Tease

Try rolling back to the 181 drivers. I'm still seeing some oddities over that number on win7 RC1 boxes.

Might grab a copy of tweakCOH and work through the nvidia guide to see if you've got a setting combo that just isnt making the driverset happy.

Do you see this issue when you play in full screen? Are you running with Aero on or off? Are you running single or multi account?

I'm curious what the GPU temp is doing.

Dear OP,

Yes

Sincerely,
@Tease

Probably your system picked up a driver through windows update that it sneezed at. I dont think I'd be concerned if your cohhelper and hijackthis logs are clean and you have a current AV.

[ QUOTE ]
What popup is this, and how do you block it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Google for it. I wont say much more here w/o violating forum rules.

Welcome back to the game!

I double checked these, and they are clean files that would do the job. Prez, your absolutely awesome! I'd been meaning to do this but hadnt had the time myself and wanted to get the guide up. Thanks for saving all of us so much work!

The hotfix is included in SP2, so you already have it.

Try starting the game in safe mode.

Mallard, did you actually look at my revised guide in the last two days? Step three is a regedit. Might solve your problem and get you on to the 190 driver.

Grab COHHelper and HijackThis from my sig line. Have her run them and post her results here. Start working through the Common Solutions thread as well.

I'd recently installed Avira's Personal (free) product and was liking it except that the nag popup was getting on my nerves. Once I found a way to block it, I liked it MUCH better. Its an awesome lightweight AV that is what AVG used to be before it developed creeping featurism.

Well, if you really think its GV related, which I'm not sure of since when zoning IN your loading the RV map, you could try /unloadgfx right before you hit the RV portal.

Can you right click on the enhancement, with the WW window open, and select Move to Market?

Yeah definitely start with the Common Solutions guide and post your COHHelper and HijackThis logs as Hawk mentioned.

Mallard, check my new sticky (not yet in my sig) for the step 3 (new) of dealing with that stupid error 13/14 bug, LOL.

Also, I'd suggest you roll back to the 185 driver, as the 186 is prone to odd graphical hiccups.

Yeah, tell the player to come post their full system reports please?

So how bout starting with the common solutions thread, and then grabbing the link from my sig and posting your COHHelper and HijackThis logs as suggested?

The game is not officially supported on vista however for those of us with enough hardware its usually workable. I say that because your card is not able to offload the additional strain.

That said, although I havent looked into it, make sure you have the most recent video driver available for your card AND the most recent chipset driver for your board. Thats where you'd start if its at all possible on your system.

I'd probably also download tweakCOH (google for it, its free) and use it to set your graphics to absolute minimums for the game itself after you potentially get it working in safe mode.

I'll cross my fingers for you, but I sure wont hold my breath. We arent kidding when we say the requirement on nvidia cards is the 6+6 rule, meaning both the first and second number of the card must be AT or HIGHER than six. This game is highly system resource intensive.

Addendum: It seems as though the graphics may be a tad more crisp than the 181's I came from. However I'm noting that its handling of my multi-accounts with Aero running, is more sluggish in refreshing than the 181's were. Its not "broke" by any means its just not as responsive. I know thats vague though.

Sin, try not thinking of the 7900 as a "79", but instead think of it as a 7,9. The first number is the Series. Not every card in the series is faster than the previous serioes its only a board designation. Then the second number is its processing capability. You need to be 6 or higher on both the first and second number to run this game half decent. 6600, etc. In the second digit, anything under a 5 is not for video/gaming/etc. For gaming you REALLY want to be a 7 or above in the second number.

So by that token, a 7-9 is better than an 8-4 or 8-5. Hope that makes sense. (Those 8 series cards dont have the processing ability your 7-9 does.)

Thanks Zan, I re-phrased that step to hopefully be less confusing.

Win7 RC1 7100 Been multi account running on 190.38 for 2hrs. Solid over reg-patch.

Edited to add: 8800GT card, Win7 RC1 7100 64bit. I ONLY used the control panel add/remove utility to remove the 181's, rebooted, and installed the 190s. No problem without driversweeper.

Vista/Win7/Server08 Driver Crash

This document is for a very specific driver crash which involves hanging or freezing of the game and is often followed by one of these 3 error messages:
<ul type="square">
a. “Graphics Driver Has Stopped Responding and has Been Recovered”
b. Error 13 or 14
c. On Win7 may produce a System_Service_Exception bluescreen under certain drivers. (This is not the only cause of that particular BSOD however and other drivers should be tried.)[/list]Step 1:
<ul type="square">
Windows 7 RC1: Make sure you have all available windows updates. The hotfix you need is actually already included however you do need other updates as well.

Vista &amp; Server 2008: Install Service Pack 2 (SP2) and all available updates which contain the hotfix you will need. More information about SP2 is available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948465[/list]This should be solving the issue for somewhere around 80% of folks. However Zloth notes: "That fix seems to help with folks who get crashes in the 'hours' timeframes, especially 64-bit users. It doesn't seem to help with the folks who get an error number from OpenGL when they go down."

Step 2:

This step is now debatable and potentially very skippable IF you are comfortable with the risks associated with step 3 which should allow you to use the most current stable driver. This step is safe although often not practical if you play games besides COX that require the most current driver.

Assuming that #1 did not entirely fix your problem, its time to do a driver roll back. This requires rolling back to a driver that had a OpenGL implementation that was using the same calls as the game uses Below I'll list the driver *I* SUGGEST you download. Others have found stability on slightly different versions of the driver, but all are generally at least as old as the one I list. If the driver I list does not get you stable, select an older (lower numbered) driver and try again. (My husband prefers the 163.xx series for his PC.) For stability, I like to stay with WHQL certified drivers, but not everyone agrees.

These drivers can be found at http://downloads.guru3d.com

Unless you require it for a game other than COX, I highly suggest you utilize the Pre-PhysX drivers I've provided. Once PhysX was enabled, the problems began snowballing. However, I've included them because for some of you, lack of at least the option to try them to reduce your crashing, could be a deal-breaker. In most cases, the PhysX enabled driver I've listed will drastically reduce crashing, but will not eliminate it.
<ul type="square">
*For 6xxx,7xxx,8xxx Series cards, such as 8800GT*
For Vista 64 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English WHQL 169.25 Pre-PhysX


For Vista 32 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English WHQL 169.25 Pre-PhysX


*For 9xxx Series Cards*

Note: Listing Three Drivers. Try the higher numbered one first. Work Backwards. Use caution if you decide to try the 177.39 WHQL, as it retroactively includes PhysX support. (I did not provide a link.)

For Vista 64 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English 177.79 Pre-PhysX
Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English WHQL 175.16 Pre-PhysX
Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English WHQL 174.74 Pre-PhysX

For Vista 32 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English 177.79 Pre-PhysX
Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English WHQL 175.16 Pre-PhysX
Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English WHQL 174.74 Pre-PhysX


*For 2xx Series Cards*

Note: Listing Two Drivers. Try the higher numbered one first. Work Backwards.

For Vista 64 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English WHQL 177.41 PhysX Enabled
Nvidia Forceware Vista 64 English 177.35 Pre-PhysX

For Vista 32 bit users:

Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English WHQL 177.41 PhysX Enabled
Nvidia Forceware Vista 32 English 177.35 Pre-PhysX

*For Laptops*
Vista Laptop Users:
Because laptop video cards are often different, if the above drivers do not work for you, I highly recommend you check out laptopvideo2go's website for a driver more matched to your hardware.[/list][u]Generally you want the newest available driver that gets you stable. Rolling back TOO far, older than the 163.xx's, may introduce other bugs. [u]

Also, go pick up a handy copy of Guru3d's Driver Sweeper (free).

Now, to properly - fully - uninstall the old drivers and reinstall the new drivers.
<ul type="square">
1. Navigate to the the Programs window: (Start -&gt; Computer -&gt; Control Panel -&gt; Programs and Features)
2. Find the "Nvidia Drivers" listed in the list.
3. Click "Uninstall/Change" near the top of the list. Uninstall your video drivers only, if the option comes up. (The other board drivers are not to blame.) Let it do its thing.
4. Reboot when prompted. As it is rebooting, begin step #5.
5. While the PC is rebooting, before it brings up the first windows splash screen, begin tapping continually on the F8 key. (If it boots into regular windows, simply try again.) This should bring up the "Windows Advanced Options Menu", a black and white "dos" style menu. Use your arrow keys to move to "Safe Mode" and press your Enter key.Once the PC is booted successfully into safe mode...
6. Navigate on your hard drive to where you saved the Driver Sweeper utility to. Run Driver Sweeper and select the Nvidia Display drivers. Clean "sweep" them. Once that is complete...
7. Reboot, again, this time not hitting F8, going back into "regular" Windows Vista.
8. Navigate on your hard drive to where you saved the new drivers to and install them, following any prompts they include.
9. Reboot when prompted. [/list]
These 2 parts of the fix, when used together, should correct this issue for something along the lines of 95-99% of users.

Step 3:

“Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

This step is AT YOUR OWN RISK. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

I have yet to sort out if this is a true corrective fix or if this is a band-aid. I hope it is a corrective fix, but there is always the potential that what it is masking is infact dangerous for the machine/hardware. However, if you follow the instructions is quite simple to test (or remove if you are uncertain later).
<ul type="square">
1) Open Regedit (Start -&gt; Run -&gt; Type: Regedit -&gt; Enter

2) In the top menu, select File -&gt; Export. Give the registry backup a name (preferably with today’s date) and click okay. (In case anything goes drastically wrong, that’s your backup file.)

3) On the left hand side there is a folder tree. Drill down through there till you navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\GraphicsDrivers

4) Once you are there and clicked on Graphics Driver, the right hand pane should have 2 (potentially 3) entries in it.

5) In the right hand pane, right click, select NEW, then DWORD (32-bit) Value.

6) Name the value TdrDdiDelay then double click it and give it a value of 20.

7) Repeat step 4, and name the new one TdrDelay also with a value of 20

8) Again repeat step 4, and name the new one TdrLevel this time with a value of 0.

9) Done. Close Regedit. REBOOT. [/list]This step 3 seems to be cleaning up the remainder of the PCs that were unable to get fully stable on steps 1 &amp; 2. It also is allowing many PCs to get stable on the newest driver, completely skipping step 2.

Just a reminder as well that if your using Step 3 then Step 4 is actually upgrading to the most recent stable working driver. As of today's date (7/21/09) that's 190.36.

If on the off-chance something goes drastically wrong with this on your machine, we need to know! Also, you will need to boot into safe mode, open regedit and import the backup registry file you made, to return the system to its previous state. (Fairly simple.) I don't expect this to give us 100% fix but it certainly gave me a fix for several machines that were not being solved by steps 1 &amp; 2.

My system is a dual-boot EVGA 750i SLI, E8400, 8800GT with Vista and Win7. I have had great success with step three and have also used it to patch several VG mates systems with success. Regardless of how happy I am with the new-found stability, and regardless of how relatively safe this edit is, I must stress, this is AT YOUR OWN RISK any time you mess with the registry.

This should provide you with a fully-working solution. However if it does not, we need to hear from you. Please post a NEW topic/post (not in this thread!), explaining your issue, that you've worked through all steps in this guide fully, and the output from two programs: COH Helper and HijackThis which will assist us in troubleshooting the issue.

Good luck everyone &amp; see you in game!
Tease

How about starting with the common solutions sticky and then posting your system details ala Hijackthis and cohhelper as suggested?

Awesome, thanks.

No harm in attempting to reinstall vista of course. However you posted us none of your logs so we could see what kind of hardware your dealing with. I assume you tried downloading your ethernet driver at wherever you had net to post this from and see if that would fix it? You really didnt provide us enough info to do much that you shouldnt have already know.

PS: Bumping your own thread is against the rules.