Random crashing, but ONLY when zoning

Since the last major patch for COH (and ONLY since then), there's a chance that when I zone in or out of an instance, the screen either goes black or freezes on a frame, hangs for a few seconds, then crashes to desktop (leaving me logged in, and it takes abysmally long to get back in the game). This happens regardless of character, zone, or server.

99.9% of the time, it gives me a message that it's related to atioglxx.dll (1 time it said there was an error with CityOfHeroes.exe).

Everything worked FINE before the patch, so I went after the usual culprits:

1) Repaired the game files. No dice.
2) Updated video drivers to 11.12 after cleaning them off with Driver Sweeper in Safe mode. No dice.
3) Went back to 11.9 (what I'd been using when this first started, with no problems) after cleaning off 11.12's drivers with Driver Sweeper in Safe mode. No dice.
4) Ran Anti-virus check, Anti-Malwarecheck, and Process Explorer to make sure all looked good. No problems, so tried playing again. No dice.
5) Went back to 11.12 after cleaning off 11.9's drivers again with Driver Sweeper in safe mode. No dice.
6) Started experimenting with the usual suspects of in-game graphics settings (antialiasing, occlusion, etc). No dice.

(One note about the system info below - it says I have two monitors, both with max resolutions of 1600x1200. That's wrong. My primary monitor's max resolution is 1920x1280, my secondary is 1280x1024.)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite



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

DxDiag gathered at January 3, 2012 09:35 (-08:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.111025-1629)
System Manufacturer: americanfuture
System Model: 122-CK-NF68
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs)
Memory: 2814MB
.Net Memory Report: 1909MB out of 2814MB available
Page File: 3669MB (1033MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD2500AAJS-00VTA0) 20606MB out of 238464MB (8%) free
E Drive: (SAMSUNG HD203WI) 1025064MB out of 1907726MB (53%) free
D Drive: (Optiarc DVD RW AD-7190A) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6899)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7240
Driver Date: 11/9/2011 6:53:20 PM
Driver Language: English

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6899)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7240
Driver Date: 11/9/2011 6:53:20 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: SB Live! 24-bit
Driver File: P17.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.0514
Driver Date: 6/15/2007 9:47:26 AM

Sound Device Description: ATI HD Audio rear output
Driver File: AtiHdmi.sys
Driver Version: 5.00.40001.0009
Driver Date: 7/20/2007 5:40:10 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: EVGA
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: 122-CK-NF68
Motherboard Version: 2
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20080122000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1920x1080
3D Resolution: 1920x1080 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 0Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


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


Anti-aliasing: 8x
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
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): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (4)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Ultra quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: Yes
Ambient Occlusion: High quality
Occlusion Strength: Strong
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
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: 0.600
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

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

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\GUI\CREATION\HybridUI\LoginScree n has 1 file
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Powers has 75 files
.\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 40 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
.\texture_library\WORLD\V_COV\Bases\Bases_Asian02 has 32 files
.\texture_library\WORLD\V_COV\Villian_Lairs\Arachn os\Monitors has 4 files

UPDATE - this only seems to happen on the Live server. I was on Beta for over two hours, zoning hither, thither and yon, and not so much as a hiccup. Any ideas?

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Okay, so I doublechecked the monitor drivers - my ViewSonic came with a disk so I popped that in, good to go there. My Soyo, however, didn't come with one, nor can I find drivers ANYWHERE online for a MT-NI-DLYM1998 Soyo monitor (I LOOKED). So it's the usual plug n play drivers for that.

I re-ran COH Helper and came up with this change in the monitors:

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

Monitor: ViewSonic VA2231 Series
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1920,1080
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6899)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7240
Driver Date: 11/9/2011 6:53:20 PM
Driver Language: English

Monitor: ViewSonic VA2231 Series
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1920,1080
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6899)
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7240
Driver Date: 11/9/2011 6:53:20 PM
Driver Language: English

*********

Seems that it's applying the same thing to both... AGAIN... only this time it's applying the ViewSonic info to both monitors. Grrr.

At any rate, since COH runs on the ViewSonic monitor (my primary), we'll see if that helps.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Check your PM's.

If you are still having trouble, I'd recommend turning Ambient Occlusion to Off, Advanced Occlusion Settings to Off, Anti-Aliasing to 2X, Anisotropic Filtering to 4X, Bloom to Off, Depth of Field to Off, and World Texture Level to High just for some testing. AO can be a real resource hog and framerate killer.

Also, something odd is going on with your Shadow settings that is causing Shadow Mode to report as Unknown. Try turning on Shadows, adjust the Shadow Mode, save the changes then go back and (if you must) turn Shadows to Off. Sometimes the game acts a bit goofy with Shadows set to Off, so you may want to set it to a lower level of Shadows and leave it On. It seems odd but I've seen a few have better results with it On at the lowest setting than what they did with it Off.

Is there a possibility that your CoH install might have some corrupted files?

TJ - got your PM, am holding onto it while I test a couple other things first.

Newchem - I've done the repair/consistency check and no dice.

HOWEVER...

It dawned on me that I have a custom login screen... which appears whenever I zone. If THAT somehow got corrupted, that might explain it. So I deleted the folder that info is stored in. Ran an ITF last night - zoned multiple times without issue. Will test this theory some more a bit later.

(The reason I got to thinking of that is because it's ONLY on my live server, not on my test or beta installs.)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Good thinking there. You may have hit on the problem.

I can see how a custom login screen might affect that since it appears when you zone. It could also be that the file itself isn't corrupt but rather that there was a small change made in how it calls for those files to be loaded/displayed. Something as simple as code to stretch images to fit widescreen layouts might affect it.

That SEEMS to have been it - since I did that, I ran back to back ITFs plus a bunch of running around with no problem at all.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Good catch D_R!

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