Strobelight - LightBoost Utility for AMD/ATI and NVIDIA

[CalvesSlayer]

I was literally just about to edit and confirm that it is in fact working after latest reboot. Sorry for the troubles, lol

[Wizard]

I created an account here just to make this post

I'd like to first point out that I love this tool, I've been using it for months now without any problems on Windows 7 64-bit.

The issues started happening when I upgraded to windows 10. Basically what happens is the setup works perfectly fine, it installs the refresh rates, and overrides the EDID. Then I restart my computer as it tells me. When I run strobelight.exe it tells me 'no strobed refresh rates found.' which isn't right.

So I did some debugging, downloaded CRU and looked at my monitor's EDID to find that the strobelight override is still there. Wtf?

Eventually I figured out that if I run restart64.exe (which basically restarts the entire graphics driver) it will restart my displays, and will apply the EDID override, therefore allowing strobelight to work again.

But the problem is I have to run restart64.exe EVERY TIME I startup my computer to get the strobelight to work. This is a minor annoyance to me, but I wanted to let everyone know that this workaround does exist.

I am using a VG248QE monitor, with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 ti graphics card, and with Windows 10 Home 64-bit Operating System.

A real fix for Windows 10 users would be appreciated. Thanks

[ToastyX]

(08-07-2015 05:17 AM)Wizard Wrote:  The issues started happening when I upgraded to windows 10. Basically what happens is the setup works perfectly fine, it installs the refresh rates, and overrides the EDID. Then I restart my computer as it tells me. When I run strobelight.exe it tells me 'no strobed refresh rates found.' which isn't right.

So I did some debugging, downloaded CRU and looked at my monitor's EDID to find that the strobelight override is still there. Wtf?

Eventually I figured out that if I run restart64.exe (which basically restarts the entire graphics driver) it will restart my displays, and will apply the EDID override, therefore allowing strobelight to work again.

But the problem is I have to run restart64.exe EVERY TIME I startup my computer to get the strobelight to work. This is a minor annoyance to me, but I wanted to let everyone know that this workaround does exist.

Are the refresh rates not available at all in Windows until after you run restart.exe or is it only Strobelight not finding the refresh rates? I can't do anything if EDID overrides aren't loading. That would be a driver issue, but I haven't heard of this happening with NVIDIA. Try reinstalling the driver after using DDU to wipe everything: http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/

[Wizard]

(08-07-2015 01:56 PM)ToastyX Wrote:  

(08-07-2015 05:17 AM)Wizard Wrote:  The issues started happening when I upgraded to windows 10. Basically what happens is the setup works perfectly fine, it installs the refresh rates, and overrides the EDID. Then I restart my computer as it tells me. When I run strobelight.exe it tells me 'no strobed refresh rates found.' which isn't right.

So I did some debugging, downloaded CRU and looked at my monitor's EDID to find that the strobelight override is still there. Wtf?

Eventually I figured out that if I run restart64.exe (which basically restarts the entire graphics driver) it will restart my displays, and will apply the EDID override, therefore allowing strobelight to work again.

But the problem is I have to run restart64.exe EVERY TIME I startup my computer to get the strobelight to work. This is a minor annoyance to me, but I wanted to let everyone know that this workaround does exist.

Are the refresh rates not available at all in Windows until after you run restart.exe or is it only Strobelight not finding the refresh rates? I can't do anything if EDID overrides aren't loading. That would be a driver issue, but I haven't heard of this happening with NVIDIA. Try reinstalling the driver after using DDU to wipe everything: http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/

Yes, the refresh rates aren't available in windows until restart64.exe is ran. This hasn't happened to me before either, the only difference is I upgraded to windows 10, and I updated the graphics driver to the Windows 10 Ready version.

I'll try your suggestion and use DDU to wipe the display driver, and post back with results. Thanks for the quick reply!

EDIT: Test was a no-go. Ran DDU and completely reinstalled NVIDIA. Same thing happens, when the computer boots up the EDID override is still visible in Custom Resolution Utility, but restart.exe must be ran in order to apply the override.
Is there no way strobelight can be programmed to restart the graphics driver on start for windows 10 users?

EDIT2: OK... restarted one last time after I posted this and it magically worked. I guess it was a driver problem. I don't know why it took two restarts to fix this issue.

EDIT3: Apparently it sometimes works and sometimes requires me to run restart.exe. Some of my other startup programs are misbehaving randomly too, requiring me to restart them, although that may not even be relevant to this issue. But if it is, it is quite possible that Microsoft will fix this weird behavior in a later update

[falkentyne]

Can windows 10 use the older windows 8.1 driver?
I Think the driver model is the same..have you tried the non windows 10 driver (you may have to disable signature enforcement) and then see if it happens with the non W10 driver?

Before you can pin point the issue on windows or the driver, you have to try to isolate one or the other, because you changed two things, not one.

I'm just spouting random stuff so I could be 100% completely wrong, but I mean it is worth a shot.

[Arsenal]

Hello all and first thanks for the Strobelight LightBoost,

i have since any days a problems with lightboost! In Windows 7 x64 lightboost works but only on 120 hz and ingame it doesnt work ! My monitor can handl 144 hz ! Anyone have a idea what i can do?

i use a
Asus VG246
Amd 7770
Drivers 15.7.1


Thx

[ToastyX]

(08-15-2015 10:37 AM)Arsenal Wrote:  Hello all and first thanks for the Strobelight LightBoost,

i have since any days a problems with lightboost! In Windows 7 x64 lightboost works but only on 120 hz and ingame it doesnt work ! My monitor can handl 144 hz ! Anyone have a idea what i can do?

LightBoost only works at 120/110/100 Hz. There is no 144 Hz LightBoost mode. You need to make sure the game is running at the correct refresh rate.

[ToastyX]

(08-07-2015 05:17 AM)Wizard Wrote:  The issues started happening when I upgraded to windows 10. Basically what happens is the setup works perfectly fine, it installs the refresh rates, and overrides the EDID. Then I restart my computer as it tells me. When I run strobelight.exe it tells me 'no strobed refresh rates found.' which isn't right.

I just realized this message doesn't make sense even if the EDID override isn't loading because that message should only appear if 120/110/100 Hz aren't available, but they should be available by default even if the EDID override isn't loading, although they won't be strobed. Is 120/110/100 Hz available in the Windows screen resolution settings when this happens? If not, then that indicates a driver bug.

If the default refresh rates are available but Strobelight isn't finding them, then it might be that issue where refresh rates aren't available in Windows until the desktop finishes loading, but beta 4 already waits a few seconds for the desktop to load before checking the refresh rates, and if it fails to open the desktop, it should give you an error message. Even if that failed, simply running strobelight.exe manually should work. If you have to run restart.exe, then that indicates a driver bug.

(08-08-2015 08:47 PM)Wizard Wrote:  Is there no way strobelight can be programmed to restart the graphics driver on start for windows 10 users?

I can't do that because restarting the graphics driver requires administrator privileges, but such programs won't run on startup. You can use the task scheduler to run restart.exe with administrator privileges, and you can also use it to start strobelight.exe after a delay so it runs after restart.exe.

[Wizard]

(08-15-2015 05:31 PM)ToastyX Wrote:  

(08-07-2015 05:17 AM)Wizard Wrote:  The issues started happening when I upgraded to windows 10. Basically what happens is the setup works perfectly fine, it installs the refresh rates, and overrides the EDID. Then I restart my computer as it tells me. When I run strobelight.exe it tells me 'no strobed refresh rates found.' which isn't right.

I just realized this message doesn't make sense even if the EDID override isn't loading because that message should only appear if 120/110/100 Hz aren't available, but they should be available by default even if the EDID override isn't loading, although they won't be strobed. Is 120/110/100 Hz available in the Windows screen resolution settings when this happens? If not, then that indicates a driver bug.

If the default refresh rates are available but Strobelight isn't finding them, then it might be that issue where refresh rates aren't available in Windows until the desktop finishes loading, but beta 4 already waits a few seconds for the desktop to load before checking the refresh rates, and if it fails to open the desktop, it should give you an error message. Even if that failed, simply running strobelight.exe manually should work. If you have to run restart.exe, then that indicates a driver bug.

I've waited several minutes after windows has started, and have tried restarting the strobelight.exe, but to no avail.

I can confirm that the strobed refresh rates do not appear in windows display settings until after restart.exe is ran, so if what you said is true it is a driver problem.

This may or may not be of importance, but when windows 10 is booting and when it gets to the login screen, the screen freezes and flickers off and on before it lets me type in my password. Could the OS be detecting the 3rd party EDID override automatically and override it with the default settings?

[ToastyX]

(08-19-2015 11:43 PM)Wizard Wrote:  This may or may not be of importance, but when windows 10 is booting and when it gets to the login screen, the screen freezes and flickers off and on before it lets me type in my password. Could the OS be detecting the 3rd party EDID override automatically and override it with the default settings?

No, that shouldn't happen. That almost sounds like the GeForce Experience problem, but that should have been worked around in Beta 3. Maybe there's another driver bug that triggers under the same circumstances. If that's the case, something is doing a hardware scan, which triggers the bug in the driver. GeForce Experience and Samsung Magician were known to do this. Try uninstalling those if you have them installed. There might be other programs that trigger the problem that I don't know about.