Vista Troubleshooting Thread: The one and only

[BOTA:16 0]

System Specs:

Vista 32-bit Home Premium SP1

Intel C2D E6600

ATI Radeon 3870, Drivers: Catalyst 8.3

2GB RAM

ASUS P5B Mobo, Most recent bios

Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card

I had played ArmA on Vista before with no problems and thought I would give it a go again. The only thing on my system that has changed is my video card (went from nVidia 7800GT to my current one). ArmA won't even start up and causes my PC to completely lock up when I try to start the game. I've gone through the wiki to no avail. This is the same problem I have with Rainbow Six Vegas (won't start, locks computer) and have a feeling is has something to do with the combination of my video card and Vista not seeing eye to eye. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[DocSnyder 0]

I ran the same combination a while ago. No Problems.

Have you completely uninstalled all nvidia drivers or did you just install the ATI drivers after plugging in the new ATI card?

Have you installed all vista updates via Windows Update? You also have to install the latest DX9 (March 08).

If your FPS are low, disable the Catalyst AI feature.

Like I said, this config worked fine for me a long time.

[BOTA:16 0]

I ran the same combination a while ago. No Problems.

Have you completely uninstalled all nvidia drivers or did you just install the ATI drivers after plugging in the new ATI card?

Have you installed all vista updates via Windows Update? You also have to install the latest DX9 (March 08).

If your FPS are low, disable the Catalyst AI feature.

Like I said, this config worked fine for me a long time.

Yeah I have completely wiped anything related to nVidia. I've searched all files/folders and registry for nvidia and nothing pops up. I've tried uninstalling all things ATI and reinstalling the drivers to no avail. Tried patching to 1.09 beta and same problem.

[TheForce 0]

I'm on Vista 64 bit and experience a lot of issues. When I was on 1.08 I could play but my textures kept going in and out, wouldn't fully load all of the textures.

I read that I should update to 1.12 beta - which I did. However in game it still says that I'm on 1.08. Is that normal?

Anyway since then I can play for a small period before it crashes "unable to create system memory"

Any help would be appreciated. I built this PC mainly looking forward to playing ArmA and I've had nothing but problems so far.

[Godfather-BEF- 0]

Hooah,

TheForce, you're probably using the wrong shortcut. Try using this one [HDD]:\[XXX]\ArmA\beta\arma.exe -mod=beta -nosplash, which must be started in you ARMA root folder.

G.

[mr.g-c 6]

Another average 4-6 FPS more i got when i closed my Vista sidebar and disabled the AERO features of Vista, before starting to play.

Also window-mode is a big FPS killer, so play it in Fullscreen.

System is a old Athlon 64 3700+ 1mb cache @ 3000MHZ, GF9600GT Geforce 174.74.

The results (4-6 FPS more) are huge on such a old system....

[kridian 33]

Ok.

Blackscreen (nvidia display stops responding after 30min-1hr+ of gameplay)

Computer will restart.

Someone suggested making sure Vysnc is set to on in the NVidia control panel for the ArmA.exe, but that didn't seem to work.

Tried drivers:  169.44, 174.74 & 174.85  (all had the same problem)

Vista64, 4GB of Ram, 8800GTX.  

<span style='color:red'>UPDATE</span>

In the NVidia Control Panel, I made sure:

Anistropic Filtering=App Controlled

Antialiasing=App Contr.

Texture Quality=Performance

Triple Buffering=Off

Vertical Sync=App Contr.

<span style='color:red'>UPDATE</span>

Well, the dream was short-lived.  It's crashing again. I'll try the maxmem command.

[Nev1571 0]

Kridian, a friend of mine is having the same issue, with an 8800GT (512mb), vista x64 and 4gb ram. We've been trying to solve it for the past three days but so far, no luck..

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

Still having problems with freezes...

My rig:

AMD Phenom 9500

3Gb Ram

nVidia GF 8800GT 512Mb, 174.74 Betadrivers

video bios: 62.92.1f.00.20

Wind VISTA 32Bit

ArmA: 505Games, 1.12 patch

2Mbit ADSL down, 0.5Mbit ADSL up

Runs great on SP with High settings and 3500+ VD..

In MP it stutters and freeze from time to time. And

my rig seems to work ALOT..I mean ALOT!!

[Bunkers 0]

Just upgraded Vista to SP1 and got a MAJOR FPS increase in 1.12 

Too early to tell about CTD's or freezes, but this is definitely a change to the MUCH better.

Vista 32 SP1

2 GB

8800GTX

[malik22 0]

How the performance in vista with sp1 is it almost equal to Xp and does sli work in xp or vista?

[FritzDaKat 0]

How the performance in vista with sp1 is it almost equal to Xp and does sli work in xp or vista?

Never played ArmA on XP however,

With Sp1 Ive noticed an overall improvment in system performance. Framerates in ArmA have improved in most cases, however there are times when fraps reports fps as equal or less than pre-sp1 rates but the actual performance of the game seems smoother even during these low points it's as if the video buffering process is working better or something? Weird.

No SLI for me, but I did read some threads on guru3d that those beta drivers (174.85) do enable / enhance Sli performance. (Didnt mention if it was with or without sp1 thou.)

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

There. I have tryed just about EVERYTHING now.

My problem is freezings and stuttering.

My Rig:

AMD Phenom 9500

3Gb Ram

nVidia GF 8800GT

2 x 500Gb HDDS

Wind Vista 32Bit

I have tryed the official gfx drivers from nVidia.

I have tryed unofficial drivers 174.74 and 174.85.

I have VISTA fully updated.

I have tryed all settings in ArmA from The lowest

to the highest.

I have been in nVidia controlpanel and tryed settins

from on to off and back.

NOTHING makes the freezing and stuttering go away.

The problem increese in MP.

This gives me the conclusion that the problem IS

vista based.

Oh... I also tryed turning of the pagefile...Nothing

[mr.g-c 6]

There. I have tryed just about EVERYTHING now.

My problem is freezings and stuttering.

My Rig:

AMD Phenom 9500

3Gb Ram

nVidia GF 8800GT

2 x 500Gb HDDS

Wind Vista 32Bit

I have tryed the official gfx drivers from nVidia.

I have tryed unofficial drivers 174.74 and 174.85.

I have VISTA fully updated.

I have tryed all settings in ArmA from The lowest

to the highest.

I have been in nVidia controlpanel and tryed settins

from on to off and back.

NOTHING makes the freezing and stuttering go away.

The problem increese in MP.

This gives me the conclusion that the problem IS

vista based.

Oh... I also tryed turning of the pagefile...Nothing

DIRECT-X update! After all other suggested updates in the BI-WIKI (they don't get deliverd through windows update!.

This solved it at my brothers high-end PC

Regards, Christian

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

So wich downgrade DX file should i get...I allready have

Dx10

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Installing DX9 will not change your DX10, run dxdiag after installing DX9, and it will show you still have DX10.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

I found some upgrade to my DX10 installation..

Did help a bit...

[FritzDaKat 0]

Specs

Mainboard : ELITEGROUP COMPUTER SYSTEM CO.,LTD. 945G-M3

Chipset : Intel i945G/GZ

Processor : Intel Pentium D @ 3333 MHz

Physical Memory : 2048 MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )

Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 7600 GT

Hard Disk : Hitachi (320 GB)

Hard Disk : ST3120022A (120 GB)

Hard Disk : WDC (74 GB)

Hard Disk : Maxtor (204 GB)

Operating System : Windows Vista â„¢ Home Basic Home Edition 6.00.6001 Service Pack 1

DirectX : Version 10.00

So, previous update to SP1 with 169.25 forceware drivers gave much improvment to overall performance, but I began noticing some oddities afterward. Namely, I started getting alot of "Particle static", extra leaves on trees flashing in & out of being, specks of "stuff" flashing across the grass, in the Map, certain items would also exibit this trait of being "speckled" as well as weapons images in the breifing. But still, flashing specs aside, this is beter than pre-sp1. There were also some occasions (Usualy after 20 minutes or more of play) where my "display adapter stopped responding but has recovered"

 Then hoping to get rid of them I went ahead and updated DX (The update is generic, not DX9 or DX10 just DX components of both are upgraded as needed in the update. - DxDiag shows you as having DX10 because your "DX" has been updated to that point, DX9 is still there, the addition of DX10 just enhances the functionality of your DX instalation.)

While I was at it, I went ahead and updated my onboard Realtek HD audio drivers (1.90 release 3/18/08 - Never appeared on Windows update b.t.w.) as well as my Gfx drivers to the beta 174.85 from guru3d.

The Spec's never went away (Thinking it could be my card acting up as the Vantec Iceberq cooler had been badly molested by an army of dust bunnies    )

Overall, it seems to be chugging along much better than before on the whole, and the display adapter not responding has seemingly cleared up. Thou, in many instances I see that according to Fraps, my framerates are equal or less than before (Upper teens-lower 20's with Video Options set to default "Very High" values   )  yet for some reason, even with the lower rates, the game seems to run more fluidly / framerates appear better than before regardless of the Fraps report. I'm guessing video is just buffering better w. SP1

And for those who dont know, it's really a good idea to at least reinstall your audio and Gfx drivers after updating / upgrading your DX instalation. IIR it (DX update) affects certain subsystem processes related to Gfx and audio, therefore reinstalling / updating those drivers help ensure proper handling of the aformentioned subsystem processes by DX9,10,36,42 etc... IIR*

EDIT RE: particle specs  the updates didn't fix them...BUT they did improve overall & game perfomance.

LINKS

DirectX update - Microsoft link

174.85 forceware Beta from www.guru3d.com

Realtek HD audio driver ver 1.90

***EDIT #2*** : Just now had display driver stop responding once again simply while surfing the forum,,,,

later that day,,,

So I started hunting google on the issue of nvlddmkm.sys not responding, then recovering. Found it's a pretty common Vista / Nvidia issue where it seems certain driver components arent getting updated properly (Vista hanging on to outdated file after update is run) And althou manually forcing the new version of the nvlddmkm.sys into my system32\drivers folder has not completely solved my problems, I cant begin to explain what a drastic improvment I've seen in ArmA's performance. The Particles are still there but to a much lesser extent, frames are flowing much more smoothly, hang's are much more infrequent. Definatly worth looking into if you have a Nividia card and experience studdering.

Just look in your system32\drivers folder for whatever .dll or .sys file is hanging for you, then find the "same file" from your current driver install package, check properties\details and compare dates. I'll bet more than 50% of you Vista \ Nividia users find an older file being used in place of the updated version.

The main problem is that these files arent getting removed by uninstalling the driver directly. You could try driver cleaner or something, but I used MoveOnBoot which deletes the file when rebooting before windows has a chance to call it into use.

Link: Move on Boot  is in the file or folder tools section.

So once you get the offending file dumped then uninstall / reinstall the driver thou all may or may not be well, you should see a notable improvment in performance.

 

[soapbox]

Methinks vocational schools should start focusing more on teaching and less on their profit margin per student....[/soapbox]

***Update***

Well, after updating to Sp1, the Latest DirectX patch, updating the Chipset drivers for my motherboard (inf files) and testing every version of driver released for a 7600gt since the 162.22 drivers, I'm still having problems

Thou I will say that thruout the updates, it does seem as if progress is being made, the game runs much cleaner till the eventual driver hang or appcrash. So hopefully Microsoft will come up with a hotfix or Nvidia will release a driver that learns to play well with Vista soon. I've decided not to roll back to pre-sp1 simply for the sake of my p.o.s. dial up line and the thought of it taking another day to download the update again.

[kridian 33]

Thanks FritzDaKat.  I updated that DirectX End-User Runtime and it seemed to install some more files (or update).  Also the Realtek 1.90 drivers for my onboard sound.

Just played for a solid 5 hours without the blackscreen-restart issue!

Hope this works tomorrow!

[FritzDaKat 0]

Just an update on my progress as I try to resolve this issue with old Nvidia drivers refusing to go the h%$# away.

Good news, but it's a major pain in the arse to accomplish.

Seems for starters, when installing new drivers, Vista has a way of parsing thru the updated .sys and .dll files, then picking and choosing which of these files it thinks best suits it's needs... meaning it will choose to keep an old .dll in place as opposed to using a new one if it feels justified.  

But it gets even more interesting when you delete the files manually out of the system32 and the (sub)drivers folder because they will seemingly reappear as if by some ancient and arcane form of Necromancy,,,

Due to the fact that anytime Windows thinks it needs a driver, it parses thru #\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and grabs whatever it thinks fits it's needs best. (Too bad it's like a fat girl at a spandex shop...) Unfortunatly for us, the naming conventions for the subfolders in the file repository are only a hair more logical than the clsid codes... (Thou all the Nvidia related entries have thus far begun with a nv_ but beyond that its semi-random-ish)

 So you think " Great, all I need to do is delete these folders and I'll be good to go right?",,, but remember, we're dealing with Microsoft here...

Every one of these folders and each file within them are sole property of the SYSTEM Even having Administrative rights, you're stuck with them, untill you go thru the massive annoyance of first, going into the security tab under properties, clicking on the Advanced tab, followed by owner tab, then edit, then making yourself the owner of the folder (Theres also a checkbox below to do-same for all sub-contents but I doubt it would be a good idea to simply do the owner-fix for the fileRepository folder itself)

After which, you need to close all the properties windows, then re-open them, again go to the security tab, add yourself (Administrator logon name) to the list of group or user names and modify the permissions, giving yourself "full control" of the folder.

Only then will it let you delete them, and to make it worse, there were like 20 of these %#$%$ folders in my file repository (Down to 13 now) but untill you go thru all this garbage then chances are likely you'll keep ending up with old .sys files in-play.  I suppose you could dig thru each of these folders and follow the "ownership / user rights" process on only the files that keep reappearing, but I'm just dumping any & all "nv_" folders to be sure.

No wonder one of my favorite sites is called "annoyances.org"

I'll update when I'm all done on how it's going ( 2-3 hours?)

Please note, this is in Vista Home Basic (32bit), for Vista 64bit, there is another folder as well. I'll try to find the path for ya' all later.  

Update Well, cleaning out those nv_ file depository folders sure stopped the dreaded "Driver component that would not die" Monster in it's tracks, however it hasn't put an end to the nvlddmkm error... However, I did come across a much simpler method of "taking ownership" of a folder and it's subdirectories, in this forum topic here

At this stage, I've tried a number of different Nvidia drivers to no avail, nvlddmkm keeps acting up within 5 to 30 minutes.

SO I'm now in the process of downloading some "Unofficial / modified" drivers from a few sources in hopes mabey some Tech-head has found a solution. Again, I'll report any important points or positive resaults later (tomorrow-ish)

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

Just updated to SP1...MAAAJOR chnge in FPS...

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

WEEEEEEHAAAAA

A total change...

No more freezing

A frame change to staggering 30FPS in MP

with all settings to HIGH LOOOOOL....

This game just turned out to be outrageous....

[FritzDaKat 0]

SP1 seems to be the culprit for some folks

because of

THIS

According to Microsoft, they've supposedly implemented a "Power Saving Feature" which is supposed to disable VSync after a period of about 16ms when theres no refesh info (No mouse movement, no fresh screen render)

It's got me a bit puzzled as I've done a few full searches of my registry and have as yet been unable to find the related registry entry.  

The problem seems to be that in pre-SP1 drivers (or drivers not written to support this function) when this gets called into play, the Vsync remains disabled  

It would certainly sound like probable cause for the "nvlddmkm has stopped responding" error I've been randomly receiving. Happens rarely now, but at any time (In game, on Desktop etc.) with the 169.44 drivers. "So use the 1.74.xx drivers,,," but then the system tends to reboot itself, or the gamma whites or blacks out my screem much more frequently.

Yet it does seem to be a good sign in the sense that this is one of those Vista "features" that we have to wait on Nvidia to properly support, meaning it should happen sometime in the next 5 or 6 months...

The only related non-MS forum thread I've found on it was on this Flight Sim  fan site

P.S. If anyone does find this registry entry, could ya tell me where? I wanna disable it.  

***Edit*** : Couldn't find it because it exists as part of what should be the driver update supporting the feature, meaning I need to find the relative reg. entry, but found some leads on tracking it down.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

I have NO CLUE whatsoever about your problem...

But on my rig and in my system it runs like i dont

know what, but it runs VERRY smoth...

My Rig:

AMD Phenom 9500

3GB RAM

8800GT 174.84 drivers

Updated DX10

Vista32 SP1

ArmA 505version with 1.12 and a bunch of addons...

[FritzDaKat 0]

I have NO CLUE whatsoever about your problem...

But on my rig and in my system it runs like i dont

know what, but it runs VERRY smoth...

With those drivers on my system, it runs very sweet too, however I still eventually receive errors after about 5-10 minutes (pretty random) of gaming or even just sitting on my desktop.

 From all I've read re. the SP1 update & Vista in general, the core of the issue seems to be related to

a. The way in which the SP1 update handles Vsyc as described in the post above.

b. The way in which Vista, "The video memory manager component of WDDM virtualizes the available video memory resources for applications to use,",,, "However, the virtualization of video memory increases the amount of virtual address space that applications use. Consequently, some applications may exhaust virtual address space when running on 32-bit Windows Vista."

c. all of the above

Why it works differently for you and I, I would have to suppose is the difference in hardware. Some vid cards & / or bios might better enable the usage of these features whereas others do not.

Sadly for me, (short of trying to find the appropriate entries and edit the registry to try and disable these "features" as a temporary workaround) this means waiting for Vista and Nvidia to get on the same page. Right now it seems like Vista is working to adapt to hardware vendors while in the same time, hardware vendors are working to update to Vista. This is hard to do when both are "constantly" making revisions and updates...

And the word is clusterf$#@...  

It all boils down to patience....

Unfortunatly, I start CDL training in a couple weeks meaning A.F.K. for a few weeks, then O.T.R for 3 weeks at a time with only 2 days off inbetween.    

Need a laptop without these issues for while on the road.  

***Update*** Eureka! I have finally found my interim solution to the issues I'm having.

Regedit,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers

Added 2 new D_WORD values in that key

TdrDdiDelay    dword:00000012   (Hex value)

TdrDelay        dword:00000012   (hex value)

Essentially what this accomplishes is simply to slightly extend the time it takes for the Windows TDR function to kick in.

TDR is what causes the game to black out and jump to the "receiving screen", also what triggers the "nvlddmkm.sys has stopped responding" error to appear in the taskbar from time to time. So in ArmA, basicly any time framerates may momentarily drop below 6.25 fps for just a fraction of a second 16ms by default (i.e. large # of textures loading, memory error, overheating GPU, underpowered GPU etc.) and by adding a slight delay to it, some systems will never trigger the TDR function. Again, all very dependant on individual cases, but this fix should work for many playing on mid to lower end gaming systems (Provided the root of their cause isn't an actual hardware fault.)

Keep in mind TDR is not a bug, it's a feature!!  

The initial report of this fix I saw suggested using a value of 20, but there was alot of studdering and what-not going on so I cut it down a bit, running fairly clean with the 174.74 beta forceware drivers. 30 minutes in game with no error reported (would only take 15min. or so before)

*Update*

With the 174.93 beta driver and no TDR delay added in registry, I still get the occasional black "Receiving,,," screen.

Replacing the TDR delay in the registry, I had an appcrash after about 10 minutes.

 In either case however, the game lost much of the fluidity it had gained with the 174.74 ad 174.85 beta drivers.