Sysfader mystery...

[cocoflop]

Hello everybody, I had troubles on running the new thinBasic release (1.6.0.0) in the beginning , but eventually I quickly found the solution and now everything works OK. I written down everything I did in simple steps and in detail to make this easier for you to read.

1. At first I run ThinAir, about a minute after while playing with the examples an unexpected crash occurred.

2. I tried many times of running ThinAir again and again but it could never load, in fact an icon of ThinAir was frozen and sitting in my taskbar!

3. I immediately opened Windows Task Manager, processes were OK (no malicious issue), but I do noticed that each time I tried to execute ThinAir, a windows task spawned called... SysFader (shown in Applications tab).

4. I did a quick search about SysFader and came up here (http://beyondteck.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-to-stop-sysfaderexe-error.html), I did as this person suggests and now ThinAir works like a dream now.

I hope you find this information useful, keep up the good work guys.

ThinBasic Rocks! ;D

[ErosOlmi]

cocoflops,

thanks a lot for reporting the problem and also the solution ;)

I suppose most depends on CPU speed because all mentioned settings in the link you provided are ... CPU eaters. What CPU do you have in your computer?
I did a check on my box and I had all switched on. Main option was on "Adjust for best appearance". Everyone has to adjust depending on personal feeling and CPU.
It is strange in any case that thinAir had problems because thinAir is using only standard Windows controls without any ... special candy :)

Does someone experience similar events?

Ciao
Eros

[kryton9]

I am running on Windows XP, when I run thinAir, I do not see any sysfader in my application lists. I checked my settings for performance and all the boxes are checked that cocoflops found effected his thinAir. It must be something related to OS version and cpu I would guess.

[cocoflop]

In fact I do noticed a significant performance boost in Windows environment and in exectution of TBGL examples, most important of all is that thinAir can load for me.

My processor is a P4 3.2Ghz but this could be of less importance, now on I am very suspicious about my new Windows installation (I did 3 days ago), it's a clean version of XP Pro (December 2007).

So now on, we can think of either the Windows Dec 2007 version or some specific features of thinAir
i.e: the About window on thinAir (Help > About...) is transparent. Just a guess, I don't have a clue on this ;)

But mostly we could target our attention to OS version because the previous week (with Windows july2007), I did not have any problems.

Sysfader appeared for 1-2 seconds while thinAir was frozen and I tried to run multiple instances of it. The fact that I saw Sysfader was pure luck, it's hard to catch it on a sunny day ;) !

Generally I think that is a sort of serious issue that could possibly harm the experience of new users, so I let you do your work in peace.

Bye! ;D

[Michael Clease]

are you using an nvidia graphics card?

I killed Opengl support with my main system by either updating my drivers or installing the current visual studio (.net issue i think) and wondering whether Nvidia have a problem.

[ErosOlmi]

i.e: the About window on thinAir (Help > About...) is transparent. Just a guess, I don't have a clue on this ;)


Yes, it is just an easy to do effect possible under Win2K or above OS.
You can see the same effect using sample script in \thinBasic\SampleScripts\UI\Translucent\

Anyhow, I will talk with Roberto (thinAir author) to understand if something inside thinAir can influence the behave you have described.

Ciao
Eros

[ErosOlmi]

My processor is a P4 3.2Ghz but this could be of less importance, now on I am very suspicious about my new Windows installation (I did 3 days ago), it's a clean version of XP Pro (December 2007).

In any case, looking about your CPU, WinXP effects should not influence so much any application execution. Your CPU is very fast.
???

[cocoflop]

I felt the difference in speed boost -by experience- in the TBGL examples (perhaps these features affect form rendering), but I do not tested any example in fullscreen.

My graphics card is an ATI 9800PRO, the drivers are catalyst (downloaded on Dec, I do not remember the version number... as I am in my laptop now).

I am satisfyied by the processor and the graphics card, they work preety stable.

If there were a list of bugfixes/updates from MS we could find out what the Dec2007 edition has that Jul2007 hasn't.

If you have further questions about this issue then please ask me to provide you with further information...

1. Video capturing
2. A remote desktop invitation to my system to see for your self (I will respond only to authorised persons like Eros or Roberto).

Catch me in PM. :)

C ya!

[RobertoBianchi]

Hi Cocoflop,

the XP version of ThinAir.exe uses the XP themes that maybe involve in the situation you described.
Please try to use the attached file that holds the Win 9x version of ThinAir.exe and let me know what happened.
Please note that if you want to use your favorite TA settings do the following steps:


Save ThinAir9x.exe in the same folder of ThinAir.exe
Start ThinAir9x.exe and then close it
Copy thinAir.ini over thinAir9x.ini


Regards,
Roberto

[Petr Schreiber]

I felt the difference in speed boost -by experience- in the TBGL examples (perhaps these features affect form rendering), but I do not tested any example in fullscreen.


Hi cocoflop,

thinBASIC 1.6.0.0 comes with tweaked version of TBGL 0.2.1 I finished very little time before new thinBASIC was out.
I used an OpenGL profiler to get good performance and avoid any negative state changes and get most proper OpenGL window creation and shut down. Performance boost could be seen most in scripts using model rendering or rendering of models inside display lists. There was a bottleneck in previous version in case model used more than 1 texture.

Congratulations on your graphic card, I was for long time owner of Radeon 9600 and it was one of the best cards I have seen from ATi ( sadly cannot say the same about latest HD series ). I can imagine 9800 is even better.

I have only WinXP Home and no problems here. TBGL does not request any XP specific features, so it should not involve form rendering or any non 3D graphic subsystems.

I cannot see any sysfader.exe on my PC, but found this information on inet: http://beyondteck.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-to-stop-sysfaderexe-error.html

... and there is quite a lot of links about it. It seems it is troublemaker very often.


Bye,
Petr

[cocoflop]

Roberto, I did as you suggested, I enabled all options (for best appearance), and now all is OK. I can't say for sure if my OS was in bad mood or there could be an issue. Anyway, thanks for the tips!

Petr, congrats for your module, it's amazing! As for my graphics card, it's really good, it has a tremendous raw power despite it's age (I played crysis demo really smooth on medium details) but unfortunately it's technologically too old to catch up with modern games (see pixel shader v2.0) ;). Imagine that the the card was launched for high-end category systems in 2004 at the price of 6++ euros, but I was very lucky because bought the whole desktop (second-hand) for 500 euros in Dec 2006!!! ::)

Moral of the story... never buy the most expensive hardware! Even if it's going to work for a couple of years... it will be far too depricated that day... ;D

P.S. As for the sysfader, I bet it could be a thread not a process (because it could have an extension then)...

[Petr Schreiber]

Cocoflop,

thanks for nice words on TBGL, it was most of its dev-time optimized on Radeon cards, till my PC burned half year ago and I tried to go NVIDIA for a while.

Do not tell me your card is morally old :),
my Radeon 9600 is now in brothers PC, and he is happilly playing HalfLife2: Episode 2 ( release late 2007) on very nice settings.

I agree with you on the raw power. I had for a long time Radeon 7000, then upgraded to 9600 and it was a shock, I pumped incredible number of polygons to it and it still ran smooth!

I now have GeForce6, onboard, which is technologically still quite hi-tech ( SM3.0 ), could play Bioshock and other demanding games, but it evidentely lacks pure horse power.

I would need crossbreed of Radeon 9xxx and GeForce6 :), but on other side I can experiment on optimizations and workarounds of low end cards.


Bye,
Petr