Windows 7 issue
By
Captain_Karate,
Posted on: 2011-02-24 18:26 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Are you running the game in Windowed mode? If so Aero may cripple your performance on lower spec machines.
That can be disabled in Windows as can other related bits of eye candy.
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Try completely uninstalling the video drivers and then reinstalling them.
Also, please post the results of...
HijackThis - it will show us what's running on your computer concurrently with CoH. Click on "Do a system Scan and save a logfile." It will automatically open up Notepad and put the info there. Make sure Wordwrap is off in Notepad (Format > Wordwrap unchecked) before you cut and paste here.
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Thank you both! I will work on that this second. Also, found out that his sound card is one no longer supported by Windows 7, so I'm going to try to disable the window mode and get a new sound card. If that doesn't work, I'll be back with the hijack this results.
Thanks for taking time to take a look!
Quote:
If you have not already you may wish to uninstall the sound card driver, if it survived the upgrade.
|
Originally Posted by Steelebow
Thank you both! I will work on that this second. Also, found out that his sound card is one no longer supported by Windows 7, so I'm going to try to disable the window mode and get a new sound card. If that doesn't work, I'll be back with the hijack this results.
Thanks for taking time to take a look! |
Thank you all for your help. We've gotten a new sound card, one that is listed as compatible with Windows 7. All the drivers are newly installed after the windows 7 install- in other words, we didn't upgrade, its a from scratch install. Whats happening is that he will be able to play with no issues at all, get through almost a whole mission (on one occasion got just past a mission), and then the screen will lock up. No ctrl-alt-del to taskmanager, no ESC, no crash log from CoX, etc. Basically, forced to do a hard boot from there. Prior to the crash, there doesn't seem to be any video glitch, or sound glitch. There is the slightest of lag right before the crash, but thats it.
Also, @zombie man, I tried running the hijack this, but its telling me its being denied access to write to the hosts file. I confess ignorance on this, but not sure how to work around that. Finally, I disabled the aero themes, and the game no longer seems to be running in windowed mode. We are running out of things to try, but you have given us some solid ideas. We are willing to keep taking a shot. Gladly welcoming any new suggestions!
Also, here is the updated results of the COH helper, in case its of any use:
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at February 25, 2011 14:21 (-06:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1054MB out of 2046MB available
Page File: 2834MB (1258MB currently in use)
C Drive: (MAXTOR STM3200820AS ATA Device) 94528MB out of 190771MB (49%) free
D Drive: (PHILIPS SPD2413P ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8600 GT
Video Memory: 1266 MB
Driver Version: 8.17.12.6658
Driver Date: 1/7/2011 9:27:00 PM
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Speaker (SB X-Fi Go! Pro)
Driver File: ksaud.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.0483
Driver Date: 8/11/2010 8:50:00 AM
Sound Device Description: Speakers (PnP Audio Device )
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 11/20/2010 3:59:44 AM
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M2N-E SLI
Motherboard Version: 1.XX
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070425000000.000000+000
Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (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: Medium?
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: 0.860
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: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600
Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 1.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1950.201102120907.1
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes
Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found
You should try reducing the graphics quality in the game.
8600GT can't really handle UM settings such as environmental reflections and hard shadowing at low much less at high.
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Quote:
Can yo check the windows error logs? What error is it listing?
|
Originally Posted by Steelebow
Thank you all for your help. We've gotten a new sound card, one that is listed as compatible with Windows 7. All the drivers are newly installed after the windows 7 install- in other words, we didn't upgrade, its a from scratch install. Whats happening is that he will be able to play with no issues at all, get through almost a whole mission (on one occasion got just past a mission), and then the screen will lock up. No ctrl-alt-del to taskmanager, no ESC, no crash log from CoX, etc. Basically, forced to do a hard boot from there. Prior to the crash, there doesn't seem to be any video glitch, or sound glitch. There is the slightest of lag right before the crash, but thats it.
Also, @zombie man, I tried running the hijack this, but its telling me its being denied access to write to the hosts file. I confess ignorance on this, but not sure how to work around that. Finally, I disabled the aero themes, and the game no longer seems to be running in windowed mode. We are running out of things to try, but you have given us some solid ideas. We are willing to keep taking a shot. Gladly welcoming any new suggestions! |
Quote:
That should just make it slow down to a crawl - not lock up the system. Has to be something else going on as well.
|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
8600GT can't really handle UM settings such as environmental reflections and hard shadowing at low much less at high.
|
On the off chance:
I noticed the system has 2 gigs of memory and 2 gigs of paging file.
Could the fact it's running Windows 7 with only 2 gigs of RAM cause the lockup? Add Windows 7 to CoX running at such a high setting and not many comps with that RAM will take well to it.
Could it be a heat related issue ???? Same thing happened to me a few years back before I knew anything about PC's. Turned out it was a bunch of dust bunnies hiding in the computer case. A good cleaning solved the problem.
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Thanks all for the continued suggestions. Graphics turned all the way down, same setup. Gets through about one mission, no apparent issues- then the whole computer locks up.
Quote:
I know you said you are running on graphics turned down, but have you tried running the game in safe mode? This puts the graphics at their absolute lowest settings(for sure).|
Originally Posted by Steelebow
Thanks all for the continued suggestions. Graphics turned all the way down, same setup. Gets through about one mission, no apparent issues- then the whole computer locks up.
|
My other desktop has an nvidia 9100. After upgrading to vthe latest 2011 graphics driver, the game was acting unstable, and crashing on me. I had to roll back to a 2009 driver. This was on Vista, not Windows 7 however. You could try uninstalling the driver, and trying a slightly older version if you can find one online. Just an idea. I'm not a computer expert, but rolling back to an older driver worked for me solving my crashing issues.
Quote:
2 gigs as a max paging file? win 7 + CoH would eat that up pretty quick i'd imagine
|
Originally Posted by GibsonMcCoy
On the off chance:
I noticed the system has 2 gigs of memory and 2 gigs of paging file. Could the fact it's running Windows 7 with only 2 gigs of RAM cause the lockup? Add Windows 7 to CoX running at such a high setting and not many comps with that RAM will take well to it. |
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I actually have my paging file set to either 4 or 8GB on my system (4GB RAM). And I am *generally* using around 2GB of it as i come out of boot.
With older nVidia cards I've had much better luck using the 197.45 drivers from April of 2010 than any of the 2xx.xx series of drivers.
These drivers are the last WHQL drivers released before going to the 2xx.xx series. They are UM compatible.
You can find them easily using the Beta and Archived driver link on the nVidia pages.
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There are some weird issues you can get with microsoft and pagefiles with a set size. Can you try setting it to the let your overlords at microsoft decide for you? That way it will be dynamic.
Did you ever check the windows log file, I forget where it is at the moment, usually just pops up after a crash in win 7.
Did you ever install the chipset drivers for your mobo? You might want to either do a clean install and/or update every driver on the system. Windows installs generic drivers and the manufacturer's often work better.
Quick update: We have reinstalled COH after the service pack upgrade, and turned the settings all the way down. For the first time, he had this issue last night outside of COH trying to run Skype. Actually, skype worked fine, but about 10-15 minutes afterward, his computer completely locked up as it has in COH. This leads my uninformed thoughts to believe that it really is a RAM/paging file issue. I have gone in and set it to 3MB, which it was saying was the maximum allowed- he only has 2MB of RAM on the PC. Our only other option is to try to get our hands on a version of XP to reinstall that, because we know his game and computer ran on that OS. I am very grateful for the help, and will let you all know soon how the change in paging file worked. Only 1 MB, but I'm crossing my fingers.
Just tested, and prior to the completion of the first mission, it locked up again- its now going to the blue screen. There hasn't been readily visible error messages for the windows log since its been a hard boot after each time. I'm happy to take a look at it, but at this point, I think its looking more and more like we need to scroll back to an earlier OS.
I wouldn't roll back to an older OS, but thats me. Sounds like it's an issue with not enough ram available, "he had this issue last night outside of COH trying to run Skype"
You're aware that XP will limit you in how much ram you can actually use in the system, correct? App. 3.5 GB incl the video card memory. If it's an option, and I think a better idea would be to add some ram to the system. 2 more gigs would make a difference I'm sure. Good luck with what ever you decide.
Was this install "fresh" (as in after doing a drive format) or did you attempt to install directly over the old OS?
If the latter, there could be left over drivers and programs messing with things quite a bit.
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My son has recently updated (?) his computer from Windows XP to Windows 7. He ran COH just fine on this computer before, and now it crashes minutes into playing. It looks like a video driver issue, but that has been updated. Also, all the updates for Windows 7, including Service Pack 1, have been downloaded as well. Per requests elsewhere, this is what the system looks like. I realize its an older computer, but its aggravating because it wasn't having any trouble with CoH before. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at February 24, 2011 19:21 (-06:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1233MB out of 2046MB available
Page File: 3040MB (1052MB currently in use)
C Drive: (MAXTOR STM3200820AS ATA Device) 110531MB out of 190771MB (57%) free
D Drive: (PHILIPS SPD2413P ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8600 GT
Video Memory: 1266 MB
Driver Version: 8.17.12.6658
Driver Date: 1/7/2011 9:27:00 PM
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Speakers (PnP Audio Device )
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 11/20/2010 3:59:44 AM
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M2N-E SLI
Motherboard Version: 1.XX
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070425000000.000000+000
Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No
Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 100
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No
Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Crisp
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Unknown (4)
World Texture Level: Unknown (3)
Character Texture Level: Low
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.500
Entity Detail Level: 0.300
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Disabled
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (0)
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance
Gamma Correction: 0.860
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes
Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600
Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1950.201102120907.1
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes
Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found