Question Desktop icons become invisible when closing full screen game

Arbiter051

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Mar 28, 2016
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9900kf
Gtx 970 (please 3000 series)
3 Asus 1080p 144hz monitors
850w gold 80+ Corsair psu
All drivers up to date
Windows up to date
Nothing is oc, just my ram is using xmp

Hello. When closing out of ds2 in full screen (not borderless windowed), sometimes my desktop icons will be invisible till I hover over them.

While playing dark souls 2. I saved and then alt f4d Like I usually do, but it happened, this is probably the third time. In a month of playing the game. Game plays fine, pc functions fine from what I can tell/am used to.

The first couple of times I played the game. When I would close it, my desktop only on my main monitor would be black and then as I moved my mouse my icons and wallpaper would slowly start to show. I figured maybe it was related.

Just wanting to know if anyone knows why this might happen? Hoping to make it stop. Thank you.
 
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Arbiter051

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Sorry to double post. It just happened again. This time my wallpaper went black and then I closed steam and it brought my desktop back to normal. I use ds4windows, not sure if that is the cause.

I hope someone knows why this happens. This is the only game it happens with, but I play every other game in borderless windowed. This is the only one I play in actual full screen.
 

Arbiter051

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So you have newest Nvidia drivers? As that could be cause. You only have a 970, I wouldn't bother using the newest on those (I seen people with 10 series cards have problems with new drivers). Try running DDU, remove the nvidia drivers, and run windows update afterwards and let windows install drivers for gpu

https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/
Thank you for the reply! Sadly this method didn’t work. Did the black screen again :(.

After some more research it looks like tons of people have this problem dating back to the original Fall Creator Update. Guess that Microsoft just haven’t addressed it.
 

Arbiter051

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Hm, no I don’t think so. What happens for me is my taskbar is visible, but my wallpaper and desktop icons are hiding behind a black screen. Best way I can describe it sadly.

if I move my cursor over the icons, they start to show like I’m doing a coloring book or something. If I open a program that asks for admin privlages like HWiNFO, the desktop comes back like nothing happened.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
so its the desktop that disappears, as well as the icons.

can you right click the blank screen at all? As you should be able to refresh screen. That should load desktop. F5 also refreshes screen. and reloads browser screens...

i wish google search had competition so it had to try to at least get right answer. It always shows the opposite result to what I want. It would make finding a result somewhat easier.
 

Arbiter051

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Haha I know the feeling. Yes the desktop is still functional and I can do that.

This situation is just so annoying. In fact someone specifically said they had this problem with dark souls 2 sotfs. What a small world.
 

Arbiter051

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I really do thank you for helping. I’ve been googling for the past 3 or 4 days and keep finding the same threads over and over with sadly no solution. I don’t want you to ruin your brain into the ground :)
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
why do you use Alt F4 to exit game? I can find others getting black screen after using it to exit games.

Are you using comodo firewall? its an old answer, seems it can cause black screens after shutting games - Steam link = also mentions a fix about refresh rate.

you could look in event viewer at same time as you closed game and see if there is anything recorded there at same time. Event viewer is deceiving, there are always errors in there but most can be ignored or were one offs
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Curious if you get the behaviour if you close game the normal way, not Alt F4

is it to avoid invasions?

some people get black screens exiting normal way from DS3 -
ok for those who might have the same problem..
i've found a workaround, not pretty but working.
so, if you try to exit the game with CTRL+ALT+DEL and you are having the black screen, pressing ESCAPE will get you back to the desktop, where you can exit the game via taskmanager.
Strange way to exit, but better then a hard reset ;)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/374320/discussions/0/276237094322300821/
 
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Arbiter051

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When I first played the game I would close it the normal way and it happened. I don’t do it to avoid invasions. I play it in offline mode for that purpose.

one thing I have figured out though is that if I power down my controller and let it disconnect from ds4 windows, then close my game, things seem to not happen. Though I’ve read people with wired Xbox controllers as well as mouse + keyboard having this issue.