Details on Windows XP's display properties' Troubleshooting tab betweenno accelerations and basic accelerations?

Hi!

Does anyone know if there are programs or guides on what disabling all
hardware accelerations does in Windows XP's display properties'
Troubleshooting tab between no accelerations and basic accelerations? I
want the technical details. Is it related to DirectX?

Thank you in advance.
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Ant wrote:
Hi!

Does anyone know if there are programs or guides on what disabling all
hardware accelerations does in Windows XP's display properties'
Troubleshooting tab between no accelerations and basic accelerations? I
want the technical details. Is it related to DirectX?

Thank you in advance.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

Level 0
The slider is in the far right position. Hardware acceleration is fully enabled.

Level 1
Hardware cursor and device-bitmap support are disabled.

Level 2
The following display driver functions are not called.
Instead, GDI performs the operations in software.

DrvStretchBlt, DrvPlgBlt, DrvFillPath, DrvStrokeAndFillPath,
DrvLineTo, DrvStretchBltROP, DrvTransparentBlt, DrvAlphaBlend
DrvGradientFill

Level 3
Microsoft DirectDraw and Direct3D support are disabled.

Level 4
Only the following graphics operations are accelerated.

DrvTextOut, DrvBitBlt, DrvCopyBits, DrvStrokePath

Also, the following display driver functions are not called.

DrvSaveScreenBits, DrvEscape, DrvDrawEscape, DrvResetPDEV,
DrvSetPixelFormat, DrvDescribePixelFormat, DrvSwapBuffers

Level 5

The slider is in the far left position. The panning driver
(part of kernel-mode GDI) handles all rendering. GDI calls
the display driver's DrvEnablePDEV and DrvEnableSurface functions
to create a primary surface and also calls the display driver
to set the display mode. The display driver is not called
to do any rendering.

Not a clue what it means, but there should be enough search
terms there to dig up something.

HTH,
Paul

On 6/6/2012 10:52 AM PT, Paul typed:

Does anyone know if there are programs or guides on what disabling all
hardware accelerations does in Windows XP's display properties'
Troubleshooting tab between no accelerations and basic accelerations?
I want the technical details. Is it related to DirectX?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

Level 0
The slider is in the far right position. Hardware acceleration is fully
enabled.

Level 1
Hardware cursor and device-bitmap support are disabled.

Level 2
The following display driver functions are not called.
Instead, GDI performs the operations in software.

DrvStretchBlt, DrvPlgBlt, DrvFillPath, DrvStrokeAndFillPath,
DrvLineTo, DrvStretchBltROP, DrvTransparentBlt, DrvAlphaBlend
DrvGradientFill

Level 3
Microsoft DirectDraw and Direct3D support are disabled.

Level 4
Only the following graphics operations are accelerated.

DrvTextOut, DrvBitBlt, DrvCopyBits, DrvStrokePath

Also, the following display driver functions are not called.

DrvSaveScreenBits, DrvEscape, DrvDrawEscape, DrvResetPDEV,
DrvSetPixelFormat, DrvDescribePixelFormat, DrvSwapBuffers

Level 5

The slider is in the far left position. The panning driver
(part of kernel-mode GDI) handles all rendering. GDI calls
the display driver's DrvEnablePDEV and DrvEnableSurface functions
to create a primary surface and also calls the display driver
to set the display mode. The display driver is not called
to do any rendering.

Not a clue what it means, but there should be enough search
terms there to dig up something.

Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and random
hard crashes. You can read more about it:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...
--
"Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw
from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on
park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of
treetops." --Maya Angelou (b. 1928) American writer and entertainer
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
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| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

Ant wrote:


Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and random
hard crashes. You can read more about it:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...

I see they've already suggested a clean install, so you can eliminate
a few software variables.

If you don't have enough disks to do a clean install, what you could
do instead, is find enough room on other disks, to image over your
WinXP setup, then delete it. Then, do your fresh install and test.
When finished, restore the image from some other storage device. I
did that just the other day.

I found an old 80GB maxtor in one of my older computers. I wanted
to try Windows 8 on the drive. The drive had two partitions and
they take up half the disk.

Using the port of "dd", I transferred everything from sector 0
out to the 40GB mark, to another disk that had about 70GB free on it.

When I'm finished with Windows 8, I just transfer the 40GB of sectors
back again, and it's "good as new". Since the second half of that
disk isn't used (not allocated), I don't need to back up that part.
I was also careful to not allow Windows 8 to use the second half of
that disk, so if there was something there, it wouldn't be damaged.
I scanned with Testdisk, to see if there were any old partitions
there, but nothing showed up. (I've been known to "trick myself"...)

To do a backup of an OS partition, you need to be using some other
OS. "dd" is available in any Linux, or there is a Windows port, so
I have many options for a sector by sector backup.

Once the partitions are safe, I can define a partition for Windows 8
during the Release Preview install. And then, boot the OS installer
disc and give it a try.

In your situation, you'd need an OS other than the WinXP one, so the
WinXP partition wouldn't be "busy" during the copying operation. My main
machine is dual boot, one disk with WinXP, one disk with Win2K, and the
Win2K sole purpose is doing manipulations of this type (backups, partition
changes or whatever).

So that's how I'd make space. Move the stuff off an existing disk, as
long as another disk has the space to hold it. And then you have a
disk to use for your experiments. I generally disconnect the SATA cables
of the two (dual boot) drives, when doing an OS install, just in case.
I've had the wrong MBR overwritten by one of my experiments, and now
I'm a little more careful when installing OSes.

The purpose of my Windows 8 experiment, was to check whether two
disks, each with a copy of Windows 8 on them, have a tendency to
"damage" one another. I tried alternating between booting Disk0
and booting the Disk1 copy of Windows 8, and to my surprise,
there were no CHKDSK runs and it "just worked". I really expected
fireworks. Someone had reported, that on their machine, one disk
with Windows 7 and the other with Windows 8 release preview, didn't
play nice together. The closest I could come to that test case,
is two disks with Windows 8 on them.

Paul

On 6/7/2012 3:47 AM PT, Paul typed:

Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and
random hard crashes. You can read more about it:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...

I see they've already suggested a clean install, so you can eliminate
a few software variables.

If you don't have enough disks to do a clean install, what you could
do instead, is find enough room on other disks, to image over your
WinXP setup, then delete it. Then, do your fresh install and test.
When finished, restore the image from some other storage device. I
did that just the other day.

Yeah, the problem is tht it is not easy and quick to reproduce the issue
for clean install testings. I wished there was a live disc or something
to try it without touching my/adding another HDD. Also, I have
disabilities (can't even use a screwdriver) so it is not like I can work
inside my computers.
--
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

Ant wrote:
On 6/7/2012 3:47 AM PT, Paul typed:

Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and
random hard crashes. You can read more about it:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...

I see they've already suggested a clean install, so you can eliminate
a few software variables.

If you don't have enough disks to do a clean install, what you could
do instead, is find enough room on other disks, to image over your
WinXP setup, then delete it. Then, do your fresh install and test.
When finished, restore the image from some other storage device. I
did that just the other day.

Yeah, the problem is tht it is not easy and quick to reproduce the issue
for clean install testings. I wished there was a live disc or something
to try it without touching my/adding another HDD. Also, I have
disabilities (can't even use a screwdriver) so it is not like I can work
inside my computers.

To back up the existing WinXP image, all you'd need is a Linux CD, plus
enough room to store the image on another drive. You may have enough
hardware in the computer, to do the whole thing. The only difficulty,
is disconnecting drives for safety while doing an OS install. I'm
paranoid about these things, but you don't have to be. So all you need is:

1) WinXP disk (hopefully a small partition, easy to backup)
2) Another disk, a place to make a backup of (1)
3) An OS capable of backing up (1). In a pinch, you can do it right
from WinXP, using Macrium Reflect, and preparing a Macrium Reflect
boot CD for restoration purposes. You'd double check the Macrium Reflect
CD worked, before deleting WinXP :-)

I prefer to use Linux, because I already have a proven collection of liveCDs.
And the "dd" program will back up anything, since it doesn't even
consider the file system type. And since I know I've captured the MBR
(sector 0) plus any partitions I need, I know I've backed up everything.
The only time I've "blown it", was making a math error once when setting
up the block size and block count, to the "dd" command. A little dyslexia,
and your partition is a bit shorter than it's supposed to be :-( Did I mention
being *very* careful ?

4) Your WinXP installer CD, to do the install.

HTH,
Paul

On 6/7/2012 12:23 PM PT, Paul typed:

Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and
random hard crashes. You can read more about it:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...

I see they've already suggested a clean install, so you can eliminate
a few software variables.

If you don't have enough disks to do a clean install, what you could
do instead, is find enough room on other disks, to image over your
WinXP setup, then delete it. Then, do your fresh install and test.
When finished, restore the image from some other storage device. I
did that just the other day.

Yeah, the problem is tht it is not easy and quick to reproduce the
issue for clean install testings. I wished there was a live disc or
something to try it without touching my/adding another HDD. Also, I
have disabilities (can't even use a screwdriver) so it is not like I
can work inside my computers.

To back up the existing WinXP image, all you'd need is a Linux CD, plus
enough room to store the image on another drive. You may have enough
hardware in the computer, to do the whole thing. The only difficulty,
is disconnecting drives for safety while doing an OS install. I'm
paranoid about these things, but you don't have to be. So all you need is:

1) WinXP disk (hopefully a small partition, easy to backup)
2) Another disk, a place to make a backup of (1)
3) An OS capable of backing up (1). In a pinch, you can do it right
from WinXP, using Macrium Reflect, and preparing a Macrium Reflect
boot CD for restoration purposes. You'd double check the Macrium Reflect
CD worked, before deleting WinXP :-)

I prefer to use Linux, because I already have a proven collection of
liveCDs.
And the "dd" program will back up anything, since it doesn't even
consider the file system type. And since I know I've captured the MBR
(sector 0) plus any partitions I need, I know I've backed up everything.
The only time I've "blown it", was making a math error once when setting
up the block size and block count, to the "dd" command. A little dyslexia,
and your partition is a bit shorter than it's supposed to be :-( Did I
mention
being *very* careful ?

4) Your WinXP installer CD, to do the install.

Right, but I don't want to have to back and forth to make a new image
(keep it updated) and restore each time I want to test it. Remember, the
problem is rare and random.
--
"He who cannot pick up an ant, and wants to pick up an elephant will
some day see his folly." --African
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

It's related to display driver. Not DirectX specific.
Many things are hardware accelerated. e.g.:

- Bitmap (GDI) operations: copy, stretch, shape drawing, etc.
- Video overlay
- 3D graphics

Disabling hardware acceleration at specific level will disable a
specific group of accelecations and forces the operations be done by the
CPU. On 3D graphics acceleration, it depend on the display driver
whether it implements CPU-only version of a function or not. If not,
that function will not be available.


Ant wrote in
m:

Hi!

Does anyone know if there are programs or guides on what disabling all
hardware accelerations does in Windows XP's display properties'
Troubleshooting tab between no accelerations and basic accelerations?
I
want the technical details. Is it related to DirectX?

Thank you in advance.