imported_Ravendas16

There are several 'vista and nvidia' threads stickied on the front of this forum. Go through some of them to see what kind of things you can do to stop the freezing.

And what kind of freezing is it? Is it actually a freeze, where you have to reset your computer, or is it a crash where it's just the game? If it's a crash, what error pops up?

Because you write generic topic names.

To help you, we need some information. What operating system, graphics card, processor, drivers, etc you use.

Also, what kind of 'freeze'? Not all crashes are the same, and can be caused by different kinds of things.

That's not right at all. It's not fast, but it's definitely able to play the game. I played this on a laptop without an actual graphics card at all, just the built in motherboard video from intel. It was ugly with everything turned down, but it ran.

Your card is definitely good enough to play this game. It's just this game takes issues with lots of things, so I don't know what it could be. Mine crashes all the time as well (I've got a thread in this forum too that hasn't been useful really).

That's not how you install drivers, or uninstall. Deleting the driver *install* file doesn't actually delete the drivers installed on your computer. Installing drivers over drivers can lead to problems.

Stolen from this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post12716869

Now, to properly - fully - uninstall the old drivers and reinstall the new drivers.

1. Navigate to the the Programs window: (Start -> Computer -> Control Panel -> 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.

Actually today it crashed once, same error as before. So it's not 100%, but it's a little more tolerable.

Graphics card? Operating system?

People on vista, especially vista64, tend to have to jump through hoops to get this to work.

Welp I somehow fixed this.

It was some combination of closing the sidebar, disabling visual themes, and disabling desktop composition in the compatibility menu. Also in game I set my graphics down from 200% to 100%, lowered some of the textures from very high to high, and set the physx from High to Medium (or low don't remember).

Some combination thereof let me play for about 4 hours without a crash. This is all with the old 169.25 drivers.

Oh, by steady I meant steady in the game. The game only caused my card to rise by 5c or so, but once in game it was always 58 or 59c. No spikes or anything that would trigger a shutdown.

My CPU shouldn't be having a problem, it's not overclocked, and I even replaced the stock cooler with a really high quality one with a fat fan on it.

I've used this computer for a year and a half now, and no other games have had this kind of problem. I'll run memtest though just to rule out possibilities.

I posted in the official thread, but I see most people suggest you just make your own thread, so here it is.

Basic system info: Q6600, gf8800gt (heatsink replaced), Vista64 SP2.

My story so far: I just started playing this again a week or two ago, after a 2 year break. I would get the Nvidia 14 error, or the plain old driver failure error (with the ! in the system tray). At this time I just had Vista64, I hadn't upgraded to SP2 yet, and was running fairly new drivers, 180 or so.

Step1: Upgrade to newest drivers, 185 put out a few days ago. No change.
Step2: Use the hotfix suggested in the official thread. Applied it successfully, no change.
Step3: Found SP2 rtf, the actual release on bittorrent, and installed that. No change.
Step4: Rollback drivers to 169.25. Still crash with the same frequency and timing, but the error changed to some generic C++ error.
Step5: Attempted 3rd party Omega 169.25 drivers. No change.
Step6: Switched back to Nvidia's 169.25 drivers. Disabled visual themes for City of Heroes.exe, and tried compatibility mode for WindowsXP. No change.

The crashes typically happen within 15 minutes of starting the game, one time it crashed before I could finish summoning my minions on my mastermind. Screen goes gray or black, error pops up, and I close it.

My driver installation procedure was like this: Uninstall drivers, reboot into safe mode, use the suggested Driversweeper to clean up the remain of the old drivers, reboot into normal, install the new drivers, reboot, test out game.

I'm really running out of ideas as to what I should do in this situation. Here is my info... any ideas?

Edit: According to ATITool, a heat monitor, the gf8800gt never went over 59c the entire time I was playing. It was steady the entire time, so it wasn't triggered by a hot graphics card. Managed about an hours worth of playing maybe this last time, before crashing.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at May 9, 2009 20:12 (+08:00)
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P35C-DS3R
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4094MB
.Net Memory Report: 2618MB out of 4093MB available
Page File: 6611MB (1811MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 ATA Device) 266878MB out of 476937MB (55%) free
D Drive: (LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S ATA Device) zero-size drive
E Drive: (QG2544G OGJ553O SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 10
DirectX Diag version: 6.00.6001.18000 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: SyncMaster 226BW(Digital)
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GT
Video Memory: 2266 MB
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.6925
Driver Date: 12/11/2007 5:06:00 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Output Device (SPDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P35C-DS3R
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20071029000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: 4x
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: High Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 184159 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 18.20090422.2T
Installation Directory: C:\games\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Okay, my info is up above, but here is an update.

The two newest Nvidia drivers crash out with error 14 or just a driver stopped.
The 169.25 Omega 3rd party drivers crashed with a 'driver stopped' error, same as before.
The official 169.25 Nvidia driver crashed the same way.

Each time, I would uninstall the old drivers, reboot into safe mode, use the guru3d driverwiper to clear out a ton of missed bits, reboot into normal mode, then install the new drivers. Then another reboot, and test.

Running Vista64 SP2, and ran only Vista64 drivers. Q6600 and a gf8800gt is this systems main things. Full stats are a few posts up.

Edit: Made my own thread here.

I just edited my post. I installed SP2 just now, and have the new updated info in my post. I still get the same Nvidia Error 14 crashes as before. First one was after 10 minutes of playing, 2nd time I got about an hour in before it crashed, both times same error.

Edit: Nvidia released new drivers yesterday, gonna try those out...

I just recently came back, and had been crashing every hour or so. With the latest patch I logged on twice, first time crashed within 10 minutes, 2nd time I didn't even have time to summon my minions on my mastermind.

The crash is a black screen, with the little ! appearing in the system tray sometimes, saying that the video driver has crashed and successfully repaired or whatever. Sometimes accompanied with a 13/14 error.

Basic computer stats: Vista SP2, Q6600, 8800gt.

EDIT: I posted different info earlier. I just updated to the RTF SP2 for Vista, the legit released version. Still get crashes.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at May 7, 2009 20:57 (+08:00)
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P35C-DS3R
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4094MB
.Net Memory Report: 2543MB out of 4093MB available
Page File: 6429MB (1991MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 ATA Device) 263927MB out of 476937MB (55%) free
D Drive: (LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S ATA Device) zero-size drive
E Drive: (QG2544G OGJ553O SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 10
DirectX Diag version: 6.00.6001.18000 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: SyncMaster 226BW(Digital)
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GT
Video Memory: 2289 MB
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.8250
Driver Date: 3/27/2009 10:03:00 AM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Output Device (SPDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P35C-DS3R
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20071029000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: None
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: High Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.186
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 184159 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 18.20090422.2T
Installation Directory: C:\games\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 33 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 14 files

[ QUOTE ]
The problem I'm having is that CoX crashes the driver for my gtx 295, I've tried about 8 different driver sets, same thing each time. The hotfix won't apply on my system(vista 64 bit), I get an "incorrect version" message when I try to run the 64 bit version. SP2 is no longer in beta, it ended april 28th so I can't download that either.

Any suggestions?

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing is, use the 64hotfix, not the 86. He typo'd it in the first post and never (couldn't?) change it. x86 is code for 32bit stuff.

Edit: I just installed the vista 64 sp2 RTM, the actual final version of sp2. Played for about 10 minutes afterwards and then crashed. I'm using the newest nvidia drivers for my 8800gt. Here is my info

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at May 7, 2009 20:57 (+08:00)
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P35C-DS3R
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4094MB
.Net Memory Report: 2543MB out of 4093MB available
Page File: 6429MB (1991MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 ATA Device) 263927MB out of 476937MB (55%) free
D Drive: (LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S ATA Device) zero-size drive
E Drive: (QG2544G OGJ553O SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 10
DirectX Diag version: 6.00.6001.18000 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: SyncMaster 226BW(Digital)
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GT
Video Memory: 2289 MB
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.8250
Driver Date: 3/27/2009 10:03:00 AM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Output Device (SPDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.6002.18005
Driver Date: 4/10/2009 10:39:52 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P35C-DS3R
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20071029000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: None
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: High Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.186
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 184159 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 18.20090422.2T
Installation Directory: C:\games\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 33 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 14 files

I just re-signed up a few days ago, thinking I'd give this game another shot with some friends.

Before todays patch, it would crash maybe once an hour. Post-patch today it has crashed twice in 5 minutes.

Vista64, Q6600, GF8800gt, with the newest drivers and the hotfix (properly installed) suggested in a different thread.

I'm not rolling back my drivers (for many reasons), so what should I do? Just pay for this one month, play 3 days, and quit once again?