Create Overlay Failed Errors in InterVideo WinDVD on Radeon 9000
I have had a nagging problem for quite some time now on my Dell Latitude D600 laptop; when I try to play a DVD movie using InterVideo WinDVD 4, I would get an error that says “Create overlay failed. Lower your screen resolution or color depth and try again.” Being that I have always run my laptop at full color 32 bit in 1024 x 768 mode, didn’t have problems when I first got the laptop, and have a Radeon 9000 video card, I really didn’t think that the problem was with the hardware’s ability to play the DVD, but more along the lines of a Windows XP driver setting that had somehow changed since the software was installed.
Because I don’t play movies all that often on my laptop, it took me a while to narrow the problem down to a culprit program that was changing my video settings: Logitech’s QuickCam software seems to be the guilty party. I utilize a QuickCam 4000 Pro at work for online meetings and the software’s installer turns off hardware accelerations on my video card for some reason (thanks for asking me first, not!).
What I found is that hardware acceleration for the Radeon video card must be set at the mid to high hardware acceleration level for the InterVideo DVD software to work. I suspect that the problem lies within the program’s reliance on some portion of DirectX (DirectDraw or Direct3D) as any of the settings for acceleration levels that disable DirectX functionality cause the error to appear.
To fix the problem in Windows XP, try this:
-Update your computer with the latest video drivers - running Windows Update and checking under Other Updates is a good way to do this
-Right-click in any blank area of your desktop (ie: not on an icon, but on the background)
-Click on Properties
-Click on the Settings tab
-Click on the Advanced button
-Click on the Troubleshoot tab
-Make sure that Hardware Acceleration is set to the fourth mark from the left or higher (you should really set this to the highest you can)
-Check the Enable Write Combining checkbox
-Click the Apply button
-Click the OK button
Close and reopen the InterVideo DVD application with a DVD disc in the drive and you should now be able to play your movies. NOTE that I have not verified if this screws with the Logitech QuickCam operation or not. I will update when I have had a chance to do that.
Filed under: Technology