Constant video card crashing but only with CoH.
By
AMDarkwolf,
Posted on: 2011-11-29 09:05 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
At this point, I'm willing to label this a problem with the Windows Vista/7 driver system, rather than just a problem intrinsic to either nVidia or AMD.
To be honest, Windows device management is dumber than hitting yourself with a bag of hammers.
All sorts of nasty, inappropriate "power saving" features in Windows tend to trip off when they're not supposed to and worse, when they're WILDLY inappropriate.
Like network card power savings. I've had Windows Power Management shut down a NIC in the middle of a sustained file transfer, killing the transfer. Worse, for sustained database connections, it's like sticking your finger in a cigar cutter...It shuts down in the middle of a transaction and, if you're lucky, your app just crashes. If you're not, the DB connection dumps corrupt data into the table.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I had this same problem with an Nvidia Geforce 580 on a computer running Windows 7/64 and resolved it by loading an older video driver -- 263.09. The two newer drivers I tried (285.62 and 296.10) crashed repeatedly. Since loading the old driver I've played for hours with out a single crash.
I have dual HD 6770's (1gb) in crossfire, a AMD Phenom x4 3.4 ghz processer and 32 gigs of ram, and I can watch as (In coh, and ONLY in coh) the gpu's both spike to 99% when I FIRST start the game, and after about 20 min the game gets very sluggish, textures fail to render, and eventualy, I get GPU error and the game closes.
No other game causes this, I can play crysis 2, bioshock 2, etc, with absolute max settings and both gpus MAYBE hit 60-70%. And compared to those 2 games above, CoH looks like utter complete crap. I can play 15 min TOPS with settings set to max in coh, up to 45 min before the crash if I lower all settings to 'butt fraking ugly' mode.(Maybe, still lags like a **** if i turn too fast outside)
This is NOT 'our' fault and its starting to make me sick that the only responses that are meant as 'help' are the replies of 'Oh i don't have an issue, so it can't be the game, get a new computer'
Honestly, this IS an issue they have to address, since I am betting a huge number of people who experience it, don't even have 'forum access' or don't bother to come here(And yes, them peoples heads off to new games. DUH. what a glorious way to keep your customers :P)
If I go on, my frustration with this problem will really start to show, so I'm just going to leave it there. I just wanted to say that you are not alone in having this problem or in your frustration with the response.