Win7: FFXI Crashes Constantly (NVIDIA-related)
|
Win7: FFXI crashes constantly (NVIDIA-related)
My rig was fine for years with a ti560 until I upgraded to a ti660 and subsequently a gtx760, ever since then FFXI crashes the same way people have mentioned in this thread, usually once or twice a day. The only games that it seems to have problems with is FFXI and Bioshock Infinite. I've pretty much chalked it up to the 600 and 700 series Nvidia's having problems with the Intel x58 chipset in certain games. Unfortunately there's no fixing it unless you downgrade to a 500 or older series card or an ATI card.
Has nothing to do with the chipset, kepler based GPUs do not mesh well with the type of D3D that XI uses, and SE's neglect to keep it updated compounds the problem.
I can't even play underclocked anymore without the terrible Nvidia error greeting me within the hour (if I'm lucky, usually sooner). It was fine all day until I restarted, then it's been nothing but crashes...
Integrated likely isn't an option anymore (not that it was too valid before, it caused internet problems and it was horrendously slow) considering one of the crashes I mentioned earlier had my Integrated card erroring too and FFXI doesn't use that at all for me. Half the time I get 1-3 Nvidia errors just opening PlayOnline. They don't crash the PlayOnline client itself, thankfully, but that doesn't make them non-concerning. I'm seriously concerned at this point because it no longer seems to be a "SE doesn't prepare for better hardware/OSes" problem, I can barely go on YouTube without seeing that rancid error prompt appear as well, or worse, a BSOD. My computer was overheating (not dangerously - it never went past 76C on any aspect of it, the graphics card stayed at steady 70-71C and it was a REALLY hot day today), but that's nothing new and it was happening even after it cooled down. All I can hope for, I guess, is that one of these days it'll start back up playing FFXI normally again. It really sounds like either your GPU is very close to dead, or your mobo isn't regulating power properly and is thus very close to dead. Normal nvidia related XI crashes occur every once in a while, 8~15 hours apart. Wouldn't have anything to do with other OS stability or PlayOnline failing to launch without a driver crash.
Yeah, you can attempt a reflow of it, and make sure it's clean and put new thermal paste down, but it sounds like you've gotten most of the use of the laptop by now.
(if the motherboard isn't regulating properly, check to see if any caps are leaking, but it's going to be difficult since it's a laptop.) I have a 660, and I can multibox XI without issue, my 550ti did fine as well, I didn't have the $ nor see a reason for my to upgrade to a 700+ nor will I anytime in the near future. But then again, since I put the 660 in (and before) I had been running XI in vmware virtual machines. In the middle of doing some browser-intensive work I noticed my computer was about to softlock (no longer accept useful input like closing whatever is taking up too much RAM, etc).
I opened Task Manager and saw Firefox was consuming only 30% of my RAM, which I found weird considering I knew I was about to crash or BSOD due to how slow it was getting. ...it was using 100% of my Virtual Memory assigned to the hard-drive though. That might explain it. It was over-relying on the Virtual Memory. When it couldn't get anymore... bam, it crashes. I got curious. Decided to do some searches about the Nvidia error and Virtual Memory, and found: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/511974/geforce-drivers/display-driver-nvidia-windows-kernel-mode-driver-version-285-62-stopped-responding-and-has-recovere/post/3646012/#3646012 Someone instead of his usual artifacting, after increasing his virtual memory limit, would instead get the typical black screen then "Display driver Nvidia [...]" error. I decided to disable my virtual memory to see if it would help. So far, it has. I am now running my computer at fairly close to factory settings for the video card clock speeds. Trying completely factory settings (672 Core Clock / 900 Memory Clock) triggered the error, but 600 Core Clock / 900 Memory Clock does not. If the error happens again I will look into any possible programs (that don't modify memory or anything sketchy like that) that can force FFXI to run at 29.0 FPS, as that appears to be its limit. Another thing I saw that causes the Nvidia error is when games run at over their intended FPS, or attempt to. It is true that Virtual Memory isn't ordinarily a harmful thing but it appears my computer was being overly reliant on it, to the point where even the video card might have been using it more than my actual RAM. I hope to update in a few days saying I have been crash-free still! |
All FFXIV and FFXI content and images © 2002-2024 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark of Square Enix Co., Ltd.