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Windows 7 enters un-escapeable blackscreen during video playback and alt-tabbing X-Com 2 ?!?

From "Skybuck Flying" <skybuck2000@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt, alt.comp.lang.c, comp.arch, comp.games.development.programming.algorithms, comp.graphics.algorithms
Subject Windows 7 enters un-escapeable blackscreen during video playback and alt-tabbing X-Com 2 ?!?
Date 2016-02-13 02:42 +0100
Message-ID <e29dc$56be89eb$d47876e2$63642@news.ziggo.nl> (permalink)
Organization Ziggo

Cross-posted to 5 groups.

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Hello,

It's time to report this new problem that my system has with Windows 7 and 
X-Com 2.

X-Com 2 is a video game which uses bink video player to play scenes.

During the video scene I tried to increasing the volume and also pressed 
alt-tab on purpose.

During increasing the volume the game itself minimizes which is a bit weird.

The volume know graphics is supposed to be overlayed by that doesn't happen.

If I switch back fast to the game, sometimes it will work, but sometimes 
not.

Sometimes while:

1. Playing X-Com 2.

and

2. A video scene is playing in X-Com 2.

and

3. Alt-Tabbing back and forth.

The following will happen:

1. A black screen appears.

2. Windows 7 seems to loose control.

3. Task manager will not come up.

4. Control-Alt-Delete will not bring up task manager.

5. Some beeping can be heard if I try to press keys or mouse many times.

So some conclusions/observations:

1. The minimizing of the game itself is already weird behaviour.

2 .The black screen could indicate some kind of video/display/graphics 
driver problem.

3. Since the problem only occurs during bink video player it could be 
related to MMX/XMM/SSE multimedia/video instructions.

So possible conclusions:

1. First of all Windows 7 can't handle a video/display driver crash or bug.

2. It could be a bug in Windows 7 itself.

But for now it's most likely that it's a bug in:

3. NVIDIA's Display Driver.

However I would not rule out a more serious problem in Windows 7 context 
switching in relation to special instructions and/or video driver.

My system does have some missing windows patches though and my system is a 
bit old/slower than other systems.

AMD X2 3800+ dual core processor and GT 520 graphics carsd.

So first it must be diagnosed if it's just my system/software stack or if 
this is happening to other people's system as well.

For now the only solution was to press the RESET button to do a reboot.

So try it out and see if your computer will enter an un-escapable black 
sceen during video playback in X-Com 2.

I'd like to know the cause or at least have it solve sometime in future...

Perhaps not even on my old system but future systems... this does smell a 
bit like it could be used for denial of service attacks or so ! ;)

Hopefully I am just being delirious about that last possibility ! ;) :)

I will re-post this message on nvidia forum where it probably belongs, but 
also x-com 2 forum just in case, I expect to find more testers there then 
here ! ;)

(Great game by the way... my review will come when I am finished playing 
with it... which will take multiple days possibly... )

Bye,
  Skybuck. 

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Windows 7 enters un-escapeable blackscreen during video playback and alt-tabbing X-Com 2 ?!? "Skybuck Flying" <skybuck2000@hotmail.com> - 2016-02-13 02:42 +0100

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