jimbo6846

Do you think a different(newer) video card would make a difference? Right now, I'm using an older card: ATI Radeon x1900xtx. I was looking at newer models, which already have HDMI ports, like HD4000 cards. Are you saying that not all video cards have this problem?

gryhnd and bkenobi, thanks for the replies. I googled "DVI device that fools the video card into thinking it's attached" and found the DVI Detective. The cheap version is $45+ and the expensive version is $95+. Unfortunately, I think I'd need the expensive version because HDCP pass-thru is mentioned in its tech specs (not mentioned in the $45 version) and I will eventually put a Blu-Ray drive into this PC I think for now I will just try to deal with this as best I can with what I already have. Luckily, this problem doesn't crop up when I'm simply changing the inputs on the TV itself, and I have the cable box plugged into the TV's other HDMI port. Once again, thank you very much for the help.

gryhnd, thanks for the suggestion. I think I may end up toying around with AutoHotKey and see if I can have it close the CMD window after a certain amount of time after closing GameEx. Now I have a different, but related, problem though. I have GameEx installed on a PC that I have connected to my HDTV in my living room. The PC is connected to the TV via a DVI-to-HDMI cable that is running to a cheap little HDMI switch that I just bought (since I have more HDMI devices than my TV has HDMI ports). What's happening is that when I'm playing on the PC with GameEx and change the HDMI switch input to one of the other devices connected to the switch, and then switch back to the PC, I'm (yet again) receiving another generic DirectX error. Sometimes it happens (most times), sometimes it doesn't. I've tried it with my theme of choice (Acidbrain Vision) and also with the Default - Default theme. The error just seems to come randomly when switching back to the GameEx PC. What I've noticed happening is that sometimes the PC's desktop resolution gets changed when GameEx crashes in this manner. I've seen the desktop resolution set to 800x600 afterwards, as well as 1024x768, both at 16-bit color. I believe the 16-bit color change is at least part of the cause of the crash, because I have yet to see GameEx crash like this when it's set to 16-bit color from the config file. Due to the choppy text display in 16-bit color though, I'd rather put up with the occasional crash when switching inputs on the switch while waiting for an update to fix this problem, since switching inputs on the switch while playing will be rare for me (I'll be reading the text/browsing through the games MUCH more than switching between the inputs on the switch). Does anyone know of a way to fix this... to keep GameEx from crashing because of it changing the desktop resolution? EDIT: DirectX error is reproduceable with 16-bit color enabled as well. Which is a shame, because at 1080p resolution, the text wasn't choppy anymore. Any thoughts anyone?

I've searched around this board and saw this error a LOT, but I haven't found a solution yet... so I created an account in order to make my own thread and see if anyone knows of a way to fix this problem. What's happening is I have my computer set to load both Media Center (Vista Ultimate x64) and GameEx at Windows startup. GameEx will randomly (though more often than not) error out and not load. I get a generic DirectX error. If I close the GameEx crash window and then try to load GameEx again, it will work fine. This happens no matter what theme I use, and only when I have Media Center (and GameEx) set to load at startup. If I don't load Media Center at startup, GameEx loads fine. Now, the reason I have Media Center set to load at Windows startup instead of through the Launch on Exit command inside GameEx is because I also want to load an Xpadder profile to use my Xbox 360 controller to navigate through Media Center. So, I'd need to load the Xpadder profile AND Media Center through Launch on Exit. The only way I've been able to do that successfully is through a batch file I created that just runs both commands. However, this creates a CMD window in the background, and it won't close by itself until I close Media Center. To my knowledge, this is just how batch files work (ie, they won't move onto the next command until the system finishes processing the last command the batch file launched, in this case: Media Center). Normally, I wouldn't care about this CMD window in the background, but unfortunately it is stopping GameEx from loading if I try to click on the "My Games - Mame" option in Media Center. Anyone have any solutions/suggestions?