[RESOLVED] Possible Fix to the Screensaver Blackout When Set to "Just play Videos" in GameEx

[thurmansevolution]

Hello and good morning/afternoon/evening to all!

To anyone experiencing any "blackout" problems with using videos for the screensaver (please refer to this link for example: http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/11456-resolved-has-anyone-else-had-this-problem/'>http://www.gameex.in...d-this-problem/), I think I may have found a possible fix for it, or at least made a huge step forward toward fixing the problem.

The main problem was that, after leaving the screensaver running overnight (and I use the .mp4 video snaps from emumovies), I would find a black screen in the morning, with music still continuing to play. And when I try to "wake" up the system, an error would occur which would sometimes shutdown GameEx. (When using .avi files, it would do the same thing but instead, it would not go into an error - just returns to GameEx and it would seem like there is some kind of performance issues until you exit and return to GameEx.)

I'm not sure which one of the following fixed the "blackout" issue, but after making a few adjustments and leaving my cab in screensaver all night - I returned to it this morning, and there was no black screen.

1) Under the Display Settings in the Setup Wizard, I chose to set the resolution below to the same resolution of the video snaps - which was 320x240.

2) In HTPC/Multimedia Settings in the Setup Wizard, I set both "Change Display Frequency" and "Change Display Resolution" to "Yes".

The reason why I said it was a possible fix, or at least a big step forward, because in the log file, there were several errors that still matched the errors that would occur before - only this time, there was no screen "blackout". In the log file, the error looked somewhat like this:

23:35:35.0 11/5/2012: Playing: H:\Users\BoxOAwesome\Documents\Screensavervids\Solitaire Funpak (USA, Europe).mp4
23:36:08.1 11/5/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
23:36:08.1 11/5/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\cachat.mp4
23:36:08.1 11/5/2012: Error playing attract mode video
23:36:11.7 11/5/2012: Returning From Attract Mode
23:40:14.8 11/5/2012: Starting Attract Mode
23:40:15.0 11/5/2012: Shutting down display
23:40:15.8 11/5/2012: Playing: H:\Users\BoxOAwesome\Documents\Screensavervids\Power Drive (E) (M5) [!].mp4

There were several of these errors like this, but luckily this time there was no screen blackout after making those adjustments.

The question that I have, is that what does it mean by "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"?


Thanks!

LC

Oh, and I'm attaching the log file and GameEx.ini file just in case.

log.txt

GameEx.ini

[nullPointer]

Hello and good morning/afternoon/evening to all!

…

The question that I have, is that what does it mean by "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"?

The answer to that question can be found in my name. It's a generic error message which indicates that there’s a variable being held in memory which hasn’t been initialized to any value (the value is null). Some module of code has attempted reference the value held within the variable, and unsurprisingly has freaked out. Take the following pseudo-code for example:

x = null;

1 + x = y;

// Bad things happen!

Put another way, there is a pointer in memory which contains a null value also known as a null pointer. So there you go, a bit of trivial knowledge with nary a troubleshooting suggestion to be found.

Actually I’m wondering if Tom or Ben will need to have a look at this. It appears to me that the screensaver would attempt to find a specific video, but the video encountered an issue which in turn led to a null pointer exception. It appears a few different times in your log. After failing to find a video it looks like it would return to GameEx, timeout, start the screensaver, and play a bunch of videos until the same thing happened again. Purely the opinion of a shade tree mechanic mind you. Do the following videos play alright otherwise?

23:36:08.1  11/5/2012:  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
23:36:08.1  11/5/2012:  Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\cachat.mp4

23:47:38.8  11/5/2012:  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
23:47:38.8  11/5/2012:  Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\bowlrama.mp4

02:58:59.5  11/6/2012:  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
02:58:59.5  11/6/2012:  Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\darwin.mp4

07:44:41.2  11/6/2012:  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
07:44:41.2  11/6/2012:  Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\soccer mania.mp4

[Tom Speirs]

If this occurs again could you please check the memory usage of GameEx. Ive noticed a crash too in the screensaver but when playing the jukebox in the background. I think its an audio or tag reading issue.

[thurmansevolution]

Thanks for the quick replies!

@nullPointer - Thanks for the clearification! It does make sense - the thing I'm stummped with now is that all the videos the screensaver had trouble finding (in the log) were there and would play fine through windows media player.

@Tom - Thanks! I'll give it a shot . Lol, I'm still kinda a noo-b about this - would I run GameEx and open the task manager to find the memory usage? And also, what would be the limit before this problem would occur, as far as memory usage for GameEx?

Thanks!

LC

[Draco1962]

Kinda curious how to check the memory usage when the screen saver is active without some means of logging the memory usage through an app. As soon as you exit the screen saver you will not be able to see anything via task manager and vice versa.

[nullPointer]

I would agree that using Task Manager would be problematic in this capacity. There are a couple other useful tools that may provide some better analysis though.

Performance Monitor allows one to view memory usage over a configurable duration (this enhancement seems to be primarily available for Vista and above).

Possibly the best solution here is to use Resource Monitor which seems to be a descendent of the old school Performance Monitor and is available in Vista and above.

So there are a couple options anyway. I’m relatively sure you can even generate a report from one of the later two tools, but I have never done so. Here’s a decent article detailing the strengths and weaknesses of these tools.

Windows 7 memory usage: What's the best way to measure?

[thurmansevolution]

Hello

I've did a little test run through task manager (but will definitely use a second application to monitor the usage for a duration of time) - and these are the results so far.

First, here are my specs...

- Dell Inspiron 531s with Windows 7

- 2.0 Ghz AMD processor

- 3 Gigs of ram

- NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

I opened GameEx in a window, moved it to a side of the screen, and then opened task manager and moved to the other side. Then I went through GameEx and took notes of what the task manager displayed -

CPU Usage - Primarily stayed around 30% when running screensaver. There were sometimes though, that when I was out of the screensaver and "in" the more detailed section of choosing a game (where the marquee, cabinet, snaps, etc are) that the CPU Usage would be 90%-100%

Memory Usage - during the whole time inside of GameEx, even the screensaver, I never used more than 1.3 Gigs for the whole computer. During the screensaver, GameEx would use around 160M - 175M.

LC

[thurmansevolution]

It's been a little while since I last worked on this issue...mainly was waiting on a new video card.

I installed a NVidia G100 256MB HD video card, and tested it out a little with some newer games...mainly "The Walking Dead", and it works well.

Before going any further...GameEx in HD is above and beyond any kind of awesome that will ever exist!!

Lol, anyway, sadly, I'm still getting somewhat of the same error in the logs:

05:17:41.7 11/20/2012: Playing: H:\Users\BoxOAwesome\Documents\Screensavervids\Extreme-G (U) [!].mp4

05:18:20.2 11/20/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

05:18:20.2 11/20/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\crzrally.mp4

05:18:20.2 11/20/2012: Error playing attract mode video

05:18:23.2 11/20/2012: Returning From Attract Mode

05:22:26.3 11/20/2012: Starting Attract Mode

05:22:27.0 11/20/2012: Shutting down display

05:22:27.5 11/20/2012: Playing: H:\Users\BoxOAwesome\Documents\Screensavervids\Madden '96 (USA, Europe).mp4

It only happened once, but still kinda happened. Now I'm stumped. I have the memory, both on board the graphics card and on the mother board, I'm using Shark007 codecs (Haali's splitter under MP4)...

Can anyone shed a little light on what I'm doing wrong? ...or if there is any kinda bug?

Thanks in advance!

LC

GameEx.ini

log.txt

[ceedub]

you know what? ive had a similar problem for a while now except i get the black screen when i play bot games and videos.

everything works fine until a video plays but then after the video plays i cant see the games anymore and have a black screen until another video plays. if its set to just videos or just games its all good.

my solution was to set it to just games and every once in a while i set it to just videos lol

[Tom Speirs]

Sorry for the issue guys. Could you please tell me if you have the jukebox playing when these issues occur.

[ceedub]

i dont

[thurmansevolution]

Hello! And thanks for the replies!

@Tom - Yes I do

@Ceedub - Thanks for the suggestion, but it was something I've already tried lol. If use mame as screensaver, everything runs fine...but even if I use videos every once in awhile, it does the same thing as if I use "just play videos"

LC

[ceedub]

Ive resolved MY issue and the only thing I did different was set initalize joystick to dont initialize..weird

[thurmansevolution]

I'm gonna try that tonight...thanks!

[thurmansevolution]

Think I've got it fixed ...It seemed as though the problem landed with Windows 7 for some reason - it may have been drawing too much of my computer's resources. I backed up all my config files, downgraded to Windows XP, and so far so good, no errors!!!

[Tom Speirs]

Its deffinitly caused by a memory leak. Ive experienced it myself.