Window is Completely White in Windows 8

[Acumen]

So I just got a new Windows 8 computer, and I am having a few issues with SFML or OpenGL (3.2). When in a window (not full-screen) the entire window is white, but the game is still playing. Secondary symptom is that when my program starts, while 'loading' its sound assets (full-screen) the screen is white.

This does not happen on my Vista machine.

[cpolymeris]

I have run SFML software on Win8, so it's not that. You say the computer is new... maybe not all drivers installed yet?

[Laurent]

Does it happen also with the precompiled SFML examples of the SDK?

[Acumen]

Ok! SFML is off the hook, it seems to be some issue just with my computer/Windows 8? I have the latest drivers. I tried to run the demos, white screen, then tracked down an OpenGL game that can run in a window, which also  just gave a blank white screen, so for some reason my computer does not want to display windowed OpenGL.

It is just weird that it runs full-screen... Guess this is a question for a different forum though. Sorry and thanks!

[Nexus]

Make sure you really have the latest drivers. That is, search on the graphics card vendor's homepage, not in the device manager. If the driver is very new, you might also consider a downgrade (but maybe search first on the internet if there are known problems).

[Acumen]

Yeah I uninstalled and reinstalled the latest driver, no help. Thing is it is a laptop, and just came out, so there are not any versions other than the one available.

It is an MSI GE70 2OE-017US with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2GB DD5 for those wondering.

The drivers on NVIDIA's site are not compatible, so I have no options it seems? I guess its not that big a problem, because it means my game should run fine on windows 8 machine which is what I was really worried about, and I will just have to run it fullscreen for now.

I also disabled the dedicated card and tried the integrated Intel HD4000. That did not work correctly either, but in a differnet way. It works fine fullscreened, but when windowed only shows one frame, and will update that one frame if you move/resize the window. No idea if its related or not.

I spent some time on the phone with MSI tech support and made them aware of the issue. They said they would email me back later today so hopefully there will be a fix in the pipeline.

[Acumen]

So I figured it out finally. It was the high contrast Windows 8 theme. Of all stupid things! Not sure why it breaks OpenGL, but it does.

[Acumen]

Apparently the high contrast themes turn off the desktop window manager? And for some reason certain OpenGL programs wont display then? Is this something that can be coded around?