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MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

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Tannhäuser
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MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Tannhäuser »

Hi everyone!

After years of absence I'm doing a Rainmeter setup again for my 2nd screen. But I have unexpected problems now.

1. MSI Afterburner, which I need for controlling the fans of my (shitty) Zotac Card, crashes immediately everytime I launch Rainmeter. I don't even have many skins active. HWInfo etc isn't even in use yet (at least I don't have that tool installed). Any workarounds? Known issue?

2. Overall the visualization of Rainmeter seems to be more blurry on my 2K screen than I remember from the past. Icons are blurry, fonts are blurry (using the Apple Open Type Font SF Compact Text). Tried antialiasing for the fonts on and off - no success. I've attached an example to this post. You can tell the difference by looking at the sharper png-previews on the Win10 Desktop next to the Rainmeter skins, which are even sharper before screenshotting.

Thanks for any help!
rainexample.jpg
Last edited by Tannhäuser on July 20th, 2021, 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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SilverAzide
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by SilverAzide »

Regarding your blurriness question, have you tried the steps outlined here: Rainmeter and DPI in Windows 10?
Tannhäuser
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Tannhäuser »

SilverAzide wrote: July 17th, 2021, 3:26 pm Regarding your blurriness question, have you tried the steps outlined here: Rainmeter and DPI in Windows 10?
Waah, that did it! This crispness, such wow! :) Thanks!

But still, the Afterburner issue remains present.
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Yincognito
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Yincognito »

Tannhäuser wrote: July 17th, 2021, 4:00 pmBut still, the Afterburner issue remains present.
Never happened to me, and I use MSI AB for years now. I'm not using it for the fans though, just to monitor stuff in Rainmeter (through the associated plugin) or games (through the RTSS overlay), screenshots, video capture.

Just out of curiosity, what Rainmeter version and MSI AB version are you using? Have you tried unloading all skins and see if the issue still happens? Also, have you set the Rainmeter.exe's Application Detection Level to low in the RTSS' configuration?
Tannhäuser
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Tannhäuser »

Using Rainmeter 4.4.0.3500 beta (64-bit) and the newest version of Afterburner. And I think I have just found the culprit. It is probably the TaskbarX skin: https://chrisandriessen.nl/taskbarx

As soon as I switch it on, the Afterburner window freezes.

Too bad, one of the most important skins for me. I should probably drop the skin creator a message. (I don't use the Riva Statistics Tuner, by the way)
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Yincognito
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Yincognito »

Tannhäuser wrote: July 18th, 2021, 2:41 pmAnd I think I have just found the culprit. It is probably the TaskbarX skin: https://chrisandriessen.nl/taskbarx

As soon as I switch it on, the Afterburner window freezes.
Yep, it's often like that, some loaded skin being the culprit. Hopefully the author will be able to correct the issue. If the problematic skin is relatively simple, the user can attempt to correct the problem as well, by selectively comment out various measures or meters until he finds and isolate the issue. Unfortunately, not all skins are simple enough to do this in a reasonable time frame.

P.S. If it's just about centering taskbar items, doesn't Windows 11 already do this? Sure, it's not yet finished, bug free or properly implemented in the view of some users, but it's an alternative...
Last edited by Yincognito on July 18th, 2021, 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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death.crafter
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by death.crafter »

Tannhäuser wrote: July 18th, 2021, 2:41 pm Using Rainmeter 4.4.0.3500 beta (64-bit) and the newest version of Afterburner. And I think I have just found the culprit. It is probably the TaskbarX skin: https://chrisandriessen.nl/taskbarx

As soon as I switch it on, the Afterburner window freezes.

Too bad, one of the most important skins for me. I should probably drop the skin creator a message. (I don't use the Riva Statistics Tuner, by the way)
Get TaskbarX portable.zip

Rainmeter skin version of TaskbarX shouldn't exist.

https://github.com/ChrisAnd1998/TaskbarX/releases/latest
Screenshot 2021-07-18 203446.png
Tannhäuser
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by Tannhäuser »

Thanks everyone! And yes, the portable version of TaskbarX did the trick. So far no more complications. Apart from the fact that I suddenly have framerate dips in AC Valhalla. But I can't tell yet if it's Rainmeter, TaskbarX or any other random thing. In general, unfortunately, all background applications are still a risk for gamers, there's no denying that.
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death.crafter
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Re: MSI Afterburner crashes when starting Rainmeter / blurry look

Post by death.crafter »

Tannhäuser wrote: July 20th, 2021, 10:36 am Thanks everyone! And yes, the portable version of TaskbarX did the trick. So far no more complications. Apart from the fact that I suddenly have framerate dips in AC Valhalla. But I can't tell yet if it's Rainmeter, TaskbarX or any other random thing. In general, unfortunately, all background applications are still a risk for gamers, there's no denying that.
That's why Rainmeter has Game Mode you see.

https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/user-interface/manage/#GameModeTab
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