Video causes entire screen to flash

[Locke]

Hi all

I've just started using PC-BSD. I've been able to sort out a lot of the initial troubles I've had with it, but one continues and I don't have the expertise to figure it out myself.

If I run zsnes (installed from pc-bsd hosted.pbi) it causes the the entire screen to flash black at about a rate of 1 flash every 2 seconds and the flashes last for about as long. This happens whether I'm running windowed or fullscreen.

The exact same thing occurs with KMplayer, but it doesn't with Kaffeine.

I had earlier had trouble with a slightly glitchy screen all the time, and it was solved by switching from SIS drivers to standard VESA. The flashing occurs with both drivers though.

I'm using onboard SIS Video.

Do i need to edit files of some sort for these programs to fix the problem? I feel like the video drivers aren't to blame considering Kaffeine works fine with any video format.

Any help offered is appreciated.

[Locke]

I've had another video problem. It seems if I try to change resolutions via the KDE control, the whole system hangs and I have to hard reboot.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't spend $50 on a pci-e video card which could possibly solve my problems

I'd appreciate it if anyone using a pci-e Geforce card could let me know if they are having any of the following troubles:

-unable to change res on the fly
-black flashes in kmplayer and other video-oriented programs
-random screen glitches using hardware-specific driver

If no one has experienced these, I'm going to blame my SIS GPU and get something better, I think.

[Protagonist]

I've had another video problem. It seems if I try to change resolutions via the KDE control, the whole system hangs and I have to hard reboot.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't spend $50 on a pci-e video card which could possibly solve my problems

I'd appreciate it if anyone using a pci-e Geforce card could let me know if they are having any of the following troubles:

-unable to change res on the fly
-black flashes in kmplayer and other video-oriented programs
-random screen glitches using hardware-specific driver

If no one has experienced these, I'm going to blame my SIS GPU and get something better, I think.

I am running a GForce 8500 GT PCIe and it works just fine for what I do. I have not had any problems with it. And I just tried changing the resolution in the settings and was able to do that. Anything else I can try for you?

[TerryP]

I've used the GeForce 6200 and 8400GS without problems; but I often use 'nv' ;-).

[Locke]

Thanks for the input guys

I got a Geforce 8500 PCI-E with 1GB VRAM. Solved all my problems. Using the driver ending in ".12" Can't remember the other numbers.

Also freed up 128MB of system ram that was being "shared" for the useless SIS chip.

I'm liking PC-BSD a lot better now :D