW4 (yes, 4) when I start a mission it will go black then say "Not optimum mode, use 1600X1200 60Hz" or something like that. Some times it returns to normal, other times I have to turn off the monitor and turn it back on. I run MW4 at 1600X1200, so I really don't understand what it is complaining about, especially since it still works.

And it never did this before just before I got DOSBox (so DOSBox didn't cause it), but it is a refurbished replacement for a monitor that had a row of dead pixels, so I think I can live.

As far as nVidia and Windows 2000, they probably just stopped caring about it, for Vista, they really don't have an excuse at all... especially when ATI has done it.