Artifacts when the window is reduced

[moufles03]

When I reduce the VLC window under video resolution, many artifacts appear.
Take a look to this screenshot :



It doesn't appear on a screenshot if I click on 'screenshot' in VLC video menu.

I deleted all filters/codec on my computer, tried to reinstall VLC or change deinterlace options.

Can you help me ?

Thanks in advance.

[DJ]

If the video is normal in full screen mode, it is normal for any video in any player to display some moray in a windowed mode. This totally dependent on the video card, monitor, resolution of the monitor and size of the video as to how much or how little. Even the refresh rate plays a part here.

[moufles03]

It was working normaly with the same screen resolution / refresh rate etc... two monthes ago.

I tried to change my graphic card driver, it did nothing.

[DJ]

I find the this varies with the resolution of the video and in no way is consistent. You can always stretch or shrink the video very slightly and the moray will change. This was much more noticeable on CRT monitors than it is on LCD devices. Adjusting your CRTs size slightly will often do away with the issue.

[moufles03]

I've got a LCD monitor. And It was working on the exact same config until now.
Take a look to the screenshot, it wouldn't appear if the problem was my screen, even the colors change !!! Some green pixels appear on videos.

I open a 1024/768 video, I shrink it only a little bit, artifacts appear.

[DJ]

Try deleting your preferences file for VLC. This will return it to all the defaults. If this doesn't resolve the issue then something else has changed within your system.

[moufles03]

What in my system can do that ?
My ATI drivers are the lastest, still with defaults config.

What does VLC use in my system exept video driver ?


Anyway thanks for helping me.

[DJ]

I had another user here recently that had a similar issue. Starting with 0.8.5 the player is sized to the video. In all prior versions the video was resized to the player. I suggested to go back to the older method. Notice I did NOT say older version.

In Preferences, Video scroll down to Windows properties and under Video Width enter 781 and for Video Height enter 331 then press Save and close the player. This will return VLC to exactly the way it was for all prior versions.

[moufles03]

Still nothing...

With some videos, even with normal size, some squares appear :

[VLC_help]

Have you tried disabling Overlay Video output?

[DJ]

From the picture this isn't moray, this is the inability of the video card to do complete fills. Look in the DirectX diagnostic to be sure the Video acceleration is turned on and DirectX is completely active.

Also check DMA for all your drives to be sure it is on and using the proper setting. You may need to check the spec for your drives to know if it is correct.

Try playing a DVD and open your Task Manager, look at CPU usage and post the averages here.

Please also note what your machine is (CPU & GPU) and post that here.

If any of my suspicions are correct shutting down the Overlay option within VLC will make the issue worse.

[moufles03]

- I can't see any difference with or without overlay.


- I installed last Directx, with Directx Diag I've got :

Directx files tab :
"La version du fichier gcdef.dll est ancienne et pourrait poser des problèmes."
-> gcdef.dll is old and can cause issues.

No other issue.

I've noticed
Direct3D available.

Directdraw is unavailable but test is OK.
Texture acceleration is unavailable.
Both 'Disable' buttons are grey.


- Hard disks DMA are OK

- 10% average CPU load while playing a DVD. (same artefacts problem)


I've got an Athlon X2 3800+ (Windows 32bit) with an ATI Radeon X800.


Thanks for helping me !

[moufles03]

All this because of... Winvnc video hook driver !


Thanks everyone for guiding me to the solution.

[DJ]

gcdef.dll is the game controller defaults and should be there. Makes me wonder what's missing. DirectX runtime updates are available from Microsoft and is highly recommended.

Your video card is relatively new and should support all accelerations. You might try looking for newer drivers on ATI's website. Or at very least reinstall the drivers you have if the new DirectX does not resolve the issue.

Finally if I had but one guess it would be that you are missing the AGP or PCIe driver for your video card. This is chip set specific for your motherboard and may be obtained from the manufacture of the motherboard.

[sailorlight22]

yea, i only use vlc for mkv anime, and now my video has started showing a grid of squares just like in his screenshot of the woman.. changing video options made the squares larger, but still there.. i havent changed or updated any part of my computer or its drivers/codecs recently except to get a newer version of ffd show since the old one was causing my nero burning rom to crash... but that was weeks ago and the problem only started about 4 days ago.. not all vids do it, a dual-audio xvid dvd rip was fine even when resized.. resetting preference defaults also increased the size of the grid, nthing else... what could it be?

[DJ]

Considering all the suggestions have done nothing for you my best guess at the moment is a failing video card that is not doing fills properly. This could be a video memory issue or simply a fan in your machine that is causing the card to overheat.

[sailorlight22]

um, no, everything is new or almost new.. just updated to new directx pack, tried to run diagnostic with older one earlier today and it caused my computer to reboot, lol.. i keep my case clean, so it isnt dirt.. i also noticed that fiddling with directx settings and other filters in vlc changes the blocks.. ie; makes them small(default settings)medium or large, but they dont go away.. i've googled this and seen it mentioned on too many sites to search through, however... i've tried deleting preferences, i even updated to the newest version of vlc today, but nothing seemed to work.. opening the same files in mpclassic is fine, no blocks.. i'm at my wits end... never did this before, this is the first time in months ive even gone to microsoft updates even.. my hardware acceleration is also turned off, so i can take screenshots of anime and such, so disabling the overlay didnt do anything but make the blocks bigger

[brass2themax]

I've noticed the "squares" before too when I downloaded a nightly build one time (from a few weeks ago). And this was on a brand new Fujitsu laptop with fully updated drivers, 100% working video card (and a damn powerful one at that) with video acceleration turned on.

I think this can be chalked up to a plain old problem with VLC itself somewhere. I've also seen a number of people post about this in different places on the Internet.

Considering all the suggestions have done nothing for you my best guess at the moment is a failing video card that is not doing fills properly. This could be a video memory issue or simply a fan in your machine that is causing the card to overheat.

It's not always a problem on the end-user end you know

[CloudStalker]

I haven't read through this entire thread but if it was suggested before I'll suggest it again: Update to the latest DirectX drivers.

I had this same problem as well and updating those drivers fixed it.