WinFlip is well stable now. But let us look at the typical situations when WinFlip may potentially crash :
1. The
crash bug which would crash WinFlip and hang the system was fixed with
WinFlip 0.50. If you are still not happy sometimes to restart WinFlip after it has crashed and would like to automate the process of restarting, then you may want this small and no resource consuming
~WinFix~:
~WinFix~ is a utility that automatically restarts WinFlip when it crashes, automatically closing error messages. Copy WinFix.exe
inside WinFlip folder located
anywhere on your hard drive, e.g. C:\Program Files\WinFlip ..., C:\WinFlip ..., Documents\WinFlip ..., D:\WinFlip ... etc. To run, WinFix needs to be inside the same folder where WinFlip is.
You may want to create a
shortcut of WinFix and copy the shortcut to your system's
StartUp folder: if WinFlip crashes on system startup,
WinFix will automatically restart WinFlip.
~WinFix~ adds the following hotkeys:
Cntr-Alt-Esc to toggle between run/close WinFlip,
Alt-Shift-Esc to toggle between hide/show WinFix tray icon, so anytime you can pause or exit WinFix. You can unchek these hotkeys and thus disable their functions within WinFix.
See my second post below.===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== =====
2. "
Sorry! Direct3D failed to initialize."
There are several cases when you may see the message:
a) System requirements are not met, i.e. to run WinFlip you will need
Windows XP Service Pack 1 and DirectX 9c August 2004 or better.. WinFlip is also compatible with XP SP 2, XP SP 3, and works with Windows Vista. But unfortunately WinFlip
does not work in Windows 2000 environment. Also, your video card is required to support
Hardware Acceleration.b) At system start, WinFlip may attempt to start prior to VGA device initialization and fail. Many other applications which make use of graphics fail at system start as well. Just run WinFlip some time after your system boots up. If you are not happy about the error you may see, then remove the shortcut WinFlip.lnk in the system Startup folder with
the shortcut of ~WinFix~ - it will start WinFlip 1 minute after system logs on.
(To run, WinFix needs to be inside the same folder where WinFlip is).
c) Direct3D display mode may fail to initialize if you start WinFlip when another Direct3D application (e.g. 3D video game) is already running. In this case, you may want to do one of these ways:
1. Do not flip as long as Direct3D display mode application is running (or do not run WinFlip while another Direct3D is on)
or 2. Follow these steps :
1)
Make sure you
set the same resolution in your desktop
and in the Direct3D (game) application that you have running
2) Put the Direct3D application on the
Exclusion settings list of WinFlip options, i.e. Options > Other > Exclusion settings > Locate your Direct3D application in the
Current windows list and
Add it onto
Exclusion list. Click
Ok when done.
3) While in Direct3D display mode of an application or a game, use Windows XP
standard Alt-Tab (if it is not assigned to WinFlip), or use Ctr-Alt-Del (Ctr-Shift-Esc) to switch to your desktop. After you have switched to desktop, feel free to
flip with WinFlip. After you've done another task or two, you can switch back to the game. And so on.
Below is an experience of my playing Kasparov Chess (which deploys full-screen Direct3D display mode) with WinFlip running alongside:
(just to note that in this case I intentionally did not put the chess on the Esclusion Settings list, in order to illustrate)
I do not claim that this experience is applicable to any instance of Direct3D mode, but I've no problem done it on Half-Life 2, Myst V End of Ages, Kasparov Chess, 3D Chess, and Enter The Matrix. That is to say this is no big problem to run WinFlip alongside of 3D applications and computer games.
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3. "
Sorry! Failed to save settings" means that WinFlip.ini is read-only or WinFlip is started from a write-protected or read-only device. This should be no problem, but you'll have to click on "Ok" and will not be able to change the settings.
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4. "
An alphabet file is missing" or an identical error message of a missing component may pop up. Make sure you download WinFlip from one of the official places,
http://winflip.stylekings.de/ or
http://www.tokyodownstairs.com/. Then:
1) Create a folder anywhere in your hard drive space,
just for example in C:\Program Files\WinFlip
2) Extract all the files of WinFlip.zip into the folder you've created
3) Inside the folder with the files extracted, double click on the file WinFlip.exe
WinFlip is absolutely safe to use and quite stable. It is in the process of development, and it will become better.
WinFlip
