How I solved multiple 917 CTD, BSOD, and PB issues
Posted: 2010-09-01 23:39
A lot of this info is scattered about, referred to, or hinted at, but I found no single place that could tell me what my problems were and how to solve them. I did find most of the hints I needed here, but I figured that posting what I found, and what I did, might help some others.
First off, my system. I'm not overflowing with money, so I'm running a 4 year old upgraded PC.
Win XP Home SP2
Core 2 Duo E6400 OC'ed to 3.1ghz
8800 GTS 512mb ,G92, OC'ed to 790 mhz via Rivatuner, w/liquid cooling
4x Patriot 1GB DDR2, 800mhz/4-4-4-12
LG Flatron 22" LCD at 75hz
Every tweak and optimization I can cram in there.
Now, this runs everything I want to flawlessly, but it's not exactly a recipe for stability. That makes any troubleshooting a pain.
It runs Vanilla BF2 at max everything flawlessly with vsync and AA - PR is obviously a bit more challenging, requiring reduced settings, but it had never given me any issues. I'd play it for hours.
A few months ago I picked up Forgotten Hope 2. Played it, loved it, started getting frequent BSOD's in multiplayer only. Never resolved the problem.
Installed PR .917 a couple of days ago. Worked fine at first, then started getting BSODs, the dreaded nv4_disp.dll nonsense. Very unhappy, and it appeared the only thing I could try to resolve it was to update my drivers. I was loathe to do this, because I was running 175.xx drivers and had never been able to get my monitor running at 75hz with later drivers. That is a deal breaker for me. There was also a nuisance with Nhancer not working correctly, meaning I'd have lost AA, vsync, and 75hz support for a bunch of other titles at that time (they've since patched and support these things on their own)
Did some digging, found people claiming that Nvidia custom resolutions were working for them again with the latest drivers (258.whatever). Replaced my drivers, and between Reforce, XP, and Nvidia control panel, got it back to 75hz.
- Problem solved: new drivers stopped the nv4_disp.dll BSOD while playing PR .917. No more BSOD
Played awhile, was happy. New problems - freezing with sound loop for 3 seconds, and crashing to desktop. Problem? Rivatuner. Upgraded, found that I could not turn on the MMIO protection feature to prevent PB conflicts. Culprit was XP /3gb switch, which I had needed to successfully run something work related months back.
- Problem solved: updated to latest version of Rivatuner and removed XP /3GB switch, which was preventing me from turning on the MMIO protection. No more freeze, sound loop, and Crash to Desktop
Hooray! Time to play PR! Argh, kicked by punkbuster with the dreaded shaders_client.zip nonsense. Ran BF2 Cleaner; no joy. Removed PR entirely and reinstalled, ran vanilla, ran PR.
- Problem solved; removed PR, cleaned caches, reinstalled PR, ran BF2, ran PR, no more shaders_client.zip PB kicks.
Ok, time to play PR. For real this time, seriously. Fire it up, adjust my settings the way I want, find that I miss Nhancer. Contrive to get vsync working again. BLAM! MD5_ Punkbuster kick for adding a line to a .con file, 'renderer.vsync 1' . (it did make vsync work, though, and works fine in my vanilla BF2 in multiplayer)
- Problem solved - restored .con file to original contents, no more PB kicks.
All of this took about 2.5 hours of Googling, swearing, and watching progress bars.
Finally, got to play PR for hours and hours with no crashes, kicks, errors, anything. All problems apparently resolved
First off, my system. I'm not overflowing with money, so I'm running a 4 year old upgraded PC.
Win XP Home SP2
Core 2 Duo E6400 OC'ed to 3.1ghz
8800 GTS 512mb ,G92, OC'ed to 790 mhz via Rivatuner, w/liquid cooling
4x Patriot 1GB DDR2, 800mhz/4-4-4-12
LG Flatron 22" LCD at 75hz
Every tweak and optimization I can cram in there.
Now, this runs everything I want to flawlessly, but it's not exactly a recipe for stability. That makes any troubleshooting a pain.
It runs Vanilla BF2 at max everything flawlessly with vsync and AA - PR is obviously a bit more challenging, requiring reduced settings, but it had never given me any issues. I'd play it for hours.
A few months ago I picked up Forgotten Hope 2. Played it, loved it, started getting frequent BSOD's in multiplayer only. Never resolved the problem.
Installed PR .917 a couple of days ago. Worked fine at first, then started getting BSODs, the dreaded nv4_disp.dll nonsense. Very unhappy, and it appeared the only thing I could try to resolve it was to update my drivers. I was loathe to do this, because I was running 175.xx drivers and had never been able to get my monitor running at 75hz with later drivers. That is a deal breaker for me. There was also a nuisance with Nhancer not working correctly, meaning I'd have lost AA, vsync, and 75hz support for a bunch of other titles at that time (they've since patched and support these things on their own)
Did some digging, found people claiming that Nvidia custom resolutions were working for them again with the latest drivers (258.whatever). Replaced my drivers, and between Reforce, XP, and Nvidia control panel, got it back to 75hz.
- Problem solved: new drivers stopped the nv4_disp.dll BSOD while playing PR .917. No more BSOD
Played awhile, was happy. New problems - freezing with sound loop for 3 seconds, and crashing to desktop. Problem? Rivatuner. Upgraded, found that I could not turn on the MMIO protection feature to prevent PB conflicts. Culprit was XP /3gb switch, which I had needed to successfully run something work related months back.
- Problem solved: updated to latest version of Rivatuner and removed XP /3GB switch, which was preventing me from turning on the MMIO protection. No more freeze, sound loop, and Crash to Desktop
Hooray! Time to play PR! Argh, kicked by punkbuster with the dreaded shaders_client.zip nonsense. Ran BF2 Cleaner; no joy. Removed PR entirely and reinstalled, ran vanilla, ran PR.
- Problem solved; removed PR, cleaned caches, reinstalled PR, ran BF2, ran PR, no more shaders_client.zip PB kicks.
Ok, time to play PR. For real this time, seriously. Fire it up, adjust my settings the way I want, find that I miss Nhancer. Contrive to get vsync working again. BLAM! MD5_ Punkbuster kick for adding a line to a .con file, 'renderer.vsync 1' . (it did make vsync work, though, and works fine in my vanilla BF2 in multiplayer)
- Problem solved - restored .con file to original contents, no more PB kicks.
All of this took about 2.5 hours of Googling, swearing, and watching progress bars.
Finally, got to play PR for hours and hours with no crashes, kicks, errors, anything. All problems apparently resolved