10/7/2006 9:23:50 AM

Every few months, when we start SSP, we get the message, "You don't have Direct X, so you don't get advanced video features. "

OK. That isn't a direct quote, but that's the gist. It doesn't literally stick it's tongue out at me. But I know it wants to.

And sure enough, the advanced video features are turned off.

So we go to Tools -> Enable full graphics mode features, and SSP say, "We have to test if you are worthy to run these, dude."

Ok. I took some liberties with the text again, but I know that's what they mean. I didn't realize Boise had such a thriving surfing programmer population.

So, anyway, we shut down SSP and restart. It runs it's little test to see if we "are worthy" and sure enough, we have sufficient video card an Direct X-age to run the full graphics mode features. So it kindly turns them back on.

We haven't made any other changes to Direct X or the video driver or hardware. It just happens to work now.

Anyone else see this? We have an ATI Radeon X700 Pro PCIx w/ 256 MB of RAM.

I haven't checked for driver updates, lately. But they should be fairly current.

And judging from one of the other threads on bad video performance, I think I'll hold off on updating my driver for a while.

So any thoughts or comismeration are welcome. This certianly isn't critical. Just annoying.

10/7/2006 7:38:19 PM

I get the same thing every once in a while, too. And on both PCs. One has a 6800xt 256 meg and the other has an FX5200 128 meg. Both are running v5.5. My home PC running v7 has been known to do it too on occasion. Never have figured out why but restarting SSP has always made things right.

10/8/2006 10:28:37 AM

Mine does it too. You don't have to click on enable directx to get it to work though, simply shut down and restart and it comes up fine.

Dennis Duval 

10/8/2006 10:47:54 AM

I have noticed this happen whenever other "startup" processes are still running when I fire up SSP. Basically, it only happens when I am in a hurry to start SSP, and the PC was just turned on from a cold boot.

10/9/2006 2:14:23 PM

Hello, I am Karen with the support team for SSP. Have any of you update your directx lately? If not, it will probably help you if you do. You can email me at kjennings@gofishmedia.net if you don't know how to update directx and I can email you the information. Please let me know if you are Nvidia or ATI users.

10/9/2006 3:39:55 PM

Thanks Karen. I'll check into that.

And welcome aboard. You'll have to make sure you don't get yourself confused with Karen39.

10/9/2006 4:14:34 PM

Welcome, Karen!

I'll admit when I first saw her name, I thought I posted something and I couldn't remember posting anything. 

10/9/2006 6:01:01 PM

You mean there is a newer version of Direct X than the one supplied with V7?

10/9/2006 9:40:19 PM

Direct X 9.0c is the newest except from the one in vista which is 10

10/10/2006 5:13:55 AM

Microsoft has issued several updates to DirectX 9.0c without changing the nomenclature. Later versions are identified only by the date. I do not know which runtime date is included with SSP.

I believe the latest version is 8-8-06. See Microsoft.com/downloads

10/10/2006 11:30:54 AM

No. The installer supplies the version of DirectX required.


SSP makes sure you have the correct DirectX files. There is no need to surf for a newer version at the moment.

10/14/2006 2:01:32 PM

Unable to use DirectX for Display. Reason: An amimator time-out occured. SongShow
Plus can still run, but some features may be unuseable without DirectX.
I just upgraded one of our PCs to v7 and get the above message every time I start the program. It worked fine under v5.5. Visualizations don't work and give me an alert about direct x not working. Any ideas?

10/14/2006 3:27:00 PM

run dxdiag and do the tests. If that all works, try reenabling the advanced video functions in SSP.

10/14/2006 8:39:04 PM

I'll give it a try after church tomorrow since that pc is used at 8:00. Since jpegs and mpeg1s work ok we'll make it. What surprised me was that ssp's hardware test confirmed that direct x 9.0c was installed.

10/15/2006 7:09:33 PM

The tests all seem ok except there is one unsigned file in the sound driver. Tried to enable high end graphics in SSP. It ran the hardware test and said it is ok. But when SSP started I got the same message again. There have been 2 occasions over the last 2 days where it worked but after shutting down SSP and restarting the alert would come back. This is my 4th SSP v7 install and the first to give me any trouble. Should I be looking for a Windows problem or is there something else I can do before calling tech support?

10/16/2006 6:48:30 AM

Sounds like you've done your due diligence. I'd say Tech support should be your next stop.

10/16/2006 1:33:09 PM

I turned the hyper thrreading back off and went through the msconfig startup processes and shut off a few things (like Spy Bot) and SSP v7 started ok 4 times in a row. Maybe something was slowing down the systen too much, I'm not sure. The next chance I have I will turn hyper threading back on and see if that hurts it again.

11/5/2006 2:25:14 PM

After 2 weeks of trial and error I have found this pc only works reliably with hyper threading off. The other pc with the same components inside works fine with hyper threading on. I'm guessing it's a Windows issue.

11/6/2006 9:11:26 AM

...or Motherboard issue