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Samsung Magician Full Screen Bug

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:31 pm
by The Egg
Anyone else having issues with NVidia's full-screen driver bug? It was a mild issue for me before (as in, only occurred very rarely), but with 337.88 it's REALLY BAD. Basically, once the computer has been running for some arbitrary amount of time (or the user has performed an unknown action), the system will no longer run 3D accelerated programs in full-screen mode.

What will happen is the program will start, and then immediately kick back to the desktop (with the program still running in the background). If you Alt-Tab back into the program, it will just kick you to the desktop again. Killing/restarting the program has no effect, and once it's begun doing this, all 3D accelerated programs will do the same. The only solution is to reboot the computer.

I suppose I could just revert back to the previous driver, but I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this, or had any sort of solution. A quick search doesn't come up with anything useful.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:29 am
by Arclight
I'm using the same driver with a GTX 560 Ti on Windows 7 x64 bit and i have not encountered this problem. Is it a known fact that the problem is caused by the video driver? Could it be caused by something else? Until you find out, it's best if you go back to a driver version that worked fine on your system. For how much praise nvidia gets for their drivers, they really don't deserve it.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:34 am
by jihadjoe
Never once happened to me.
GTX670 user since 2012 and always on the latest driver.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:05 am
by Chrispy_
I've told mine to update automatically. No idea which version I'm running but assuming those are the current drivers I have noticed no problems yet, and that's even after a weekend of running various poorly-coded indie games at quirky non-standard full screen resolutions.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:11 am
by The Egg
My searches have turned up a decent amount of other people having the same problem, but no real solutions found of any kind. I'm starting to suspect Samsung Magician, but I'll have to do more testing later on.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:22 am
by DancinJack
So I have this issue, but I have a 7850. Latest (I think?) beta drivers from AMD. I do however have Samsung Magician installed as well.

I don't play too many games outside of Steam, and I noticed that if I close steam down and restart it the issue goes away.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:19 am
by Chrispy_
Well this weekend was a good test because I had all three of my own machines in use for some indie-games, some FTL, some TitanFall and some Hawken.

I have:
  • Nvidia 337.88 + 830 w/Magician,
  • Catalyst 14.4 and 840 w/Magician,
  • Nvidia 337.88 and a Sandforce drive.
How does the problem manifest? If I put "full-screen Nvidia 337.88" into Google I don't get that much, but can you run games windowed, or is all attempt to run 3D content impossible?
What about Aero desktop?

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:51 am
by The Egg
Chrispy_ wrote:
Well this weekend was a good test because I had all three of my own machines in use for some indie-games, some FTL, some TitanFall and some Hawken.

I have:
  • Nvidia 337.88 + 830 w/Magician,
  • Catalyst 14.4 and 840 w/Magician,
  • Nvidia 337.88 and a Sandforce drive.
How does the problem manifest? If I put "full-screen Nvidia 337.88" into Google I don't get that much, but can you run games windowed, or is all attempt to run 3D content impossible?
What about Aero desktop?

Once the behavior has been triggered by unknown means, 3D content will launch and run (and will briefly flash a black full-screen), but will immediately boot the user back to the desktop. The game/program will continue running in the background, but any attempt to re-enter it will keep booting you back. Aero seems to be fine, and I believe windowed content should also work, but it's difficult to switch the program settings to windowed when it keeps booting you out.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:12 am
by Forge
The Egg wrote:
Anyone else having issues with NVidia's full-screen driver bug? It was a mild issue for me before (as in, only occurred very rarely), but with 337.88 it's REALLY BAD. Basically, once the computer has been running for some arbitrary amount of time (or the user has performed an unknown action), the system will no longer run 3D accelerated programs in full-screen mode.

What will happen is the program will start, and then immediately kick back to the desktop (with the program still running in the background). If you Alt-Tab back into the program, it will just kick you to the desktop again. Killing/restarting the program has no effect, and once it's begun doing this, all 3D accelerated programs will do the same. The only solution is to reboot the computer.

I suppose I could just revert back to the previous driver, but I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this, or had any sort of solution. A quick search doesn't come up with anything useful.


Just as contrast, I'm not having the same issue you are. I have occasionally seen apps running that won't restore to foreground, but I usually blamed the app, not Nvidia. I could kill the app and restart and things worked, too.

You: i5 2500k - P67 - GTX660 - 840 Pro 256GB - Xonar Essence STX - Senn HD595's
Me: i5 2500k - Z77 - GTX 660 Ti - 830 Pro 256GB - garbage onboard - Logi Z680s

And I've actually been very happy with 337.88, both on my desktop and laptop

Laptop: i7 4800MQ - QM87 - K2100M - 830 Pro 256GB - IDT something - builtin vibrating plastic wrap

Do you have any specific steps to reproduce, or just "it happens after a while"? What games are you running regularly?

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:13 am
by Forge
DancinJack wrote:
I don't play too many games outside of Steam, and I noticed that if I close steam down and restart it the issue goes away.


This might be money right there. I know all of my games are on Steam, how about you OP?

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:37 am
by The Egg
Forge wrote:
DancinJack wrote:
I don't play too many games outside of Steam, and I noticed that if I close steam down and restart it the issue goes away.

This might be money right there. I know all of my games are on Steam, how about you OP?

Vast majority Steam, but I did verify that the problem still occurs with non-Steam games, and even emulators and such. I haven't really done my due diligence to test thoroughly beyond that. I'll try to get to the bottom of it tonight.

Forge wrote:
Do you have any specific steps to reproduce, or just "it happens after a while"? What games are you running regularly?

As I mentioned, it's universal to all games, and possibly even things such as media players. So far it's been "it just happens after a while", but I'm starting to strongly suspect Samsung Magician. I recently installed a secondary 840 EVO as a cache drive, and I've been launching Magician and leaving it run quite a bit lately. Magician has caused problems for me in the past, with it preventing my system from staying in Sleep mode if left running.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:24 am
by homerdog
jihadjoe wrote:
Never once happened to me.
GTX670 user since 2012 and always on the latest driver.

Ditto.

I did have some weirdo problems related to the Citrix Receiver where my games would randomly minimize about once an hour. Closing the Receiver solved that, so I'd say it's definitely possible some other 3rd party app is causing the problem. Do a Diagnostic start and see if it happens.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:04 pm
by The Egg
-

CULPRIT FOUND: Samsung Magician

Launching a game with Samsung Magician running results in a boot back to the desktop 100% of the time. Closing Samsung Magician results in an immediate return to normal behavior, even with the same instance of the game running.

So apparently my more frequent use of Magician just happened to coincide with upgrading the video drivers to 337.88, when in fact the issue was not related to drivers at all. As mentioned, Magician also causes abnormal Sleep behavior on my system (it will randomly wake on it's own within the first 5 minutes). Not sure why this program causes such bizarre behavior on my system.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:22 pm
by Forge
I'm glad you've found a solution. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Magician isn't really intended for continuous use, is it? I'd only ever started it, run a benchmark, performed a task or two, then closed it.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:25 am
by Chrispy_
Magician runs in the system tray, it's always-on.
Perhaps The Egg is talking about having it maximised and the UI is fighting with other apps?

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:04 am
by DancinJack
Magician doesn't have to run. I think Samsung, like most others, defaults it to start when Windows starts.

My problems were always with it minimized to tray. Have never launched a game with it maximized. Good to know it was causing your issues, hope that it was mine too (considering it's our only common thing I'm suspecting it is).

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:24 am
by The Egg
Chrispy_ wrote:
Magician runs in the system tray, it's always-on.
Perhaps The Egg is talking about having it maximised and the UI is fighting with other apps?

Nope, just running in the tray.

Re: NVidia Full Screen Bug

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:44 am
by Chrispy_
I guess it's some machines/configs and not all then. I've not experienced it on either of mine - though I only have one PC with both Nvidia and Magician.

Re: Samsung Magician Full Screen Bug

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 2:49 pm
by ozzy9116
Fortunately I have not encountered this issue; however, their "over provisioning" did not work at all for me.