VaKo

Nividia GF FX5600 XT, used everything from WHQL to untested, unoffical, leaked & hacked beta drivers with the same issue. Latest updated patched version of windows xp, direct x and sonic stage. Think its something to do with custom visual styles trying to alter the look of sonic stage, which then trys to restore it to the sony default. Which goes round and round till it crashes (hence the flickering black). So my moneys on sony taking short cuts with the sonic stage GUI, which means its not fully compatible with anything other than defualt windows visual styles. So by turning of visual styles in the compatiblity settings and praying that a large rock falls from space upon the SonicStage dev team it should be sorted. David

I've had a problem with sonic stage for some time now, even on a clean fully patched and drivered new install on WinXP SP2 it has UI problems. Black flickering screen etc. I was running it in 256 color compatiblity mode but that looked crap. Tried just right clicking on the short cut and turning off visual styles for it. Works perfectly now. Hope this helps someone as i spent hours on google looking with no success. David