Frequent Blue Screen

[Skakruk]

.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

try 178.24.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Well, I don't know for you, but the 18X series is completely unusable for me. Nearly every game I have (except Mirror's Edge, oddly) crashes after a few moments of playing.

 

[Killerus]

i am using 181.22 as well and i also have a 8800gt. Although i have not played UT3 yet with this version i was having crashing issues with Bioshock which is on the Unreal 3 engine. I fixed this by slightly under clocking the core clock from 650 to 600. No crashes since. Might be worth a try.

 

[Sos_your_face]

There's a few threads like this: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=651611 over at the Epic forums. Just roll back to an older driver. Personally, I find 174.74 to be the most stable drivers for UT3.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I dunno, but the 10 minutes of testing is surely worth it?

 

[newls1]

I am having the exact same issue to the exact tee. All other games play great, BUT UT3, and UT3 is my favorite game, so this is driving me crazy. I cant roll back to any older as my GTX295 is only supported on 3 drivers so far, and all suck! 181.20, 181.22, 185.20 (alpha) . What the heck can I do here? UT3 must get fixed. Any suggestions?

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I see the blue screen.

 

[Phopojijo]

Yarg that sucks... haven't reinstalled UT3 after my HardDrive wipe, but I kind-of need 18X drivers for CUDA programming.

 

[Crowze]

I've been using the 180.48 drivers for a while without any issues with UT3, on XP32 and Visa64, with a pair of 8800GTS cards.

 

[oldkawman]

I am having the exact same issue to the exact tee. All other games play great, BUT UT3, and UT3 is my favorite game, so this is driving me crazy. I cant roll back to any older as my GTX295 is only supported on 3 drivers so far, and all suck! 181.20, 181.22, 185.20 (alpha) . What the heck can I do here? UT3 must get fixed. Any suggestions?

All you can do is wait for nvidia to get their act together and make a proper driver. Do not hold your breath. You have discovered one of the problems associated with early adoption. Drivers are usually pretty poor for games until they are optimized. Go to the nvidia forums and post.

Hmmm, I hate to think what will happen when I try running UT3 on my GTX 285 rig...

I don't see how Nvidia can screw drivers up so badly, or so often. Don't they do any real testing?

They depend on the early adopters to do much of the testing. They release drivers that work for most things. They cannot play test all games and optimize performance themselves, so, early adopters have issues and report them. Then nvidia sees this problems posted in the forums. Sometimes they fix them and sometimes they do not.

Anyone who goes out and buys the newest, badest, and most expensive video card is really taking a chance. Typically, it takes a while for the drivers to get sorted out after the cards are released. Sometimes, certain features never work. Look at the 7950GX2 cards, SLI was never fixed. It's also never going to be fixed.

 

[Killerus]

if you don't try you wont know. Kind of like saying i won't go outside cause it rained before.

Install and find out. You might just have some fun.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Hey guys! Anyone figure this out yet? That's f-ing wonderful that I got this new system to see UT3 in all its glory and now it won't even run. Right now I have Nvidia drivers 182.06 and it works fine for all my other games except UT3 (I haven't installed GRID yet though) on my new system. Here are my pertinent new system specs:

OS: WinXP SP2
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8600 Wolfdale
MB: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
HS: Noctua NH-C12P
RAM: Corsair 4GB(2x2GB) 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM 1066 (PC2 8500) TWIN2X4096-8500C5
VIDEO CARD: EVGA Nvidia GTX 280 (1GB) >> running 182.06 now!
PSU: Enermax Revolution85+ ERV850EWT 850W

As you guys may or may not know, I've been installing games on my new system in order of release date and now am having trouble with UT3. Here's what I did and the results:

1. Install UT3 to the D: drive with my other games and used the -nohomedir extension to run the game from there (works on old system no problem so this isn't the problem).
2. Got in the game fine with CD key and brought up my old account and my player was still there. I set all the game settings and exited the game.
3. Installed Patch 1.1 (patch1)
4. Installed Patch 1.2 (patch2)
5. Installed UT3 Bonus Pack
6. Installed Patch 1.3 (patch3)
7. Rebooted and started the game and the game cover comes on the screen for about 10 seconds and then I get a BSOD like this:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer......(yada yada yada)...
...
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x00000000, 0xBA297B44, 0x00000000)
....(yada yada yada)..."

The RAM position 0xB... seems to change with each try but the other numbers remain the same. I also tried increasing my RAM voltage to 2.1 recommended by Corsair with no go (this is only from 2.08 to 2.1 though; everything running stable except UT3 at 2.08 or 2.1).

So is this a driver issue? What drivers should I be using with UT3? Does this have anything to do with NvidiaCP settings (not changed) vs. in-game settings (not changed in any INI file or whatever)? Thank you.

 

[Jordan L]

Since it appears you have only patched UT3 to 1.3, install UT3 patch 2.1 if you haven't already because it is required to use the UT3 Titan Pack. Also, the most stable drivers from Nvidia seem to be the WHQL 182.50 (the latest WHQL driver released before 185.85). Nvidia recently released a new WHQL 186.16 driver, but appears to have some of the same issues that the WHQL 185.85 driver had.

Try Nvidia WHQL 182.50
Avoid Nvidia WHQL 185.85
Nvidia WHQL 186.16 - up to you to try or not

Before installing new drivers, I would go to the device manager and uninstall your video card drivers. Then run driver sweeper while the PC is in safe mode and delete all the files in the "Nvidia Display" category.

Some other things I would do is look for any yellow question or exclamation marks in the device manager. Then I would go to System Properties again by clicking "My Computer", then right click, go to properties, and then click the "Automatic Updates" tab. Go to the link towards that bottom that says, "Windows Update Website". Install the validation tools that are required, then click "Custom" and install all the high priority updates. If you don't want to install service pack 3, then uncheck the box. Going to Gigabyte's website and updating the motherboard chipset drivers is always recommended as well.

UT3 Patch 2.1
http://download.beyondunreal.com/fileworks.php/official/ut3/UT3Patch5.exe

Driver Sweeper:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)_d1655.html

Nvidia WHQL 182.50 32bit WindowsXP
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Forceware-182.50-XP-32-bit-WHQL-download-2235.html

Nvidia WHQL 182.50 64bit WindowsXP
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Forceware-182.50-XP-64-bit-WHQL-download-2234.html

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer......(yada yada yada)...
...
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x00000000, 0xBA297B44, 0x00000000)

This could be the result of a windows, hardware, or hardware driver/s issue. Normally updating windows, changing drivers - hard to determine without knowing exact hardware, or doing another HDD reformat cures the issue.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I want to get it working with Patch 1.3 first and move on from there, because I plan on moving all my custom content over before I do install Patch 2.0 (and then the Titan Pack) and don't want to have to do this twice just in case it turns out UT3 has to be reinstalled. Theoretically, UT3 should have been working with Nvidia drivers prior to the Patch 2.0 release. I was also hoping to not have to reinstall Nvidia drivers, because you know they never go into the same early spot on the hard drive as they were before; but it might appear I have to.

I will work with your advice from Patch 1.3 and moving forward from there. Thank you.

 

[Phopojijo]

I use 185.85 -- Haven't had any problems.

Well, except Left 4 Dead locking up with my monitor turning a solid colour -- but that doesn't happen when I have a fan on it so I think it's just heat.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Jordan just told me to avoid 185.85 and I'm using XP, but thanks anyway.

 

[[VaLkyR]Anubis]

Some time ago I used the older version of Nvidia's driver, but UT3 always told me to download the newest driver (185.85). I did this and now I don't get this message anymore and the game works very good. Similar about the other games. I actually downloaded the newest driver only because of performance improvements in Crysis and to be up-to-date. I use Windows XP SP3 and my system works perfectly. Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Crysis Wars, L4D, UT2004, UT3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC & S.T.A.L.K.E.R. CS have a excellent performance with this driver and no issues.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm thinking maybe I'll just move forward with getting UT3 updated all the way first and then see if it runs in my system's present configuration. If I have to update the drivers, then I'll try 186.18 first.

 

[-n7-]

nVidia has had so many issues with their drivers & UT2k4 & now UT3 over the years...

It's truely ridiculous actually.

AMD cards don't suffer from nearly as many...