PROBLEMS WITH FULLSCREEN MODE IN XNA?

Some members of the XNA community (including me) have experienced problems with XNA games when running on fullscreen mode -in particular, I have a GeForce 6600 GT card.

The problem: when a XNA game tries to get/set the presentation parameters for accepted fullscreen modes, it takes the list of rates accepted by the gfx card and in some cases uses the higher one -for instance, like 240 Hz on 800x600. Phewww! So you will see nothing more than a black screen and your monitor trying to warn you that something is attempting to set an invalid refresh rate.

The workaround: if the user forgot to (or cannot) forbid any rate above the maximum accepted vertical retrace on the gfx card, just catch the "PreparingDeviceSettings" event and then set a common rate like 60 or 72 Hz. How? In the class that derives from "Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game" class, add the following line (say, within the constructor):

graphics.PreparingDeviceSettings += new EventHandler<PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs>(MyMethod); // "graphics" is a reference previously instanced as "GraphicsDeviceManager(this)" usually in the same constructor

Then add the following method in the same class:

private void MyMethod (object sender, PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs args)
{
args.GraphicsDeviceInformation.PresentationParameters.FullScreenRefreshRateInHz = 60; // for instance, or 70, 72, 75, etc.
}

I've modified the code of games like Rocket Commander and Wildboarders and it all works great!

Let's hope Sharky modifies Air Legends soon so that I can finally play the game.

Enjoy!