Driver/Windows crashes in GOG's Diamond edition

[Legacy_Flamedream]

               Decided to create a separate topic for this in hopes that someone can help me.

I recently bought the Diamond Edition (SotU/HotU/Kingmaker) on GOG.com and have been having severe issues with it.

So to start off, my system specs:

Intel i5 processor
Asus P8Z68-V motherboard
8GB RAM
Geforce GTX 570 (Zotac overclock edition, however I'm not currently overclocking it).
Nvidia driver version - 314.07 WHQL
Windows 7 64 bit

The game and installation:
NWN Diamond Edition from GOG.com
Installed from GOG's installer, with admin permission.
Install directory is C:\\Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition (I did not install it into Program Files since some people warned about this).
Applied the official GOG cdkey fix for multiplayer and the subsequent reinstall fix for premium modules (I'm mentioning this just in case but I doubt that this affects anything).

The issues:
Alternating graphics card driver fails (which leads to a game crash) or a complete system crash and reboot.

This happens from 2 to 10 minutes into the game.

With the driver fail, I first get a freeze with a weird color/pixelized effect in the game (basically a bunch of areas on the screen turning into green/red/blue pixels) and then the game crashes.

The error message refers either to the nvidia driver/ nvidia opengl driver failing or to openGL driver losing connection, and sending me to this nvidia page
http://nvidia.custhe...etail/a_id/3007

(NOTE: I've had similar freeze-up, driver fail and color/pixel issues with NWN2, but there it happened every couple of hours and the driver ultimately recovered, with no game crashes, so I just grin-and-bared it).

With the system crash, I simply get a system reboot with no warning, no effects in the game or anything else.

I have not determined any kind of pattern which can tell me when one or the other happens, they seem to be random. The driver crash is more frequent.

Fixes that I've tried:

As recommended by GOG, I tried installing the  June 2010 DirectX runtime package.

I have installed the critical rebuild patch for HotU from ign's nwnvault  ( http://nwvault.ign.c....Detail&id=1505 ) .

I've tried changing the core affinity in the nwnplayer.ini file (tried values 1 and -2)

I've tried reinstalling my gfx card drivers. I uninstalled all the previous ones, used DriverSweeper in Windows Safe Mode, and then reinstalled my drivers (version 314.07).
I considered isntalling a later version of the drivers, but it seemed pointless as they are both 2013 drivers, I don't really imagine Nvidia is doing monthly updates for such old games.

I set nwn.exe and nwnmain.exe files to compatibility mode with Windows XP sp3 (also tried sp2) and set them to run with admin permission.

I've altered the windows user account management and set the slider to "never notify" (excuse me if my translations are wonky, I'm using a non-English version of Windows and am not quite sure on the technical terms).

I've tried the PowerMizer fix ( )

When the 32 bit words didn't help me, I tried creating 64 bit words, to no effect.

I went into Nvidia control panel and set Power Management in nVidia 3d Options to
'Prefer Maximum Performance' - opposed to Adaptive.

I also turned off "Threaded Optimization" as suggested by some people.

NONE of these fixes have helped me.

I'm using MSI Afterburner and Nvidia Inspector to monitor my card temperature and fan, so this is definitely NOT an overheating issue.

This game seems to tax my card more than many modern games, but the temperature mostly stays at around 55 degrees Celcius and has never exceeded 70 (and I have MSI Afterburner set to auto-adjust fan speed to card temperature).


The video options in the game are currently set to:

Resolution - 1680x1050 60hz
Graphics quality slider - "Best" position
Texture quality slider - "64 meg. or higher"
Enable sky boxes - checked (enabled)
Enable environment shadows - checked (enabled)
Creature shadow detail slider - middle of the slider
Gamma slider - middle of the slider

Advanced settings tab:
Grass slider - set to minimum (off)
Creature wind (grass) -  set to minimum (off)
Number of dynamic lights slider - maximum
Shadow casting lights slider - maximum
AntiAliasing slider - set to "Nice 4 sample Antialiasing"

Enable texture animations (water, lava etc) - box checked (enabled)
Environment mapping on creatures - box checked (enabled)
Visual effects high - box checked (enabled)
Enable shiny water - box  not checked (disabled)
Enable Vsync - box checked (enabled)
Use high-resolution font - box  not checked (disabled)


I am absolutely lost at this point and don't know what to do. The only thing I haven't tried is reinstalling sound drivers, but the issues seem to be gfx card related so I doubt that will help me.

I would appreciate any suggestion or advice. If you can point me to some qualified Bioware personnel via  a tech support section, I'd also be thankful.

I've already submitted this report to GOG and am waiting for their reply.

Thanks in advance.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Flamedream, 26 mai 2013 - 06:55 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Gorath Alpha]

               There never was any Bioware Tech Support for either of the NWN games.  Both were handled by Atari's support.  Atari is still around, but their support was always very weak.  

You might want to try the Geforce (nVIDIA) Forums.  They finally are online after a couple of years without any forums:

forums.geforce.com/
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 26 mai 2013 - 07:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Flamedream]

               *sigh*

Well, then here's hoping GOG will help me out. Cause I'm all out of ideas.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               I can only suggest to try previous Nvidia drivers as newer ones could be the culprit. Just so you know,
constant updating of graphic drivers is not necessary, if you hit a driver that everything works well, then
you don't need to update. The whole "always make sure you have the latest driver" mind set is pretty much overrated/exaggerated.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Flamedream]

               

Lord Sullivan wrote...

I can only suggest to try previous Nvidia drivers as newer ones could be the culprit. Just so you know,
constant updating of graphic drivers is not necessary, if you hit a driver that everything works well, then
you don't need to update. The whole "always make sure you have the latest driver" mind set is pretty much overrated/exaggerated.

I'm running version 314.07, the newest being 320-something.

I could try even older ones I guess.

Beyond that the only ideas I have left is to update the sound drivers and try fiddling with the graphics options in the game itself.

But honestly I don't have high hopes for those options.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               Well I can tell of an example of why the drivers might be your only issue.

Just yesterday, my long beloved Radeon HD 4870 died on me and I happen to have
a Radeon HD 5770 as a spare so I installed it in my system and proceeded to install
the latest drivers from the AMD website which is Catalyst v13.4 since I had not updated
my ATI drivers for quite a long time. That resulted in NWN crashing immediately after
I click play on the loader menu, So my quest for holder/previous drivers began and I have
downloaded and tried at least 6 previous versions that support the HD 5770 until I got the one
that works right for my system and my games which happens to be Catalyst v12.1

There might be a few others that work as I jumped a few versions at a time, but now that
things work well, that is all that matters to me so I'm done looking and trying.

Oh and that is on Windows XP and that speaks volume as NWN not working on XP is
just unthinkable or any games that is possible to run on XP for that matter.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lord Sullivan, 26 mai 2013 - 08:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Flamedream]

               

Lord Sullivan wrote...

Well I can tell of an example of why the drivers might be your only issue.

Just yesterday, my long beloved Radeon HD 4870 died on me and I happen to have
a Radeon HD 5770 as a spare so I installed it in my system and proceeded to install
the latest drivers from the AMD website which is Catalyst v13.4 since I had not updated
my ATI drivers for quite a long time. That resulted in NWN crashing immediately after
I click play on the loader menu, So my quest for holder/previous drivers began and I have
downloaded and tried at least 6 previous versions that support the HD 5770 until I got the one
that works right for my system and my games which happens to be Catalyst v12.1

There might be a few others that work as I jumped a few versions at a time, but now that
things work well, that is all that matters to me so I'm done looking and trying.

Oh and that is on Windows XP and that speaks volume as NWN not working on XP is
just unthinkable or any games that is possible to run on XP for that matter.

Thing is, NWN is now a 10 year old game (good god, has it been that long? feels like only yesterday...).

I don't know how far I'd have to dig for drivers that don't do this crap. Plus my card is fairly new (the model was released in 2010).

So...

Ugh. Well I'll try some more stuff and see if switching out the drivers or fiddling with the options will work.

Hopefully I will solve this so that people on systems similar to mine can play this great game too.

If all fails, I might try installing Win XP additionally just to check things out, but this isn't something I could be bothered to do right away.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Flamedream]

               Well, turning down the texture quality to minimum seems to alleviate the issue. I don't know if it solves it completely, I played for around 15 minutes just for testing purposes, by that time with previous settings I would have gotten a crash.

Needles to say however that the graphical quality of the game is significantly lower this way, and the game is much less enjoyable. I would prefer another solution, one that doesn't make the textures look so extremely bad.