DCS 3D mode not loading "in front"

[Home Fries]

More often than not, when I click "fly" from the 2D GUI and go into 3D mode, the screen loads and is visible, but is not "on top". moving the mouse around will cause Explorer level icons/windows to show while the cursor is over them, and clicking on the "fly" button will not work (though pressing the pause key usually will).

 

The workaround is to click on one of the exposed icons when the mouse cursor hovers over it, which will minimize DCS. Then clicking on the DCS icon in the taskbar will bring it back fullscreen.

 

This in and of itself is not a showstopper, but it gets annoying, and sometimes if I forget and the Fly button does work, I get stuck in a loop where I am in game but have no keyboard or directinput control at all (leaving Ctl-Alt-Del and task manager as the only option).

 

For applicable system specs, I'm running in Windows 7 x64 using Fences 1.0 (freeware version). 8Gb RAM, nVidia 460 GTX with 768Mb RAM and 306.97 drivers. Game is running in Fullscreen on a single monitor with "Disable Aero Interface" being the only other checkbox selected on the Options screen.

 

EDIT: I tried running while minimizing the Fences interface, yet it appears to be something else, as taskbar icons on the lower right are the first to flicker while the 3D UI is loading.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Home Fries

[AtaliaA1]

Is Fences control options set to stay on top of other programs?

 

What is Fences by the way?

[SkateZilla]

ALT-TAB to Desktop, then ALT-TAB Back to DCS Fixes it when I encounter it.

 

It usually starts if I accidentally click on something while DCS Transitions from the GUI to the Render (during the splash loading screen).

 

The only way I resolve not having to Alt-Tab is shutting down the system and bring it back up (OFF, not SLEEP)

[Home Fries]

Thanks, Skate. That's what I've been doing, though this happens even if I don't click on something during transition. It's workable; just hoping there was a fix in play.

 

@AtaliaA1,

Fences is an application that lets you organize your icons on the desktop. There is no option to have it always in front. I have linked it in the original post, and now that I've used it I wouldn't go without it.

I seriously doubt that Fences is the cause of this; I mentioned it because it is a nonstandard desktop app, and I didn't want to send troubleshooters on a wild goose chase if this was a known issue.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Home Fries

[SkateZilla]

Thanks, Skate. That's what I've been doing, though this happens even if I don't click on something during transition. It's workable; just hoping there was a fix in play.

 

@AtaliaA1,

Fences is an application that lets you organize your icons on the desktop. I have linked it in the original post, and now that I've used it I wouldn't go without it.

I seriously doubt that Fences is the cause of this; I mentioned it because it is a nonstandard desktop app, and I didn't want to send troubleshooters on a wild goose chase if this was a known issue.

 

Some Programs cause this too,

 

FRAPS being the main culprit for me, FRAPS Also crashes DCS when i press F10 to goto map view.

[Home Fries]

Thanks again. I'll start disabling some of my resident programs and see what happens.

[vrabiuta]

I solved this by setting the Windows 7 Basic theme.

If you have an Aero theme, the game automatically change it to Windows 7 Basic, operation which brings something "in front".

Hope it helps you too.

[Home Fries]

Thanks, vrabiuta. That's exactly what it was.

 

When I unchecked "Disable Aero Interface" the problem went away.

 

I did some more digging, and I was unable to Disable Desktop Composition on launcher.exe, dcs.exe. The options were greyed out, and tweaking them directly via registry (DISABLEDWM flag) didn't work either.

 

Hopefully ED can apply the "Disable Aero" option to the DCS front end as well as the 3D world; there's no reason I can think of to keep it enabled for people who don't want it. In the meantime, I might just get rid of Aero entirely rather than just select individual programs.