Video Driver Issue causing hangs and bluescreen

I'm not kidding

from Sins Forums
I'm using a Geforce 7900 GS with driver version 169.25 on 32-bit Vista, playing at 1920x1080. I have also tried beta drivers 169.28.

About once an hour or so playing the screen will hang. The music and sound effects continue playing, and after about 20 seconds the screen goes black and then comes back and everything works again. Windows informs me that my video driver crashed and had to be restarted. Sometimes this crashes the game completely, sometimes it causes a bluescreen.

There's no obvious event in-game that precedes this behavior, so it's unpredictable and I can't reproduce it at will. Because it happens so uncommonly it's very hard to find the problem, because after changing a setting I have to play for an hour or two to see it happen again.

Any ideas?

Oh and here's my DXDiag.
technical
46,177 views 114 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I recomand roling back your dirvers i herd the latest nividia driver was realy bad crased NWN2 and crysis and a bunch of other stuff.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I get the same thing with 169.25; I guess it is time to roll-back... note that I am using a 7950GT.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Same problem here with 167.46 Beta. Using a 7950GTX. Kindof a downer isn't it?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Same problem here, also a 7950GT on Vista 32bit. I had older drivers than anyone has yet listed here (163.xx) and Crysis and WoW worked fine on my PC. Saw similar hang to OP, except mine the galaxy would stay visible but the whole UI would ghost out or disappear. Same windows error message. I haven't seen a re-occurrence sine updating to 169.25 but on the other hand, I haven't played more than 20 minutes at a session since I did either.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Same problem here - no blue screens of death, but definitely get some lagging, and it forces a driver reboot (the little triangle in the lower right hand tray).

Running GeForce 7600GT, driver version 169.25

Specs of machine: Intel Core Duo 6400, 4gb RAM, 500Gb HDD, 7600GT, Asus Mainboard
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Any change an update to address this problem will be released (by Stardock and not nVidia)?

Otherwise, where would I go to get an older driver?

/me complete n00b
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I am having this same issue with Vista 32-bit and a 7900 GS. Specifically Windows pops up to say that driver nvlddmkm.dll has stopped working. If someone figures out a solution be sure to share!
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I originally first played the game for a good amount of time, maybe an hour. Now I play 15min and get a BSOD.

7950gt card here as well.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I get the same problem with a 7800gt.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
note: I own a DELL
hmmmmmmmmm ... this seems familuar  :SURPRISED: .. I have a 7900GS (256MB) Nvidia video card running on Vista (32bit) platform. After getting beta's 1,2,3 I had same issue ... I won't go into details (PoorMan looks @ Stardock) but I did find a driver to work properly with Sins.
I recomend trying this to fix your issue.
Driver Version: 7.15.0010.9746
I have noticed no change to the look of Sins or other applications w/ this driver!
You may have a hard time finding it (for some reason I could not find it in Nvidia's archives) so here is Nvidia's link:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_97.46.html
I hope this helps.
TO Stardock/IC: Maybe a look into this would be good for .03 patch?
PoorMan(toldyaso)DSO
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
yeah i have same problem with a 7600GS.... screen goes black everything runs then says display driver has stopped running... i have the latest drivers @ 169 somthin
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Getting this same thing with my 7650GS. Screen goes black and the driver has to reboot. After playing for a while it gets really bad and prevents me from playing alltogether; the driver keeps shutting down and restarting continously without end.

And yes I installed the Vista patch thingy. Didn't help one bit.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
The same for me using the last 3 drivers for Vista. I have 7900GTX SLI setup.

This is ruining my enjoyment of the game, why play it if it only runs for 10-20min?
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
It seems like the entire 7-series nVidia cards have the same problem on Vista.

If anybody knows a driver for the 7-series cards for Vista that works, please speak up... I'm dying here. I'm addicted but can't play long enough to conquer a single system.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Last night i've tried the solution from PoorManDSO with the Driver 7.15.0010.9746 and it worked. I've played for about 2 hours without any problem.

Running 7950 GT (XFX) all detail at max.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Last night i've tried the solution from PoorManDSO with the Driver 7.15.0010.9746 and it worked. I've played for about 2 hours without any problem.

Running 7950 GT (XFX) all detail at max.
End of quote


That did the trick!
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting... chalk me up as another 7900GS users on Vista 32 bit with this exact same issue. I'll try the latest nvidia beta drivers and if those don't work I guess I'll try rolling way back to 7.15...
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Same problem with me, I will need to double check my Nvidia drivers when I get home, but I have a 7950GX2 on Vista64.

Exactly the same symptoms, game freezes for 5 - 10 seconds, followed by screen flashing black and then back into game like nothing ever happened.

I know I have the Virtual Address Space patch from Microsoft installed because I was having a lot of problems with games.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Surely this is something that needs to be addressed in the game. Reverting back to old drivers isn't the way to resolve the problem. Granted if it works, it works, but the new drivers are optimized for better performance in newer games. Do I really want to lose that when it comes to Crysis because Sins of a Solar Empire randomly freezes?

I think IronClad/StarDock needs to address this either internally or with Nvida.

If the entire 7x line of Nvidia cards are having this problem, that's a large number of players. I doubt everyone has rushed out and upgraded to 8x cards, so there's probably a lot of 7x people having this problem who have yet to post.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Supposedly this problem was known to exist since beta but all IC did was tell NVidia about it. they need to actually get into theri code adn figure out whats doing it.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
I'm running an 8600 GT on XP with 169.21 drivers and as of 15 minutes ago am experiencing the same driver crash, today was the first time with Sins of a Solar Empire, but it has also been occuring with Call of Duty 4.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
Nothing in the Nvidia knowledge base yet about this, but I went ahead and submitted a ticket with them. So the game devs know about this issue?