Screen flashes when OpenGL used

[SanDiegoPC]

When I built this i7 based computer in my sig, I originally kept & reused the ol' GT8800 SuperClocked video card from my old machine, an overclocked Q6600. There was no problem running this program on the i7 using that card. Since then I have upgraded the video in the i7 machine and re-installed the 8800 card into it's original motherboard/CPU combination.

Long story short ... I'm an Astronomer and that computer is used to run a telescope & a lot of astronomy applications. The screen flashes every second that the main program, called "THE SKY X" is running. The Sky has a requirement of OpenGL 2.1 but using the latest drivers from Nvidia, that PC has version 3.2 installed. (XP Pro) In order to keep the screen from flashing at me, I have to go into The Sky's settings to disable OpenGL - but some of the features are missing when I do that.

So bottom line: That same video card handled The Sky X on this (the new i7), my main computer just fine while it was in here. Then I install it back into the computer it used to be in, only to find that there is a problem.

I've not only got the very latest video drivers installed, but also I have tried different screen resolutions and refresh rates. The program continues it's bad behavior. The program's creator, Cyanogen has no idea what's causing this.

HELP!

Paul in San Diego

 

[nenforcer]

Try going into nVidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Triple Buffering and set it to 'On' if it is currently set to 'Off'.

This is only a first guess since I have no experience with The Sky X before.

I assume you have tried the native resolution of your LCD if that is what you are using?

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Try going into nVidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Triple Buffering and set it to 'On' if it is currently set to 'Off'.

This is only a first guess since I have no experience with The Sky X before.

I assume you have tried the native resolution of your LCD if that is what you are using?

Thanks! Will give it a try and let you know. I have tried all different resolutions and refresh rates on the monitor to no avail. Yea, even the 'default' one!

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Drat that didn't fix it either. Looks like I'm going to have to just disable OpenGL in the program and run it that way until their own team finds a solution.

 

[3DVagabond]

Drat that didn't fix it either. Looks like I'm going to have to just disable OpenGL in the program and run it that way until their own team finds a solution.

You might have already done all of this, but 1st make sure windows is up to date. If it still doesn't work, or if you've already done this, then I would try reinstalling the old video drivers it worked with before. Possibly the newer drivers are broken with your app and/or XP. I had drivers once before that were broken with certain OGL features on my system. It took a couple of driver updates for it to get fixed. In the meantime I just used the last drivers that worked for my app.

 

[SanDiegoPC]

You might have already done all of this, but 1st make sure windows is up to date. If it still doesn't work, or if you've already done this, then I would try reinstalling the old video drivers it worked with before. Possibly the newer drivers are broken with your app and/or XP. I had drivers once before that were broken with certain OGL features on my system. It took a couple of driver updates for it to get fixed. In the meantime I just used the last drivers that worked for my app.

Where that card worked with TheSky X before, was in this i7 computer which has Windows7 Pro 64 on it. When I upgraded this computer's graphics card I put the 512mb one in the old quad machine. When I was using that one as my main computer, The Sky was at version 6 which didn't use OpenGL. All of the telescope computers are XP Pro SP2.

So that Quad 6600 computer that I'm now using to run the telescope didn't have this new version of the program in it back when I was using it as my main machine.