Windows Flickering

[IT_boy]

I was disappointed to see Filemaker 10 for XP still flickering badly.

Does anyone who how to fix this. If's it's a new video card which one should I get?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Check your Control Panel settings. I use FMP extensively on Windows XP Pro SP 2, and I never see flickering.

Steven

[fabriceN]

That's the problem -but also the solution to it- with Windows users : they don't even see it flicker!

It would give me epilepsia!

I saw an interesting note on the latest TechBrief about a setting in Windows Vista, but didn't find the time to test it. Really curious to see if it gets any better.

http://filemaker.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/filemaker.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=6839 (look at 7.4)

Edited January 22, 2009 by Guest

[Josh Ormond]

Adjusting the "Hardware Acceleration" in the Display options will also help.

Keep lowering the hardware acceleration until the flashing stops. You can also try removing any unnecessary objects that are causing the flashing. You kind of have to play around to see what buttons and graphics are causing the slow re-draw.

[LaRetta]

But this is for Windows XP, not Vista, right?

Filemaker 10 for XP still flickering badly.

Hi IT_boy, it depends upon what you mean by flickering. Windows DOES experience more flash than Mac when a layout requires a lot of rendering, ie, portals, aggregate functions and such. Much also depends upon whether objects are placed on top of fields or portals ... again, increasing flash.

So do you mean monitor flickering or windows flash? You say STILL suggesting it has done it for you in prior versions, even vs. 6, no? There are many posts about the issue, including Eliminating the Flash Effect .

So I would ask, do you mean flash or flicker and does it happen on particular layouts more than others. If only certain layouts, there are many techniques, such as changing the stacking order, making the fill opaque, allowing room for text within a field and so forth.

LaRetta :wink2:

[LaRetta]

BTW, I know of a top developer who hires someone to only remove flash from their designs. It is part art, in my opinion. Sometimes it simply can't be eliminated on EITHER platform but I can show you examples where it is decreased dramatically from one file to another simply by applying three or four simple rules (discussed in the link and other links on this forum).

[Colin Keefe]

Adjusting the "Hardware Acceleration" in the Display options will also help.

Keep lowering the hardware acceleration until the flashing stops. You can also try removing any unnecessary objects that are causing the flashing. You kind of have to play around to see what buttons and graphics are causing the slow re-draw.

Do explore this first.

If this is what I think it is, it's flicker that has nothing to do with the user actually doing anything, e.g. a script opening windows offscreen. With hardware acceleration on, the graphics card starts doing funny things with FileMaker.

We had a client recently who complained about this behavior (with good reason, after seeing the flicker myself). It ramped down considerably when they turned off graphics acceleration on their video cards.

[Brudderman]

My screen has flickered badly since about FM 8 (as I recall), and I hope that each new release will provide a resolution to the problem. But so far it has not abated. I have tried the various remedies others have mentioned here (including adjusting the hardware acceleration) with no benefit.

What I have discovered, however, is that the problem seems to be related to my mouse. I have a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 (4 button) that uses their IntelliPoint software to configure the features. If I remove the IntelliPoint software, the flashing problem goes away.

I'm on Windows XP Pro SP3.

James

[Josh Ormond]

I had some weird problems like that with SP3. I uninstalled SP3 so it reverted back to SP2.

[mlemmnapa]

I've never been able to fix this problem and I have tried. It's because Windows does not double buffer the screen rendering as is done on the Mac rather it draws them in stages and hence the flicker. I see no way to really solve it with out compromising your GUI.

-Mark lemm

[IT_boy]

where in the control panel should I make the adjustments?

-Thanks for the help!

[El_Pablo]

I know that this is an old thread, but I discovered that when using the file search in Windows FM started to flicker and as soon as I close the file search FM flickering stopped. I guess that there is a bug in the low level graphic drivers that Windows and FM use. Maybe FM doesn't like the annoying microsoft dog.