Solved [Solution Given] Fix for windowed mode issues.

Windows 7
ALT-Enter just pings and brings up frame data in the top-right.
ALT-F12 does the same thing.
DXwnd does nothing.
Compatibility modes, running as administrator, disabling themes, and display scaling does nothing.
Registry has a key for soFullScreen, defaulted to 0 but does nothing no matter what value I put into it.
There are no registry keys for screenwidth or screenheight.
The "set your desktop resolution lower then try to alt-enter" or whatever silly garbage i've seen in the other threads about this not only shouldn't work, but doesn't work anyway.
The in-game button doesn't even work It un-checks itself, makes the windows pinging noise and then brings up the frame data in the top-right.


If there is any way to fix this, that'd be great.

 

So googling along, I found that MapleStory absolutely requires your system's refresh rate to match its setting exactly or it will not run in windowed mode. It also magically ignores any attempt to force it into windowed mode somehow.
This shouldn't be a problem right? Apparently not.

Windows 7/8 have what I assume is some sort of rounding error when calculating its refresh rates. When set to 60hz, it scales down to 59.95hz meaning your refresh rate doesn't match anymore.
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, there is one fix I know of that will correct this. Sorry ATI owners, you'll have to figure it out yourselves.

First confirm that you are in fact being forced back to 59hz:
Right click your desktop > Screen Resolution > Advanced Settings > "Monitor" tab
If it says "60hz" in refresh rate, it's probably another problem. If its 59hz, continue.
(Side note: You can attempt to set it to 60hz from here but I guarantee after you hit "OK" it will change back to 59hz)

Open your NVIDIA Control Panel. You can do this usually from right clicking your desktop as well or from the control panel.
Find "Change Resolution" from the list on the left.
Then click the "Customize" then "Create Custom Resolution" button.


It should bring you to a page looking like this. Do not change anything in the grayed out box in the image.
Top part should be your preferred desktop resolution.
Bottom part, on the drop down box should be "Automatic" currently, change it to "Manual"
It should keep all the settings from "Automatic" in the boxes that were greyed out, this is good and needs to be this way. Do not change it to the numbers you see on my image.
The only thing you need to change is the value in the red box. Set it to 60.001.
The reason its .001 instead of .000 is to prevent the rounding error in Win7/8 forcing your refresh rate to 59.95

Test it. If the screen flickers and shows up properly afterwards then you've succeeded!
If the screen doesn't flicker, save everything anyway, and go back to screen resolution > advanced settings part from the start of the list to set it back to 60hz. It should actually stay 60hz this time.

Shortcuts like alt-enter and the in-game options should now function properly.

 

I really feel like this should be pinned. I've referred two others to look at your resolution since you posted this 8 days ago, I'm sure it would help more people if it had better exposure.

 

When i test it my image gets all weird, why does this happen?

 

What do you mean by "gets all weird"?
The screen will blink momentarily but should return to normal after it adjusts. If your monitor supports higher than 60hz it's probably best to use that, however most older LCDs are stuck to 60hz maximum.

This version of maple also supports 75hz and 72hz, so you could also try those assuming your monitor supports it. Also I should note that this rounding error problem doesn't seem to exist for refresh rates beyond 60 (at least, not that I can find) but it still has to match the frequency as set by the setup.exe in the folder. (Also in your registry as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wizet\MapleStory as scrRRate)

 

I found something out. I think that my monitor might be 59Hz, when it is set to 60Hz it goes weird the way i mentioned before (Idk how to explain, but it shouldnt be that way) but when i set it to 59Hz it goes back to normal.

 

Are you using a DVI or VGA connector?

 

I'm actually using a HDMI connector. My monitor is a TV/monitor

 

I can't seem to find anything that helps considering the nature of TVs.
If you'd like to be a guinea pig and test out the registry key for scrRRate, you could try setting that to 59 and see what happens.

Run > regedit > ctrl-f and search scrRRate
Should bring you to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wizet\MapleStory or something similar. As long as it has to do with your install.
Doubleclick the entry for scrRRate, check "decimal" and then change it to whatever your monitor's current refresh rate is and give it a shot.

 

I tried using ctrl-f, it didnt work so i went there manually but i couldn't find it and i dont think it is there.

Edit: I have newer versions of maplestory on my pc, could it be the problem? If so, how can i find the Maple Royals ones?

 

Can probably search MapleRoyals until you get to a similar list of keys, however if you searched "scrRRate" and didn't come up with anything then that wouldn't really help anyway.
The newer versions of maple might have a better setup program for changing refresh rate if you installed Royals over it, but I somehow doubt it. Sorry.

 

Ok, let me know if you think of something that could help.

 

Bumping this because it still seems like people are having problems.

 

You seem to be inactive since last year, but I'd like to sincerely thank you because it solved my game crashing whenever I alt-tabbed/alt entered, meaning there was no way I could multiclient / do other stuff while leeching which makes it extremely boring. THANK YOU!