GDI.EXE

[Vampiel]

Does any one know what the file GDI.EXE is? It seems to be causing applications to crash sometimes, it does not happen alot but enough to be annoying. I tried using sfc and replacing it and then my windows couldnt start. Fortunately I backed it up and looked at the 2 files and they were a different size so obviously it updates as you add system settings. The cabs were the exect same ones I used when I installed my current ver. of WIN98SE. I think it is some kind of memory address manager cause its more likely to happen when run mem. hogs like ICQ and winamp. I know ICQ has memory leaks but the new ver they are supposed to be fixed. Never the less it has happened even with nothing opened but IE5. As well as with just Image Styler, but it doesnt happen when I run games, only applications. Should I just re-install windows? One other thing, sometimes winamp will make a sound like a surge of electircity just ran through it for a sec then the sound stops. Just like the other prob. it doesnt happen alot just enough to be annoying. Somtimes it will just stop playing the song and skip like a record on one segment of the song. And sometimes that will cause the computer to begin the GDI problem. Ohh and when I get the problem once and close the program, it begins to do it on all the other apps I try to run eventually and keeps going until it either forces a restart or I restart it just to stop the problem.

[This message has been edited by Vampiel (edited 10-20-1999).]

[Stan]

Hi

Not sure if this will help but, that's better than nothing...

GDI: Short for Graphical Device Interface, a Windows standard for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices, such as monitors and printers.


From www.microsoft.com (http://www.microsoft.com)

Introduction to DirectDraw

The essence of DirectDraw is providing device-independent access to the device-specific display functionality in a direct 32-bit path. DirectDraw accesses important functions in a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) to drive the card directly without the intervention of the Windows Graphical Device Interface (GDI) or the Device Independent Bitmap (DIB) engine.

By taking advantage of this direct path, games and other display-intensive applications will run faster and avoid tearing (a tear is a screen flicker caused when an image is displayed and written to at the same time). Direct access will often allow game performance to be limited solely by display card performance. DirectDraw also provides the ability to do smooth animation with the use of page flipping. DirectDraw is the premier reason behind the exodus of the game community from MS-DOS® to Windows 95.

Games stress the display process with rapid motion and ever-changing screens that have a tendency to exacerbate tearing (see the Tearing section for a more detailed explanation of tearing). Although GDI is very fast at drawing spreadsheets, graphs, TrueType font rendering, and so on, GDI is not a real-time API. DirectDraw augments GDI in this regard by handling the device-dependent hardware accelerator functions in a 32-bit hardware abstraction layer (HAL).


Stan

[This message has been edited by Stan (edited 10-21-1999).]

[Vampiel]

That explains why the 2 files would be different because I have upgraded my directX twice. Yet it has done it since the 1st upgrade, but the original ver. of directX that came with win98SE is only like 4.1? If there is any other way other than downgrading that much, any other input would be appreciated. Maybe I should try different vid card drivers as well. arrgg now I got one like it but this time it is the USER.EXE

[This message has been edited by Vampiel (edited 10-21-1999).]