Win98 Error - "Could not create primary surface"

[Harold Hunt]

Gal,

> I'm trying to install xfree 4.0.2 on Win98/cygwin.

Just a quick check before I delve into the details:  you did mean _4.2.0_,
right?  If you meant 4.0.2 then we probably can't help you :)

> A more specific error message is given in
> the xwin.log file (attached). Also, the cygwin.out file
> (result of running 'cygcheck -s -v -r > cygcheck.out').
> is attached.

Thanks for supplying XWin.log, that really helped to diagnose the problem.

I looked up DirectDraw error 8876024e, which is named:
DDERR_UNSUPPORTEDMODE.

Basically I'm going to guess that your video card drivers are not very
cooperative with DirectDraw.  The most likely solution would be to try
upgrading your video drivers and make sure that you have DirectX 8.1
installed.  Go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ to upgrade DirectX 8.1
(and to get lots of other Windows bug fixes, etc.).

Let us know if new drivers fix the problem.

Harold