Games in Vista inevitably crash

[Guest]

I'm having a problem with games crashing to desktop with my Vista system. I
originally only tried Vanguard and thought it may be a problem specific to
that game. I tried installing Company of Heroes to test and sure enough, it
does the same thing. Plays for a little bit than CTD. Very occasionally it
blue screens but that is the exception rather than the norm.

My system and peripherals I'm using:

E6600 Core2Duo (not OC'd)
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX
Asus Striker Extreme motherboard (currently using onboard sound)
4GB Corsair XMS RAM
2x320GB Hitachi HDs in RAID 0 config
Logitech USB premium headset
Logitech G15 keyboard
Logitech G5 gaming mouse
Vista Home Premium OS

Everything I listed above has the latest drivers (even the keyboard and
mouse which I usually never install drivers for) with the possible exception
of the chipset driver on the mobo (I'm not sure where to check to find what
driver version the chipset is using).

Is this a common problem with Vista? I put a lot of money into this system
and it's pretty maddening watching how awesome it runs right up until it
crashes. I'm beginning to think I should just put a dual boot install of XP
on there until Vista is up to speed.

 

[Dale M. White]

Well, no shame in Dual Booting to XP. It's where I go to find my happy
place.

But it is not normal to have games crash in Vista. I've not played the 2
game
you've played , though I am working my way to Company of Heros. I have
played a fair number of demanding games, Like Supreme Commander, FEAR, and
BF2142 and a smidge of Stalker.

The CTDs "tends" to point to a heat issue and\or a memory fault of some sort
issue. Do you have a means of monitoring you CPU heat ?

You might also be having a video driver issue. The nVidia's under Vista have
been hurting since the release. Rumor had it, that nVidia was about to have
a big driver release this week, but I'm not sure that's real.

The Beta drivers are 101.41, while the Official drivers are 100.65.

At the moment, I'm still thinking it's a heat issue of some sort, maybe the
video card is misbehaving.

Have you tried running a program like 3dmark06 to see if it will run ? If
you don't have it, you can get it at www.futuremark.com.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I have a temp. monitor installed in the case. Temp rarely goes above
32C even under load (CPU is liquid cooled). I'm almost positive it isn't a
heat related issue.

I'm using the 100.65 Nvidia driver. From what I've read, the beta driver is
mainly adding SLi support for 8800 cards that wasn't previously available.
I'm not running SLi so I don't know if that's going to make much difference.

I'm wondering if maybe it's because I have 4GB of ram and Windows, even
Vista, only recognizes 3.3GB.

 

[Dale M. White]

If you wanted to test the memory, you could try running MSConfig, choosing
boot and then Advance an setting the maxmem to a lower number like 2048
http://images.filecloud.com/395728/advance_config.jpg

Or you can just pull some memory out.

Non-SLI people have reported getting better results with the 101.41s (other
not so good). You can try them, shouldn't hurt.

 

[chas]

I have the 8800GTS graphics card and I'm have the same issue has you -
most of my online games crash when using Vista. I blame the graphics
drivers they just dont work properly at present.

My solution was to go back to XP. The games play as expected under XP no
crashes. Dont get confused by the peeps telling you it's an hardware
fault. IMHO the only hardware fault you have is the 8800 card and vista.
I repeat it works fine under XP.

I found the version 101.41 beta drivers to be even more unstable.

 

[chas]

I have the 8800GTS graphics card and I'm have the same issue has you -
most of my online games crash when using Vista. I blame the graphics
drivers they just dont work properly at present. Vanguard gor example,
crashes very 30 mins or so

My solution was to go back to XP. The games play as expected under XP no
crashes. Dont get confused by the peeps telling you it's an hardware
fault. IMHO the only hardware fault you have is the 8800 card and vista.
I repeat it works fine under XP and Vanguard doesn't crash

I found the version 101.41 beta drivers to be even more unstable.

 

[Guest]

I managed to fix my problem with a little research. Turns out the high
dollar mobo I have doesn't like having 4 sticks of Corsair ram installed.
Many, many people are having problems with that config. I had to underclock
my ram and now it seems stable.

 

[Dale M. White]

Thanks for posting with the solution. be nice if everbody who got a fix came
back and said what it ws. Might help us have better guesses I had a feeling
it was either heat or a memory fault. Only because I've overclocked enough
to know the behavior of unhappy memory.

Makes ya mad don't it ! By the high dollar stuff and it behaves worse then
the mid-range stuff.

 

[Guest]

I have the same type of problem. Different game Ghost Recon Advanced
Warfighter - hangs between multiplayer games (changing to a new map.)

Same nvidia 8800 gtx, intel etc. Nearly $3,000 bucks on a system that is
not working.

I have one request MS: Will you please send me a XP that I can load until
Vista and the ecosystem of hardware and applciation work reasonably well? I
think this is reasonable - you have my money for Vista - why not loan me an
XP - no variable cost to you.

I don't think its fair to say - go buy XP for a dual boot system? Is this
what it means to upgrade at Microsoft. Perhaps, so, - this way you sell the
new OS AND the old one - smart thinking - when you're a monopoly. If you
care about users - especially those early adopters - why not create a
time-bound version of XP that lasts a year and checks for Vista being
installed.
thx