Splash screen progress frozen

[Fiskbit]

So I discovered last night that the progress on the splash screen is supposed to do more than say "Initializing Menus". When I start up AI War, it has two entries in my Alt+Tab menu. If I do nothing, I see the splash screen and the Initializing Menus message, and it'll say that until the game starts. However, if I alt+tab to the other AI War 'window', then the splash screen will actually show progress as it's supposed to. Not sure if this is something that can be fixed, but what is that first window and why is it blocking the view of the active second window?

[x4000]

Most likely the other window is the game itself.  Mine hangs at Initializing Menus, as well, but then it eventually moves on and shows all of the ships loading as they flash by.  Initializing window handles takes a long time in windows compared to a lot of other stuff.  I'm not sure if your window is really being obscured, or if you are just tricking it into refreshing.  Either way, I am not sure if I can do much with that or not.  I'll look into it at some point, though.

[x4000]

I think that this is not really even a bug, it is just taking that long to open the window handles.  That is one of the slowest things in loading the game.  I see it hang there for the time that seems appropriate, and then it loads all the other stuff.  Images are streamed in later, which is why that does not take longer.  I'm going to mark this one as complete for now.

[Fiskbit]

I had meant that unless I alt+tab to the second instance of AI War in the alt+tab menu (why are there 2 instances of AI War there when it is booting?), then it simply never updates the progress, showing the menu message the entire time. If I switch, it updates as usual, spending a long time on the menus part and then speeding through the images. I wasn't aware that it actually showed any real progress from the time you implemented the feature until right before I made this thread. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of bug here, albeit minor (the initializing menus message is at least good enough to help inform players that it hasn't hung, even if the message doesn't update as intended).

[x4000]

I see, that old issue again -- there's an old topic somewhere around with more details on it.  I've already tried (and succeeded, on Windows 7) to fix that.  I take it you are on Vista?  Or, maybe it is just the Aero interface in general, I cannot remember.  But suffice it to say, there is a mode you can turn off when launching the application that fixes the issue with it looking white, otherwise it is messed up under a few scenarios.  But that has to do with windows, not something I can control from the game.  Or at least that was my conclusion last time, when looking at it in more depth.

[Fiskbit]

I'm running it on XP 32. I remember there being a bug with it not showing at all in one of the newer operating systems, but not one about it appearing but then failing to update. I think the splashscreen is actually whatever the second AI War 'window' is in the alt+tab list, while the first 'window' is some 'blank' window that's in front of it that appears to have the same content as everything that was behind it when it first appeared.

Sorry for the hassle with this one. It's minor, so it can certainly wait, if it can even be addressed.

[Kilmatead]

It's minor, so it can certainly wait, if it can even be addressed.

Agreed, not overly important, but if it wasn't for this thread I wouldn't have even known there was supposed to be a splash screen (Win7).  I assumed it was normal to just look at a black screen for 20 seconds each time.

Thought it was some type of wry metaphor on the lonely emptiness of space.