Litteraly unplayable due to crashes

TheMG26

Hello everybody,

Yesterday I bought and downloaded the game. I started it, started a game in Survival Mode, got through the crash-sequence, but a few seconds after the explosion of the Aurora the game crashed, and my graphicscard was deactivated by my PC. So, I deinstalled and reinstalled the drivers and brought the card back to work. Today I tried starting a game 5 times. Nothing worked.

1. Game:
Started survival, loading was fine, game crashed during the crash-sequence (oh the irony) when the explosion over you happens.

2. Game:
Started creative, loading was fine, left the pod, collected some acid-mushroom things, game crashed.

4. Game:
Started survival, loading was fine, when the "Press a button" message on screen appeared There where some errors with pixelation, then after maybe a minute I got a bluescreen and my PC restarted.


4. Game:
Started survival, loading was somewhat fine(errors in pixelation appeared in the same pattern as in the one before), got through the crash-sequence, when that metal-plate hits you in the head and the screen goes black, the screen didn't go back to a visual, instead I heard some wierd monsterlike-moans and birds chirping. Then the game crashed.

5. Game:
Started survival, loading was fine, got to through the crash-sequence, picked up the fire-extinguisher started to extinguish the fire, visuals started lagging, then standing still, sound was fine untill... a crash. (who would have guessed )


Help.

Edit:
Sorry, for missing it. Read the crash guide, heres the info:

The dxdiag file:
http://pastebin.com/FPZg3ia0

The output_log.txt:
http://pastebin.com/HFPAYCvD

TheMG26

Tried another 5 times. Two new things happend. Twice it crashed when in the menu. Once I first had clipping in the menu, then pixelation errors during the "click any buttton" screen, then clipping and lagging before the steel plate hits you, then pixelation errors again, then a crash

Myrm

There's an update due out within the next few days, hopefully that may rectify some of the issues.

0x6A7232

You're on a GTX 570... hmm. You said you got bluescreened, that shouldn't happen regardless (game should just crash if it's a problem with the game, as far as I know).

How's your cooling? Might want to try a can of compressed air and blow everything out (unplug PC, and don't hold the can upside down or it will squirt liquid air instead).

scifiwriterguy

Did the bluescreen have the phrase "physical memory dump" in it? If so, then it's likely a RAM problem - as in the memory has a fault. The odds that it's the game are slight compared to a problem with the GPU.

Since you already confirmed drivers, there are a few more possibilities:
-RAM fault: a physical failure in your memory
-Power shortage: your power supply isn't keeping up with system demand
-Overheat: like @0x6A7232 suggested, your PC might be dust choked an in need of a clean out, or you need better cooling systems
-GPU/GPU cache memory fault: physical failure in the graphics card, although this should manifest in more ways than just Subnautica

Looking at the output log, it appears to be a "clean" crash. The logfile is complete, so it didn't do a hard crash - sounds like the OS did that. The trouble starts at line 458, when a critical texture failed to load. That was followed by two vertex shader faults. What finally knocked it out was a failed attempt to establish a vertex buffer in the GPU cache. All of the faults reference 0x887A0005, so it was a cascade failure.

How old is your card? Was it ever overheated or overclocked? Because this all kinda points to a problem with the GPU cache memory if I'm remembering hardware class correctly.

TheMG26

Overheating is unlikely, there wasn't a lot of Dust in my PC. I did however clean it out after the very first crash, where my card got deactivated. That however didn't help with reactivating the card, only reinstalling drivers did.
My PC (and everything in it) is about 5 years old now, nothing was ever overclocked. Cooling was never a Problem. Power shouldn't be either, as I already ran much more demanding things on my PC.

I do not know what the bluescreen said, however it might be interesting that when the first crash happend and my card got deactivated there was no bluescreen and my PC didn't crash either. That only happend after reactivating the card. However I will try to reproduce a bluescreen and keep you updated what it says.

You say that it could be a RAM fault or a GPU/GPU cache memory fault, how would that manifest in other ways?


Edit:
4 Game starts later (crash during loading/crash during loading/crash during crash sequence/bluescreen during loading).

sadly I can't seem to decode the QR-code, but the stopcode says VIDEO SCHEDULER INTERNAL ERROR

scifiwriterguy

That's not good. But it might not be as bad as we thought. Turns out NVidia cards can be a little...erm...let's say "cranky," and that particular error is a leading symptom.

Starting simple: just make certain that your fans are running - case, CPU, power supply, everybody. That's probably not the issue, but always start with the least-invasive approach.

Okay, it may well be a driver issue. I know you updated, but there's an Nvidia problem wherein the drivers don't overwrite cleanly. Ergo, it's generally recommended that you wipe the drivers that are present before installing a new version, just to ensure there's no garbage left behind to screw things up. Guru3D has a tool called "Display Driver Uninstaller" to do just that. Clean off the current drivers and do a fresh install of the most up-to-date version. That could fix the whole kit'n'kaboodle right there.

Consider also running a registry cleanup. Your antivirus/firewall/system health tool should be able to do that for you.

Testing the GPU memory specifically requires the use of a third-party program. One of the more popular ones is Video Memory Stress Test. But if you're not seeing widespread problems, particularly with other graphically-intensive games, there may be yet another possibility.

Your card's BIOS may need updating. Happily, TomsHardware has a good tutorial for that. If the card BIOS was revised by the manufacturer to deal with stability issues, it could be the BIOS that's causing your crashes rather than the drivers. (Since drivers are easier to update and updated more frequently, your instinct to do that first was spot on.)

Hope this helps, MG!

0x6A7232

Just be careful with the registry cleaners. If you get one that's not reputable, it can easily do a lot of damage. IIRC CCleaner by Piriform (get the free version) has a registry cleaning tool built in that I've had good success with before. If you choose to do the normal cleaning, be sure you uncheck anything you want to keep (I like to keep my browser history for convenience, for example).

scifiwriterguy

@0x6A7232 is absolutely right; you don't want to take chances with your registry. That's why I was suggesting you use your system health software - Norton, McAfee, whatever - to do the job; they're generally trustworthy if a little conservative in how they clean the registry. Going with an unknown quantity is just an invitation to disaster.

0x6A7232

scifiwriterguy wrote: »

@0x6A7232 is absolutely right; you don't want to take chances with your registry. That's why I was suggesting you use your system health software - Norton, McAfee, whatever - to do the job; they're generally trustworthy if a little conservative in how they clean the registry. Going with an unknown quantity is just an invitation to disaster.

Exactly. My thought was, a lot of people use Windows' Security Essentials (or whatever they call it nowadays), and that doesn't have a registry cleaner built in, and the last thing you'd want to do at that point is search "Registry Cleaner" and go with an unknown quantity cleaning your registry. Especially as a lot of people get search hijacked and don't even realize it as the search results are still somewhat useable (until you go searching for system tools, that is!)

TheMG26

Had quite the Journey since yesterday evening....

Looked at everything, it's running. Even started the game again and had something open to monitor the temperature during it. A cozy 45°C maximum. No Problem here.

Actually I didn't just update them, I deinstalled them via ccleaner (I know the programm ;D) and then reinstalled them. Did it again with DDU anyways, didn't change anything.

I actually ran ccleaner between most of my steps. Didn't help sadly.

Ran the Video Memory Stress Test. I was almost disapointeed when it told me, that there are 0 errors

Talking about my cards Bios:
When searching for it in the list, I lack one crucial detail. My cards vendor. I was told to look for it via dxdiag or the Nvidia control pannels. I couldn't find it. It's not written on the card or the case of my PC either. So I have no Idea which BIOS to choose for updating my card.
Do you have any Idea where I can find it, or who I can ask to find it?

Edit: Found out the Vendor. I'll continue and write again, when I'm done. I hope the guy who had the Idea to write the vendor only on the side of the card, facing the motherboard, was fired.

TheMG26

Oh wow. Now I'm really confused.
Found the right Bios. Downloaded it. Downloaded the nvflash. The Last step that I should do is "all you have to do is type in nvflash yourfilenamehere.bios"

I can't type in the window. Whenever I click on it and then press a key, the letter doesn't appear, but the same thing happens that happens when I press the enter key. A lot of aditional text appears and after a few times the window closes.

0x6A7232

TheMG26 wrote: »

Oh wow. Now I'm really confused.
Found the right Bios. Downloaded it. Downloaded the nvflash. The Last step that I should do is "all you have to do is type in nvflash yourfilenamehere.bios"

I can't type in the window. Whenever I click on it and then press a key, the letter doesn't appear, but the same thing happens that happens when I press the enter key. A lot of aditional text appears and after a few times the window closes.

err... window?

Pretty sure if you're using a command line bios flashing tool you're supposed to boot using FreeDOS or equivalent, and flash the BIOS that way.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/guide-for-flashing-bios-of-nvidia-gpu.119955/

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1872554/flash-gpu-bios-nvflash.html

TheMG26

There is no mention of that:

"Flashing Your BIOS: For Nvidia Users

Flashing the BIOS of your Nvidia card is quite simple. Just make sure you downloaded the tool listed above for Nvidia users.

1) Extract the zip file you downloaded to it's own folder. Place the BIOS file you downloaded into that folder. (Just to clarify, make sure your BIOS file is in the same folder as nvflash.exe and it's related files.)

2) Double click on nvflash.exe to start up the tool. You should be greeted by a console window that looks something like this:


To update your BIOS, all you have to do is type in nvflash yourfilenamehere.bios (replace yourfilenamehere with the actual filename of your BIOS) Then you let the tool run its thing and you're done! Pretty easy isn't it?"

Gonna try your links tho.

0x6A7232

Huh. Yeah, usually if they provide a Windows-compatible flashing tool it has a GUI, in my experience, and the command line tools are for use with a DOS clone clean boot from a USB stick, CD, or -gasp- floppy.

Although there's nothing preventing one from releasing a command line windows flashing tool, I guess. And it is usually (or was) a bit more stable to reboot and flash from DOS than to try doing it with Windows running, although that's been getting a lot better in recent years.

Just be absolutely certain you've got the right BIOS file, and that it's downloaded correctly.

scifiwriterguy

You can pull up a command line in Windows (any version) by opening the Run window (WinKey + R) and entering "cmd" (short for "command line"). You'll get a DOS environment.

0x6A7232

scifiwriterguy wrote: »

You can pull up a command line in Windows (any version) by opening the Run window (WinKey + R) and entering "cmd" (short for "command line"). You'll get a DOS environment.

Eh... that hasn't been true since Win 3.1, as the Windows kernel still has control of the machine (although Win 9x still involved some DOS code IIRC). It's a command shell, true, but it isn't in any way a substitute for when you need a true DOS environment (hence DOSBox for running DOS games, and FreeDOS etc boot images for performing system critical tasks like BIOS flashing).

scifiwriterguy

0x6A7232 wrote: »

Eh... that hasn't been true since Win 3.1, as the Windows kernel still has control of the machine (although Win 9x still involved some DOS code IIRC). It's a command shell, true, but it isn't in any way a substitute for when you need a true DOS environment (hence DOSBox for running DOS games, and FreeDOS etc boot images for performing system critical tasks like BIOS flashing).

Granted, but the pseudo-DOS Windows lets you have suffices for most tasks that aren't directly system-related. I think it will let you flash GPU BIOS but not system BIOS - although it's been a while since I've done either, so I'm no longer certain. I'll defer to you on that.

And DOSbox is just wonderful start to finish, so yay for that.

0x6A7232

True, but... BIOS is very low-level. (Basic Input-Output System) I rather prefer to not have Windows kvetching about the system doing things, as well as security programs freaking out (attempted write to low-level parts of the system) unless I'm using a program designed by the OEM or an extremely well recommended source to work in Windows, not DOS (as DOS is not multi-tasking, hence nothing can dicker around with stuff while the BIOS is being flashed over). I know some Windows BIOS flash utils actually halt all user interaction while applying the update, probably for this reason.

If you have a backup BIOS feature on your video card / motherboard, though, it's not really that much of an issue, provided you have a way to look up how to use it should you need to (usually cell phone will do).