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LedMirageXL
LedMirageXL
Join Date 02/2008
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One solution to the Bluescreen crashes on Nvidia video cards

This fix worked with Windows XP Pro and 2 x 7800 GTX SLI Cards

February 16, 2008 11:45:23 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
After getting the game only two days ago I had already been crashing with a blue screen randomly in SINS, the culprid was always nv4_disp.dll (The Nvidia Drivers), coming here to the forums I found a big thread on the problem but the only workaround was to install some very old drivers (I am using the current non-beta Nvidia drivers: 169.21), so I decided to start lowering options and using the process of elimination to determine what was my very stable gaming PC get a nasty BSOD every 10~15 minutes.

After a couple of hours I determined it's the "Enable Bloom Effects" checkbox option under the Effects category in options, I played almost six hours in single player and fix in multiplayer with no more crashes. Interestingly enough another player came here to the forums todays with the same findings, so now it's two of us that have fixed the BSOD on Nvidia equipped PC's with this simple toggle.

Good luck and do post if it worked or not for you so others may have an easier time finding a solution.


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LedMirageXL
Cryptomancer
Join Date 07/2002
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Reply #1 February 16, 2008 3:16:30 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I, also, am using the official (5 December 2007) 169.21 nVidia drivers : never experienced any problem, any BSOD -- but from the very start, I never enabled "Bloom Effects".

Thanks for posting your info : it might help some GeForce users who have had some problems caused by that "Bloom Effects" option.
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LedMirageXL
KWAiRT
Join Date 03/2005
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Reply #2 February 16, 2008 4:46:11 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
The bloom effect is pretty minimal in Sins but off by default. I'm not really a big fan of bloom in many games. Uses too much overhead for what is usually a waste of resources. Even a suttle bloom effect is usually too costly but it's all the rage lately. No pun intended...
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LedMirageXL
Cryptomancer
Join Date 07/2002
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Reply #3 February 16, 2008 7:10:01 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
What would "Bloom Effects" look like in the Sins game ?
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LedMirageXL
kryo
Join Date 05/2003
+458 sdemployee
Reply #4 February 16, 2008 8:53:55 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Shiny things look shinier. That's the bulk of it.
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LedMirageXL
Zortun
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #5 February 17, 2008 11:37:00 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I turned on bloom the very first thing I did (I have Nvidia 8800 GTX SLI) and I get the dreaded BSOD every 15 minutes. In fact I found this forum post because I was about to ask for my money back but thought I'd give google a go first.

This gives me hope, I will turn this setting off and hope for the best - thanks!
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LedMirageXL
Chip5541
Join Date 03/2005
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Reply #6 February 17, 2008 11:57:57 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Thanks for the heads up. I was just about to hunker down and see what I could do to keep from getting the crash. *fingers crossed*


But I really like the bloom effect.
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LedMirageXL
Scorpiuscat
Join Date 04/2003
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Reply #7 February 17, 2008 12:02:28 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I have had everything enabled including bloom on my Geforce 8800 since day one with no problems at all.

This is on a Vista 64bit system though, I wonder if all you guys having problems are on 32bit systems?
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LedMirageXL
Quemaqua
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #8 February 17, 2008 12:26:34 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I posted in another thread on this topic, but yes, this seems to have worked for me. I'm on XP/SP2 with a 7800GT, and while I wasn't getting a BSOD, I was getting the driver errors and the crashes. Turning off bloom seems to have prevented the problem from recurring, though I still get the "screen blips" that happen right before it used to crash. These are very infrequent, thankfully, and aren't really even very distracting.

Now if I could only figure out the minidump crash I got last night. Still, the game seems very much stable enough to play reliably now.
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LedMirageXL
RonLugge
Join Date 05/2004
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Reply #9 February 17, 2008 1:18:46 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
(I have Nvidia 8800 GTX SLI)


There's your problem! SLI is still a developing technology -- try disabling it, and your performance might go down, but your probably going to get a LOT of stability out of it.
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LedMirageXL
Zortun
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #10 February 17, 2008 1:23:49 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Turned off bloom and the game was stable for about 2 hours before locking up this time, which is a vast improvement.

Going to try disabling SLI as recommended above to see if that brings about further stability improvement.

I hope patches are on their way... SLI may be a developing technology but most games I have are 100% stable with it enabled.
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LedMirageXL
Chip5541
Join Date 03/2005
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Reply #11 February 17, 2008 4:23:31 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I have had everything enabled including bloom on my Geforce 8800 since day one with no problems at all.

This is on a Vista 64bit system though, I wonder if all you guys having problems are on 32bit systems?


8800GT with Vista 64 and 4gigs memory and crash issue. Lowered everything to High and it runs fine.
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LedMirageXL
LoupGris
Join Date 07/2003
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Reply #12 February 17, 2008 4:42:02 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I'm using Sins on Vista 32 bits with 8800 GTX and 169.25 WHQL drivers. I've turned bllom effect and maxed everything out since day one. I didn't experience a single game crash so far and I had about 10 games with each game at least 8 hours of play non stop.
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