Have you disabled the nVidia Driver Helper Service? Check the MC readme for a step-by-step instruction how to do so. Some had to turn off some kind of hardware acceleration for MC, too. Maybe you'll find something here in the forums on that.

Regards, g_f 

I haven't seen those specific symptoms and I don't have Vista 64 but I've had display problems on Windows 7-64 with Nvidia drivers instead of the special version created by Nvidia supplied through Windows Update.  I'm not sure what to tell you to try but I'll see what I can find out.

What you're saying about changing to Best Performance sounds like the mandatory disabling of "desktop compositing" that MC requires.  That's normal for Vista and W7 as well.  MC should present the option to disable that compositing (turning off the "Aero" desktop with transparency on program windows) as you launch it.

smyers63:

I haven't seen those specific symptoms and I don't have Vista 64 but I've had display problems on Windows 7-64 with Nvidia drivers instead of the special version created by Nvidia supplied through Windows Update.  I'm not sure what to tell you to try but I'll see what I can find out.

What you're saying about changing to Best Performance sounds like the mandatory disabling of "desktop compositing" that MC requires.  That's normal for Vista and W7 as well.  MC should present the option to disable that compositing (turning off the "Aero" desktop with transparency on program windows) as you launch it.

Thanks for the response. I understand that MC requires disabling "desktop compositing" but the refresh  I was referring to are present when it was not disabled.

And yes, Nvidia does supply its own driver through Windows update in Vista 64bit OS. I even tried those drivers and I received similar errors when I try to launch MC. Right now, as long as I can get MC to work in Vista 64 plus get rid of those refresh problem, I'll be happy.

general_failure:

Have you disabled the nVidia Driver Helper Service? Check the MC readme for a step-by-step instruction how to do so. Some had to turn off some kind of hardware acceleration for MC, too. Maybe you'll find something here in the forums on that.

Regards, g_f 

Sure. I'll give that a try and see if it works or not.

Okay, I take a look in the Services and I do not see the NVIDIA Display Driver or NVIDIA Helper Service. Any idea why?

To be honest, I'm running out of ideas. Anyone?

g_f

Alcy,

You have to disable the compositing for MC to work right.  I'm surprised that you're getting MC to launch without disabling it.  Did you have a previous version of MC on that computer before you installed 3.5?  If so and you didn't uninstall all of the previous version's parts, you should uninstall and reinstall MC.  Also check to see that you do not have duplicate installs of MC or any of the other related programs (MetaFuze, FilmScribe, etc.) showing up in the Programs and Features control panel.

If you're getting good results under one set of conditions, I'd just leave things alone.  Always disable the desktop compositing, though.

I am not sure if I have make this point clear or not but this is a new installation of MC 3.5 since I just moved from XP 64bit to Vista 64bit OS. I also have "adjust the Performance Option to Adjust for best performance" which means none of those compositing or Vista areo feature is on. All of those fancy graphics are all gone with just plain gray color for all my windows borders and I stil unable to lanch MC 3.5 with this error:

I'm also unable to find the Nvidia helper service to disable. I really hope someone can help me with this issue. Again, I do not have the above error if I use Vista default driver and NOT any Nvidia driver.

The Avid-supplied driver may or may not be the right one for your system's configuration even though it works on the systems Avid tested.  If I've understood you correctly, you do not have problems when you use one particular driver version.  As I said earlier, why don't you just use the driver that works and forget the rest?  In other words, why try to "fix" something that already works?

The Nvidia service mentioned isn't necessarily on your system.  As I recall, it comes with some extra Nvidia software that is not part of the driver install.  But, even if that service was on your system and your system works with a certain driver, there's no need to worry about that service.  Just use the driver that works.

The reason I want to use the nvidia driver that came with MC is that down the road if I have problem, I don't want someone to say that the reason I have problem is because I don't use the correct driver. I have seen many response in this forums like that. That is why I tried to follow Avid's recommendation as much as I can.

Since MediaComposer v3.0 a lot of the effects are actually rendered by the graphic card.
If the combination Graphic Card + Driver Version + Slot Configuration and System settings aren't correct, then you can get an unstable software.

You could start by temporarily move away the ACPL effects (Graphic card accellerated effects) just to see if it makes a difference:

http://www.avid.com/cgi/kbase-redir.aspx?p_faqid=76409

Here is the list of supported Nvidia Drivers and quicktime versions you should use:

http://www.avid.com/cgi/kbase-redir.aspx?p_faqid=75147

Also make sure to follow the readme Nvidia Settings:

http://www.avid.com/cgi/kbase-redir.aspx?p_faqid=77969

With version 100+ of the Nvidia drivers the Nvidia Helper service got renamed, and I don't remember exactly the new name, but I don't think this is your problem.
I haven't got much experience with the Quadro FX4400, but it's a bit older card. I think that MC 3.0 and 3.5 is more optimized for the Quadro FX3700.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Quadro

It could also be windows installation or completely unrelated to the Nvidia drivers. That Dell model is not Qualified (tested) and it's a 5 years old model, so it's hard to figure these things out.

Since you had much less or no problems with the standard vista drivers, go back to the standard drivers.

/ Freddy

Dispite FX4400 is a older or newer card, as I said before, any nVidia driver will cause MC to not working and gave me the above error.

Hi,

Alcy:

Here's another thing I found out. Nvidia drivers that came with MC 3.5 is the root of why I have refresh problems, Photoshop and MC launch failing. None of my programs runs (kept crashing/not responding) when using the driver that came with MC 3.5. Any suggestion or idea why? I uninstall the nvidia driver and use the Vista driver and everything seems to work just fine.

I get that you want to use the nvidia drivers because that's what you're "supposed" to use, but if they don't work, and the Vista drivers do work, then use the Vista drivers.

good luck,
Carl

Sure. I understand that and if that's the case, I might as well stay with XP 64bit since it has worked wonderfully but I chose to move to Vista 64bit because Avid says it's not supporting XP 64bit. And now, I have a host of problems with Vista...especially Vista being so darn slow even if I have 10GB of rams.

Last night I uninstalled Nvidia drivers and MC is able to start and working accept I still have the problem of Vista being so slow. I've started another thread about Vista being slow. If anyone is able to chime in some thought on that thread, I'd appreciated.