Celestia Forums

I've been seeing a strange issue for a while in Celestia, though it also occurs in some other OpenGL programs so I think it may be more my issue than Celestia's.

In any case, as I move the mouse over the screen a strange square appears beneath the mouse. It blinks and seems to be the images that was beneath the mouse when it moves over that portion of the screen.

Does anyone know what would cause this?

It would be caused by somethng wrong in the support for cursor draawing. It could be either a hardware or a software problem, although most likely software. Have you ever installed any of the fancy alternative cursor libraries?

If you're lucky, updating the graphics drivers might help.

Also, Celestia has several different cursor options. Verify that the default cursor is specified in celestia.cfg
Cursor "crosshair"
That might (or might not) make a difference.

selden wrote:It would be caused by somethng wrong in the support for cursor draawing. It could be either a hardware or a software problem, although most likely software. Have you ever installed any of the fancy alternative cursor libraries?

If you're lucky, updating the graphics drivers might help.

Also, Celestia has several different cursor options. Verify that the default cursor is specified in celestia.cfg
Cursor "crosshair"
That might (or might not) make a difference.

-I use the standard black and white Windows mice cursors
-Issue has continued through numerous Nvidia driver updates
-Celestia cursor is set to crosshair

Since the software environment seems to be right, and you're seeing this with programs other than Celestia, then I have to suspect a hardware problem in your graphics card. One way to verify this would be to install another identical card to see if it shows the same symptoms. If it does, then it's not likely to be the hardware.

[edit]Alternatively, remove one of the cards and run in non-SLI mode to see if that makes a difference.[/edit]

You might take a look on Nvidia's Web forum to see if others have reported a similar problem. http://forums.nvidia.com/

You aren't by any chance overclocking your system, are you? That can cause strange things to happen.

And did you remember to reboot after deinstalling the pervious version of the graphics drivers and before installing the newest copy? If you tried to save time either by not deinstalling the previous drivers or by not rebooting, then the new drivers do not get installed properly and strange and sometimes subtle problems will be seen.

selden wrote:Since the software environment seems to be right, and you're seeing this with programs other than Celestia, then I have to suspect a hardware problem in your graphics card. One way to verify this would be to install another identical card to see if it shows the same symptoms. If it does, then it's not likely to be the hardware.

[edit]Alternatively, remove one of the cards and run in non-SLI mode to see if that makes a difference.[/edit]

You might take a look on Nvidia's Web forum to see if others have reported a similar problem. http://forums.nvidia.com/

You aren't by any chance overclocking your system, are you? That can cause strange things to happen.

And did you remember to reboot after deinstalling the pervious version of the graphics drivers and before installing the newest copy? If you tried to save time either by not deinstalling the previous drivers or by not rebooting, then the new drivers do not get installed properly and strange and sometimes subtle problems will be seen.

-Issue occurs when using either card, or both.

-I always reboot after driver install.

-Under/Normal/Over clocking has no effect.

I was able to find some reports from others with what seems to be the same issue...
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=38614
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/in ... 12538.html
http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/1 ... _Notes.pdf
http://www.skyos.org/bugs/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=215
...but no resolutions.

-I always reboot after driver install.

But did you reboot immediately after the previous driver was de-installed? That releases locks on the obsolete drivers, causing them to be deleted. If the system isn't rebooted then, the lowest level drivers will still be in use and won't actually get updated.

Sorry to keep harping on this. It's just that too many people have been burned by neglecting this step. Usually minor driver updates won't have noticable problems when used with older low-level drivers, so people sometimes think that reboot isn't necessary.

FWIW, I'm using a 7800GTX in a non-SLI system, now with Forceware v162.18, and have never seen this cursor problem.

Hmmm.

This makes me wonder if it might actually be a side effect of a subtle bug in the SLI bus controller. Have you tried updating the motherboard's firmware?