The entire screen going black for a game running in windowed mode is quite strange. Normally, this indicates that the application is changing the display adapter settings (for example, switching to fullscreen or changing the resolution). I haven’t been able to reproduce this issue yet, but it’s certainly unusual.
One thing I tried was installing the game under WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), and in that environment the videos do play. Unfortunately, the game performance is too poor to be playable. This suggests that the issue is likely related to a specific combination of system, driver, and GPU.
Hoping devs can come up with a fix so we don’t have to disable that, as it seems like having full-screen optimization (FSO) enabled is a desirable thing
"… Microsoft wanted to create the best gaming experience possible, so they enhanced the current Full Screen Exclusive (FSE) mode by creating Fullscreen Optimizations. Fullscreen Optimizations was designed for gamers to experience the best aspects of both FSE and borderless windowed mode, allowing games to take up the entire screen, run at full speed, support fast alt-tab switching, and support for overlays.
“When using Fullscreen Optimizations, your game believes that it is running in Fullscreen Exclusive, but behind the scenes, Windows has the game running in borderless windowed mode. When a game is run in borderless windowed mode, the game does not have full control of the display– that overarching control is given back to the Desktop Window Manager (DWM). The DWM manages the composition/organization of the desktop display content from various applications, meaning it controls what is rendered and presented to the front of your display and what is held in the background. However, this control has historically resulted in a slight performance overhead vs FSE, where the game has full control…”
PS: I couldn’t reproduce the black screen hitch when in Windowed mode, so it was maybe just a one-time or rare thing.
I’m glad I could help! I don’t fully understand yet why this breaks the videos, but I found some clues:
The first guess I have for why Fullscreen Optimization causes issues is that it seems to create hiccups when the screen size doesn’t match the framebuffer size (Reddit discussion).
Another possible reason is that Flip Model appears to be activated when using Fullscreen Optimizations. According to this Special K wiki entry:
“If a game mixes and matches graphics APIs based on GDI and DXGI to render to the same HWND, it will never be compatible with Flip Model via an override.”
The game videos definitely have the wrong resolution. The native video files have a 4:3 aspect ratio but are stretched to 16:9 in-game, making them blurry. This suggests that scaling or layering could be the issue, but it would require a developer familiar with the intricacies of the engine investigate further.
PS: These are really wild guesses, and I’m not deeply familiar with the details of SwapChains. There’s apparently some incompatibility in how specifically the Art of War videos are processed and displayed with Fullscreen Optimization. If the developers could “replace” it with the technique used for either the intro video or the “Battle for Greece” campaign videos, that should fix the issue.
That’s good stuff. Some of it’s a little over my head , but I get the general ideas.
I will try to think of other tests I can try or settings I can change to circumvent having to disable FSO; just out of curiosity, and in case it helps the devs.
PS: When you first figured out the FSO disable solution, I had a brief panic moment where I thought me running Steam.exe as “Administrator” () as I always do was causing my issue, since because I do that every time I launch Steam it says the following:
But, thankfully, I tested things, and that was not causing the Art of War vid issue I run Steam in Admin mode for a Tron 2.0 game mod that said to do so, and have never noticed any negative consequences to any games
I wonder if the nVidia Overlay might be an interference in this, too (or is maybe the main culiprit)?
When I started my PC, I noticed a little “nVidia Overlay” logo pop-up briefly appearin in lower-right corner of screen, letting me know it’s running. With this, if I hit ALT+R or ALT+Z, it does some nVidia overlay stuff (like FPS, GPU, CPU, LAT) in a HUD overlay:
I can’t find a way offhand to permanently disable nVidia’s overlay from running and sitting idle behind-the-scenes. I want to shut it off completely to do a proper Art of War vid test (i.e,. disable nVidia overlay and re-enable FSO for “AoE2DE_s.exe”), but nVidia’s overlay is always at-the-ready for me to hit ALT+R or ALT+Z, unfortunately
You might want to uninstall GeForce Experience.
I don’t see much advantage in keeping it—I always opt out during driver installation. Since we both had the issue but I never used the NVIDIA Overlay, it’s probably not the cause. However, it’s still a good idea, as overlays seem to often interfere with FSO.
I had the exact same issue and your suggested workaround (disabling FSO) worked for me, too.
Thank you very much! Too bad this still has not been fixed
That’s great news! It would be really cool if they could fix it someday. I don’t like having to disable FSO. Plus, players having to rely on finding this thread for the band-aid solution. I bet 95% or more of affected players won’t ever know how to fix
Brilliant idea to try compatibility tab stuff
) as I always do was causing my issue, since because I do that every time I launch Steam it says the following:
I run Steam in Admin mode for a Tron 2.0 game mod that said to do so, and have never noticed any negative consequences to any games
