video driver crash after opening tips tab

It's been happening off and on for the last several months, but today, it happens every time I open the tips tab under contacts, and sometimes just opening contacts. I tried to uninstall/update the catalyst drivers for my ATI Radeon HD 5770, but the uninstall feature would stop before anything was accomplished, so I had to use Driver Sweeper to remove all the ATI components (AMD's website recommends using it if the uninstall feature fails). I installed the latest Catalyst drivers from AMD's website.

After rebooting and starting the game, I was able to play for a few minutes before I opened the contacts tab, which caused the card to audibly hiccup (the buzzing of the fan changed) and then the driver crashed, first going to a black screen, and then a white windowed area on the desktop. Windows said the video driver stopped and then recovered, but CoH stopped responding.

The particular toon is a levelshifted alpha.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at February 11, 2011 10:17 (-06:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.101026-1503)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 03/08/10 16:43:28 Ver: 08.00.15
Central Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor (6 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 4096MB
.Net Memory Report: 2894MB out of 4093MB available
Page File: 5244MB (2940MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD10 01FALS-00J7B0 SATA Disk Device) 50705MB out of 99898MB (50%) free
D Drive: (WDC WD10 01FALS-00J7B0 SATA Disk Device) zero-size drive
F Drive: (WDC WD2000JB-00GVA0 SCSI Disk Device) 32099MB out of 131069MB (24%) free
G Drive: (WDC WD2000JB-00GVA0 SCSI Disk Device) 27679MB out of 59710MB (46%) free
E Drive: (SAMSUNG DVDWBD SH-B083L ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (64-bit version)

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

No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x68B8)
Video Memory: 2805 MB
Driver Version: 8.812.0.0
Driver Date: 1/4/2011 9:01:12 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (3- Logitech USB Headset)
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 6:06:32 PM

Sound Device Description: Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.6037
Driver Date: 1/29/2010 12:48:44 AM

Sound Device Description: Realtek Digital Output(Optical) (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.6037
Driver Date: 1/29/2010 12:48:44 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3
Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 03/08/10 16:43:28 Ver: 08.00.15
BIOS Version: 030810 - 20100308
BIOS Release: 20100308000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x720
3D Resolution: 1280x720 (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: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Ultra 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): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (4)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: High quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: High quality
Occlusion Strength: Strong
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality


Gamma Correction: 0.696
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Compatiblity
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.029
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 1.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 87903 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1950.201102010039.0
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 38 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\City has 1 file
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files

---

Mechanista 50 rad/rad Corruptor
Buster Braun 32 SS/Inv Brute
Mortua Manus 41 Bots/Dark MM
December Ashe 30 Ice/Fire Dominator
Umbra Sprite 32 Dark/Super Reflexes Stalker
Mister Large 30 Thugs/Bubbles MM
Dynamaxine 28 Electric/Stone Brute
Three-Alarm 19 Fire/Dark Corruptor

I think I figured it out - it's the Level Shift that is causing it. As soon as I switched to an Alpha that was tier 1 or 2, the crashing stopped.

---

Mechanista 50 rad/rad Corruptor
Buster Braun 32 SS/Inv Brute
Mortua Manus 41 Bots/Dark MM
December Ashe 30 Ice/Fire Dominator
Umbra Sprite 32 Dark/Super Reflexes Stalker
Mister Large 30 Thugs/Bubbles MM
Dynamaxine 28 Electric/Stone Brute
Three-Alarm 19 Fire/Dark Corruptor

I had this problem, but it had nothing to do with Alpha. The character most effected was only level 27.

In case switching your Alpha doesn't work, or someone else reads this with the same problem, what worked for me was turning all water effects off. I also had all environmental reflections off, which may have helped.

It took me days of talking to tech support to get it sorted, so I'd like to save others some time if I can.

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