When using SDL in fullscreen mode (bitmapped, not openGL) it seems to use
overlay mode. This immediately causes Vista to temporarily go from Aero to
Basic Windows. (You don’t see the notification message from Vista until the
app goes back to being windowed.) Unfortunately at that point Vista will
not return to Aero until the app exits, even if the app isn’t using overlay
mode at that point (presumably.) Worse yet, after the app is no longer full
screen there can be graphic glitches (painting problems) in the app or even
on the Vista desktop. These graphic glitches don’t look good, but are not
fatal. Fortunately once the app exits, Vista goes back to using Aero and
all of the graphic glitches, if there were any, go away.
The behavior does vary a bit on the same machine and on various vista
machines. Sometimes Aero will actually be restored after leaving full
screen. Once in a rare while the app will actually stop running after
leaving full screen. And I have one Vista machine where there is no problem
at all. Based on what I’ve read, using VRM7 or VRM9 video mixing renderers
will avoid the conflict with Aero.
I am using SDL 1.2.7 and have tried 1.2.13 to see if the newer version
solved the issue, but it appears it hasn’t. Perhaps there is a trick to use
SDL in a way to avoid the conflict.
Does anyone have any further insight into this problem? Thanks.
–Warren Schwader