[ATTN TOM] GameEX crash when switching screen with 2 graphic cards

[Rochabian]

Hi

I have a specific setup with 2 graphic cards

One attached to a CRT, it's my main monitor where i launch Gameex, and the second one attached to a 4k TV

The CRT run at 1280x720 and the TV at 3840x2160.

When i run GameEX on the CRT, the TV display is not activated, and to play PC games, i launch a DisplayMagician command line (with "Run before" in Emu advanced config ) to switch screen from CRT to TV before launching a game.

So the CRT becomes off and TV is on at 4k. The script works but just after switching screen, Gameex crash saying a DirectX error, log attached.

I don't know if it can be fixed but i have no problems at all switching screen with other apps open (f.e. steam opened on the crt then switch to tv is ok)

I'm on Windows 11 and scaling setting is 100% for the CRT and 300% for TV

Can this be resolved ?

GameEx.ini log.txt

[Draco1962]

This one will definitely need for Tom to address if he can at all. The CPU settings reported in the log file show 1280x960 vs 1280x720 as you noted above. Probably not the cause  and maybe not worth noting but a difference none the less since what you noted matches your gameex.ini settings.

My thoughts are that GameEx is losing focus during the shift to the 2nd GPU but, again, Tom would be the authority on this.

Also noted some "out of memory" errors. 

A few questions that may/may not remedy anything currently reported:

- Are you running the display in fullscreen  - windowed?

- Have you tried running GameEx just to the large display and second GPU without any errors? 

 

[Rochabian]

-Display is fullscreen

-Gameex launched from the TV without the script to switch screen works fine and launch PC games on TV normally

I've another script to switch back to the CRT when the PC game exit and it crashes gamex too.

 

Notice that if i run the script to switch to TV from "outside" of gameex, so not before a game launch, but on the main page, it has a strange behavior

Gameex is displayed on the TV but the graphics are frozen and control doesn't respond. Then if i launch the script to get back to CRT, gamex is working normally again. No crash but hangs on TV

[Draco1962]

Ok so to recap, GameEx launches fine directly to the TV and CRT, but the error occurs only when switching between either.

Can you try running the display fullscreen windowed and report back with a new log.txt file? This may or may not have a positive impact.

[Rochabian]

Good recap Draco, that's it !

With fullscreen windowed, same crashs

But when i switch screen from main menu, i have a black screen on my TV instead of a frozen main menu

Surely a scaling problem between 1280x960 and 3840x2160

I use a custom theme, i'll try with a standard one

[Draco1962]

What happens if you match the scaling of the TV to the CRT, dropping it from 300% to 100%?

[Rochabian]

With scaling 100% on both screen doesn't resolve the problem, same behavior

With a default theme same behavior too

[Draco1962]

Good to know and thanks for reporting back. The only other thing I can think of is testing against one GPU for both CRT and TV as what you have presented is very unique.

I will punt this over to Tom to respond further. Since you are using GameEx in a way likely not originally envirisoned, it is possilble there may not be a solution for your use case.

[Rochabian]

Ok thanks Draco,

I've tried on another PC to switch screen between two LCD monitor at 1920x1080, with one graphic card ,and the problem doesn't appear, Gameex works without problem switching from one screen to the other one.

On the PC that has problem switching screen i use a GTX 1030 for the CRT and a RTX 3070ti for the TV. Both use the same Geforce driver

So yes the problem seems to appear specifically with 2 gaphic cards

[Tom Speirs]

Please replace the dll with this one and let me know results.

Thanks,

GameEx.zip

[Rochabian]

Tom, i've tested with the new dll but it's the same, Gameex directx crash error when switching screen

[Rochabian]

A little update with a video if it can help to identify the problem

First part, i try to switch screen at Gameex Main screen, you can see that the display is frozen on TV, but when i revert it to the CRT, Gameex main screen is working again. So no crash, but unusable on TV

Second part, i launch a game, so my script to switch screen is launched before the game via advanced emulator config, and we can see that it switch to TV and then crash when launching game surely because display is frozen.

Let me know if you think it can be fixed or if it is too specific to my setup to be resolved

Thanks