DirectX/Direct2D VirtualSurfaceImageSource render incorrectly draws Horizontal Pixels offset of refreshed area's height on new version of Windows 10 and Windows11

Sacha B 116

Hello, and thanks in advance. The graphics engine I wrote is written in C++ Direct2D using VirtualSurfaceImageSource mainly to work in conjunction with XAML. The app has always worked perfect until the latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11.

I noticed that on newer versions of Windows 10 and on Windows 11, the DIrect2D graphics have a slight glitch. This never happened on older versions of Windows 10. I have even compiled versions of the app from 7+ years ago that worked just a perfectly on older versions of Windows. I compiled these and they had the same glitch on newer versions of Windows.

The issue is: when the texture is updated and renders a small, updated part of the image it for some reason Redraws all the pixels horizontally to the updated rectangle.

Even when BeginDraw(updateSize); only updates a small rectangle, still the entire set of pixels to the left and right of the updated area are strangely redrawn with an offset by 1 to 4 pixels. Sometimes strangely anti-aliased. This strange effect only lasts until the next small rectangle is updated and then the pixels return to normal but the same effect happens next to the newly updated rectangle. Those pixels that are being offset are definitely not in the "Updated" area. I have verified this on several older version of the app as well and the same thing happens going back to Windows 8.

Any help with solving this issue is greatly appreciated.

You may view the strange un-updated Pixel shift in the image below.

Thanks,
Sacha

Here the Green drawn line is the refreshed area. See how the pixels to the left and right are offset. They are not in the BeginDraw rectangle:

Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,861 Reputation points

2022-04-11T07:15:19.103+00:00

Thanks for your feedback, can you share more info about your project target version and current OS version?
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-11T16:41:17.483+00:00

Although I have spent several years writing a brand new DirectX graphics engine that will definitely not have this issue, I still would like to fix the currently released versions.

Thank you for your help!
Sacha
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-21T01:25:28.343+00:00

I have actually tried several Target versions from 2004 (10.0.19041.685) and older versions of the app from 6+ years ago down to 1507 (10.0.26624) as well as building with VS 2022 and VS 2019. It doesn't seem to matter which Target version it still has the issue on 4 different devices, 3 Windows 11, 1 Surface Go with Windows 10.

It only happens on newer versions of Windows 10 and on 11. I will be testing on my un-updated Surface 1 to see if the same issue happens. This happened on an app that was released early last year and it was working perfectly. After new Windows updates, the issue started.

Thanks for your help,
Sacha
Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,861 Reputation points

2022-04-21T01:28:52.523+00:00

Yep, I know that, and I have discussed with team, If I get any info, I will update below.
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-21T01:47:57.473+00:00

So this has been verified and the DirectX / C++ portion of the code has been compiled with earlier versions of a target platform even before the creators update. It still has the issue only on newer version of Windows.

It seems like the ContextSize strangely now has fractions of a pixel when it shouldn't. Is this possibly something new with newer versions of DirectX?
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-21T01:54:45.887+00:00

Strangely the ContextSize of the offscreen buffer bitmap is also larger than the bitmap itself. This is happening when m_d2dContext->SetTarget is set to the BufferBitmap here.

It should be the same size, 2048, but it is strangely 2080. It is almost like something in Direct2D completely changed in recent versions of Windows 10 and 11.
Even compiling with older target versions does not make a difference.

Why would this happen only on newer versions of Windows?
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-21T05:17:09.213+00:00

Thank you very much.

Further findings:

So the Pixels that do not get updated/redrawn in an update seem to move. The pixels above and below seem to stretch. The pixels to the left and right stretch differently. Seems like they are stretching by a few pixels which may have to do with the dpi set for the image in m_d2dContext->SetDpi(dpi, dpi);

Here are the details about the full size of the image in Direct2D:

When the 2 in this image gets drawn, the other pixels on the Virtual Surface Image Source all move ever so slightly even though they are not being updated at all. The pixels in the 2 are in the correct position that they should be.

When it redraws the entire image, it looks fine.
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-27T04:11:33.21+00:00

Thanks for your help, but is there any information on this issue yet?

This is an app with over 1.5 million users. This major issue needs a solution as soon as possible and a new update needs to be released.

Thank you,
Sacha Berwin
Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,861 Reputation points

2022-04-27T05:08:50.373+00:00

Hi @SachaB-8098, can you provide code sample that could reproduce this problem for us ?
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-29T17:05:40.463+00:00

Hello @Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) ,

Thank you and I will try to put something together that outlines the issue. The problem is I cannot put code from this app online. There are about 10,000 lines of C++ and 150,000+ lines of C# in the project.

I will write a C++/C# project that outlines the issue I am having based on the code of the current engine. Then I will see if it has the issue and post it here or on GitHub if the issue persists.

Thank You,
Sacha
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-30T07:38:03.437+00:00

This bug has to do with setting the DPI with ID2D1RenderTarget::SetDpi to a value other than 96. This causes the issue on a VirtualSurfaceImageSource.

Example app in GitHub soon.

In the following image, you can see that only the squares are being updated. The other pixels next to the squares shift. After a few more updates since the affected ones, the formerly shifted pixels go back to their correct position. The HotPink area was never in any update Rect after the first, the squares here were updates after the first update.

Please let me know a workaround if possible till the bug is fixed.

Thank you,
Sacha
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-04-30T18:48:14.217+00:00

@Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.)

GitHub Repo of an example project I made that showcases the bug:
https://github.com/StokedOnIt/Direct2D-2022-VSIS-Issues

Very quickly thrown together DirectX Project using C++ and C#.

Run the code on any Windows 10 or 11 system that is newer after the year 2022.
You can clearly see the displacement of the un-updated pixels next to the updated area.
Use magnifier to view the issue up close.

If anyone knows a workaround for this or sees a problem in my code related to this please let me know.

Thanks,
Sacha
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-05-05T16:14:21.507+00:00

@Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) is there any new information about a fix or a workaround for this?
Has the DirectX team taken a look at the source code posted on GitHub?
We need to publish a new version of our app for our Windows 10 and 11 users as soon as possible. This is a major graphics issue that is greatly affecting our users on newer versions of Windows.

Thanks,
Sacha
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-05-12T19:58:41.04+00:00

Hello @Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) ,

Thanks for your help on this issue.
Is there any progress on finding out what is causing this issue?
Have they had a chance to look at the sample code posted on GitHub?

Thanks,
Sacha
Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,861 Reputation points

2022-05-13T01:25:23.44+00:00

We have reported this problem, but we have not recieved any updates yet.
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-05-19T17:38:55.44+00:00

Any updates yet?
This is causing major issues in our app and we would like to release a new version that fixes this ASAP.

Thank you,
Sacha
Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) 12,861 Reputation points

2022-05-25T03:27:54.047+00:00

Ihave confirm with team, This is not a DX issue. This is an issue in Windows.UI.Xaml.dll. Can you use SurfaceImageSource instead? As long as you do not call ISurfaceImageSourceNative::BeginDraw initially with a smaller size than the image source size , it will not run into the issue. Doing so will cause SurfaceImageSource to use virtual mode where the issue occurs. With VirtualSurfaceImageSource, SurfaceImageSource (which is the base class) always uses virtual mode.
If the you can go with the workaround, you should modify both projects to reference SurfaceImageSource instead of VirtualSurfaceImageSource. This way, you can switch back to VirtualSurfaceImageSource later by modifying one line of the code where he instantiates it.
Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-05-25T15:48:33.633+00:00
UPDATE: This may have worked. We changed all of the VirtualSurfaceImageSource to SurfaceImageSource in the code and so far it seems to have worked! Not sure why the original code called for a VSIS but its code was also originally made for Windows 8.

PRE-UPDATE:
Hello @Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) ,

Thanks to you and everyone else that helped at Microsoft for your valuable time and hard work in finding the issue!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can use SurfaceImageSource as these DX Images are usually much larger than the screen and updated in real-time. With sizes up to 4096 x 4096 pixels which to my knowledge of Direct2D XAML interop, I do not think the SurfaceImageSource supports. VirtualSurfaceImageSource does support images larger than the screen which is why we used it in this app for many years. Our new engine uses Full Screen SurfaceImageSource but it will not be ready till later this year in the 3.0 version.

Is there a way to get the SurfaceImageSource to work with an image larger than the screen at 4096 x 4096?

Your valuable time is always greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sacha Berwin

1 answer

Sacha B 116 Reputation points

2022-05-29T15:23:50.307+00:00

Thanks to @Nico Zhu (Shanghai Wicresoft Co,.Ltd.) and for the valuable time that everyone at Microsoft put in for helping find this issue.

Fix/Workaround:

The fix for this issue: Change all VirtualSurfaceImageSource to SurfaceImageSource.

The app is now working great!

Thanks,
Sacha
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DirectX/Direct2D VirtualSurfaceImageSource render incorrectly draws Horizontal Pixels offset of refreshed area's height on new version of Windows 10 and Windows11

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