[marcpalmer]

OK, now it seems there are several factors at work in this screen flicker problem. I think we have done as much as we can - and we have solved it for at least some phones.

Problem 1
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I found a bug in our code due to some refactoring, whereby the interval between calls to DeviceControl.setLights(0, 100) was not being set correctly and we were calling it EVERY FRAME.

Problem 2
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On most series 40 phones (5100, 6100, 6610, 7210, 7250i we know for sure) calling setLights too often causes the screen and/or backlight to flicker. This definitely seems to be a bug in Nokia UI/phone code because setting something to ON all the time should never make it go off... even though it is not something you really want to do.

Problem 3
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Hardware. We know that only setting the backlight every few seconds has solved the problem 100% on 6100 and 6610.

It has not fixed it on the 5100 however, which always flickers the backlight (and LCD?) quite badly even if you never, ever, call setLights( 0, 100). The 5100 has a much brighter / more contrasty screen than the 6100 I know that for sure. Perhaps this is a factor.


This would explain why the Nokia games shipped on the 5100 (Bounce, Skydiver) show the flicker too - as I'm sure nobody at Nokia was as stupid as me and had an error that made them call setLights for every rendered frame!

[doctordwarf]

marcpalmer

Congratulations! :)

I was tracking your investigation and currently added one more issue to my own "knowledge base" :)

I love Forum Nokia for it really helps exchange knowledge :)

[marcpalmer]

After even more testing on the 6100 it seems that it does still happen :( but definitely not as much.

[marcpalmer]

This problem -seems- to be related to how many times you have called setLights( 0, xx) and how long it has been since you turned your phone on.

Crazy, I know... but by only calling setLights once every three seconds if the player is NOT moving, we have managed to minimize this problem on most phones but not completely eliminate it.

Any further info from anybody here (Nokia guys - do you exist?!) would be very welcome.