Blue Screen of Doom

[SnootCB]

Sweet, thanks for the link.  Silly me, not checking for driver updates every fracking day. 

Seriously though, nVidia has had to bend over backwards to fix a problem that isn't their fault in the first place.  What's up with that?

[J. M. Pescado]

For a guy too busy making up excuses not to TAKE HIS DAMN TURN, you SURE ARE HERE A LOT, B.

[B]

For a guy too busy making up excuses not to TAKE HIS DAMN TURN, you SURE ARE HERE A LOT, B.

It's a logistics issue.  I can only take my damn turn on one computer at the moment, but I can post on MATY from any computer.  Besides, I kept getting the bad packets error this morning when I attempted to connect.  I'll try again when I get home.  I was also kind of hoping that you managed to finish me off last turn.  Did my pathetic defense actually work?

[buddha pest]

Sooo...I've been getting the blue screen of doom since installing the beta drivers. It did fix all of the creepy graphics glitches I was having, but I would rather have those than not be able to play at all.

I'm kind of a dipshit, so...is there a way I can uninstall the beta drivers?

ETA: Well useshaders false has fixed it so far...I think/hope.

[Larxene]

Sign me up for the nVidia nightmare of non-awesomeness. My 5600FX ran the game fine but I upgraded to a 7600GT and now I am in black/blue screen Hell. The latest drivers did squat, I'm trying an older one that was suggested and playing in windowed mode which I both hate and love. I don't use a start up cheat, do I just enter that shading thing via the cheat window?

[sonofajoiner]

Is this the same BSOD problem that started with OFB? Cos yer know, all I had to do to be able to play for more than 30 minutes at a time (and avoid all that delicious hard rebooting) was to fork out £70 for more memory (I believe that works out at about $5968 in American) whilst muttering darkly about evil tycoons and their champagne parties that I was probably funding. An extra gb of memory didn't actually fix anything, but it massively extended the amount of time the game would run for. I haven't had the problem since and I reckon I play for about 4-5 hours in one sitting.
I haven't really been following the BSOD saga since then as I assumed that Eaxis and Nvidia were still too busy, locked in heated squabble over whose responsibility it was, to actually fix the problem. And of course there are all those champagne parties they have to attend. So as with many things in life, the quick solution may be to assume that help is not forthcoming any time soon, and chuck good money after bad. Just a thought.

[Larxene]

There is a known crasher bug with (pre-8) Nvidia cards and TS2.

Put the following in your userstartup.cheat file:

Code:

boolprop useshaders false

The downside of this is, you will lose the fish in the aquaria and pools.

Another way to prevent the crashes is to play in windowed mode, but keep in mind this is more heavy on the system. Your specs show your system should be able to handle it, though.

I must now join your cult. After four days of nVidia and EA giving me crap, installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, running data tests, blaming me, checking my CPU, my memory, my drivers... this has stabilized the game enough to run one hour and counting with no crash.

Why didn't ANYONE but MATY have this info?

[J. M. Pescado]

Probably because MATY is the "it's broken" center of the TS2 community? If it's broken, someone has probably mentioned it here?

[SnootCB]

Final release of the new driver is out now.  I'd been using the beta driver with only minimal success, and I haven't had time to test the game with the new driver- hopefully they figured out a fix before they even knew there was a problem, if it makes any sense to be hopeful about that at all. 

[KellyQ]

New driver didn't help me out at all; within seconds of a lot loading, I got the blue screen.

[evilragdoll]

Final version did not help me either. Oh, well, I'll try the boolprop useshaders false, I was never that fond of those fishies anyway.

[sonofajoiner]

I know the source of this information may be slightly dubious, what with all the know-nothing know-it-all 12 year olds who hang about there, but some folks on the BBS reckon that evil evil Securom 7 is the cause of the renewed BSOD problem.

LINK

Have a look at mone0615's comments.

[FourCats]

Sweet, thanks for the link.  Silly me, not checking for driver updates every fracking day. 

Seriously though, nVidia has had to bend over backwards to fix a problem that isn't their fault in the first place.  What's up with that?

I tried that new driver, and my game still crashed.

[Argon]

Has anyone tried using the XTreme-G drivers? I've been using the mobile version (GeForce GO 7900GS on my lappy) and the normals drivers (GeForce 7800GS on my media center pc) for a long time and haven't had a BSOD.

You might also try setting anti aliasing to application controlled, since according to Graphics Rules.sgr, TS2 doesn't like it when you set it manually and turns "dirty rects" (whatever that is) and something about estimated texture memory adjustment off as a result.

[SnootCB]

You might also try setting anti aliasing to application controlled, since according to Graphics Rules.sgr, TS2 doesn't like it when you set it manually and turns "dirty rects" (whatever that is) and something about estimated texture memory adjustment off as a result.

So sorry to be a bother, but could you please explain this in layman's terms?

[jsalemi]

Your video card advanced control panel usually has a setting for 'anti-aliasing'. The default is usually 'application controlled', but what Argon is suggesting is to check it and make sure it's set that way.

[Jelenedra]

I know this might now be an issue, but do any of you guys get the BSOD while playing other games?

I was getting the BSOD all the time anytime I played ANY type of video game. As it turned out, my 2 sticks of DDR RAM weren't playing well together anymore because one of them burnt out. Removing the bad one fixed my problems. Running at half capacity right now, but that's not an issue since I'm not playing the Sims.

[SnootCB]

Your video card advanced control panel usually has a setting for 'anti-aliasing'. The default is usually 'application controlled', but what Argon is suggesting is to check it and make sure it's set that way.

Thanks.

I know this might now be an issue, but do any of you guys get the BSOD while playing other games?

I was getting the BSOD all the time anytime I played ANY type of video game. As it turned out, my 2 sticks of DDR RAM weren't playing well together anymore because one of them burnt out. Removing the bad one fixed my problems. Running at half capacity right now, but that's not an issue since I'm not playing the Sims.

Nope, only with Sims.  I only play one other game on this computer though.

[dano]

I know the source of this information may be slightly dubious, what with all the know-nothing know-it-all 12 year olds who hang about there, but some folks on the BBS reckon that evil evil Securom 7 is the cause of the renewed BSOD problem.

I used the instructions from here to remove Securom.  My computer ran okay for a while, but I'm still getting the crashes (although less frequently).  My guess is that it may be contributing to the problem but is not the direct cause of it.

I'll have to give the shaders cheat a try.

(My specs in case anyone's interested -- an HP box with NVidia 7600GS, 4G of RAM, Intel Duo chip, 250G SATA disk.  )

dano

[Twibil]

What is the general consensus on this beta driver? Who is it working for and who hasn't had any luck?

I had to replace my video card to a GeForce 6200 recently and have had no end of headaches trying to find a driver that works.  My old card died, but it worked brilliantly with the game and I cannot remember which driver version I was using.  (I had to use a crappy old 64 meg card in the interim, untill I could save up for a new card).

I really want to get the game running because I haven't had much time to play recently.  I have BV installed but haven't been able to try it out yet.  Would I have better luck if I just un-installed BV until all of these problems are resolved ( or should I just assume they are permanently borked and try to find another way around it)?  I really don't want to use the useshaders false cheat if I don't have to.  My old card had me spoiled because my game looked so pretty.

[SnootCB]

What is the general consensus on this beta driver? Who is it working for and who hasn't had any luck?

I had to replace my video card to a GeForce 6200 recently and have had no end of headaches trying to find a driver that works.  My old card died, but it worked brilliantly with the game and I cannot remember which driver version I was using.  (I had to use a crappy old 64 meg card in the interim, untill I could save up for a new card).

I really want to get the game running because I haven't had much time to play recently.  I have BV installed but haven't been able to try it out yet.  Would I have better luck if I just un-installed BV until all of these problems are resolved ( or should I just assume they are permanently borked and try to find another way around it)?  I really don't want to use the useshaders false cheat if I don't have to.  My old card had me spoiled because my game looked so pretty.

I believe the new driver (163.71) is official now, no longer beta.  It has not worked to eliminate the BSoD for me.

The useshaders false cheat is not so bad, except for the fact that we shouldn't have to use it in the first place.  I have all other graphics setting turned up high, but it bugs me that I can't use the snow x-ray thing.  I payed a buttload of money for this card (GeForce 7800) and I want it to work like it is supposed to, dammit!

I'm looking into older drivers now.  I'll post if I find one that works out for my card.

[Twibil]

When I installed the card yesterday I just grabbed the newest drivers Nvidia told me I needed, thinking that they certainly must have resolved the driver issues by now.  I can see now that it was silly of me to assume so.  I am not sure which one I have installed as I am away from my home computer at the moment.  Within minutes of trying to run the game I got the infinite loop BSOD.

I cried when my old card stopped working.  I had it working perfectly and loved how good my game looked.  It sucks that we cannot play the game as it is meant to be played.  I know I am being a big baby, but I want my game to play like it did before.  Until I can come up with something better I will have to try the useshaders cheat.

God forbid I should have any REAL problems in my life.

I would appreciate it if you  (or anyone else) would let me know if you find an older version that works.

[notveryawesome]

I've heard/read that, with certain Nvidia cards, it helps to roll back to a much older driver, rather than 'upgrading' to the latest one. Alas, I have no suggestions as to which driver(s) work best, but it might be worth searching the web for.

[sirnh]

I haven't seen a Blue Screen of Doom (and I hope it will stay that way) and I'm using:
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
driver version: 6.14.10.9371
driver date: 22/10/2006

(Old drivers I know. And to be honest those drives are the ones that were on my computer when I bought it. I just never bothered upgrading them. If I would upgrade my drivers, would I have to remove my 'current old drivers'? Or can I just install the new drivers?)

Anyway I figured, since I keep hearing about the blue screens, but haven't seen any I could post my card and drivers... (You never know what it is good for)

As I already said I haven't seen a blue screen, but the game has this lag, but that might just as well be my downloads-folder having over 10.000 files in it.

I'm not using the useshaders false cheat and I use the snow x-ray thing.

[ZephyrZodiac]

You should be able to save a copy of the current drivers so that if upgrading doesn't work, it's easy to roll back.