3D Screen Saver May Not Work If You Extend the Desktop on Some Laptop Computers (325550)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
This article was previously published under Q325550

SYMPTOMS

If you extend the desktop to a secondary monitor on a laptop computer that has 16 megabytes (MB) or less of video memory, you may receive the following error message if you try to use the Windows XP 3D Pipes screen saver:
Direct3D Pipes Screen Saver has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Other Windows XP 3D screen savers may also cause this error message.

CAUSE

The 3D Pipes screen saver cannot determine that the video memory is shared between the primary and secondary video ports. Therefore, the screen saver tries to allocate more video memory than is available for each of the monitors. This causes the error message. The 3D screen saver might not generate any error message when this issue occurs.

WORKAROUND

When you are using the DualView feature (you have extended the desktop to another monitor), select any screen saver except for the 3D Pipes screen saver that is included with Windows XP.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

You can use the DualView feature in Windows XP to extend the desktop to multiple monitors. For additional information about DualView, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

283674 Description of DualView in Windows XP

307873 HOW TO: Configure and Use Multiple Monitors in Windows XP

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:7/11/2002
Keywords:kbdisplay kbprb KB325550
©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.