Problems with new system - likely Radeon X850 Pl

[Viz79]

I purchased a new PC recently after my hard disk basically melted in my old one.. well i found out to my horror today that it won't run one of the few games I play regularily at all - Neverwinter Nights. I have a Radeon X850 Platinum on a Dell PC with an Intel 3.2 GHZ CPU, 1 GIG Ram and an Audigy 2 ZS.

Simply loading any module causes a crash with a 'Neverwinter Nights has encountered a problem and was forced to close error'. Ive updated the drivers, Ive reinstalled NWN and patched up, Ive tweaked with settings and nothing :/

Main point is its a new PC, new drivers, fresh hard disk, latest drivers from Dell - what do you suggest I do? there is supposed to be an issue with Radeon drivers but is there an alternative? Does anyone know a fix? Thanks in advance!

 

[rbV5]

What driver are you using? Is there issues with any other games, or just NVN?

 

[bob4432]

are you using the catalyst 5.8s? those are the newest. don't know much about NWN but the catalyst 5.7s had issues with BF2.

why do you suspect the video card so quickly?

also, do you have pics of the melted hdd?

welcome to the forums

 

[rbV5]

are you using the catalyst 5.8s?

Catalyst 5.9 are released and available at ATI.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: rbV5

are you using the catalyst 5.8s?

Catalyst 5.9 are released and available at ATI.

damn, thanks. do you know what issues they address?

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: rbV5

are you using the catalyst 5.8s?

Catalyst 5.9 are released and available at ATI.

damn, thanks. do you know what issues they address?

Issues Resolved in Catalyst? Software Suite 5.9

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: rbV5

are you using the catalyst 5.8s?

Catalyst 5.9 are released and available at ATI.

damn, thanks. do you know what issues they address?

Issues Resolved in Catalyst? Software Suite 5.9

thanks, trying to get to the d/l site, but it seems slammed....

 

[Viz79]

Thanks for all the responses guys - the guy whol told me this was a great forum was correct

Anyway.. I am using Catalyst 5.9 dirvers (the newest ones) and yes the problem is only with NWN. the thing is.. I was hoping someone here was wither a NWN player who had encountered the problem or knew the nature of the error message that coming up. There was an issue with Catalyst drivers and NWN but Bioware kept referring people to ATi and ATi kept referring them back. They were looking into it but I am unsure what has occured and whether this is even that problem.

I am currently uninstalling and reinstalling to see if it is an installation corruption so I will updat on how it goes but I ask if you know of any quick fixes for Radeon cards with errors that may work. I suspect the card only because there have been problems with Radeon cards and the catalyst drivers before.. for example a few months back there were crashes and 'shiny water' had to be disabled in the settings. However this fix is not working for me at all.

As for the melted hard disk.. well I didnt take too long a look at it but it was extremely hot.. the outer casing seems intact but inside things may be a little frazzled. U didnt mean literally melted but it may as well ahve been (blame Time and their beautiful cases... no wonder they went bankrupt!).

 

[rbV5]

Anyway.. I am using Catalyst 5.9 dirvers (the newest ones) and yes the problem is only with NWN. the thing is.. I was hoping someone here was wither a NWN player who had encountered the problem or knew the nature of the error message that coming up. There was an issue with Catalyst drivers and NWN but Bioware kept referring people to ATi and ATi kept referring them back. They were looking into it but I am unsure what has occured and whether this is even that problem

OK, I don't have NWN, but I'll run it by some people I know, maybe they'll have something.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Viz79
Thanks for all the responses guys - the guy whol told me this was a great forum was correct

Anyway.. I am using Catalyst 5.9 dirvers (the newest ones) and yes the problem is only with NWN. the thing is.. I was hoping someone here was wither a NWN player who had encountered the problem or knew the nature of the error message that coming up. There was an issue with Catalyst drivers and NWN but Bioware kept referring people to ATi and ATi kept referring them back. They were looking into it but I am unsure what has occured and whether this is even that problem.

I am currently uninstalling and reinstalling to see if it is an installation corruption so I will updat on how it goes but I ask if you know of any quick fixes for Radeon cards with errors that may work. I suspect the card only because there have been problems with Radeon cards and the catalyst drivers before.. for example a few months back there were crashes and 'shiny water' had to be disabled in the settings. However this fix is not working for me at all.

As for the melted hard disk.. well I didnt take too long a look at it but it was extremely hot.. the outer casing seems intact but inside things may be a little frazzled. U didnt mean literally melted but it may as well ahve been (blame Time and their beautiful cases... no wonder they went bankrupt!).

i was hoping to see a piece of melted metal that was once a hdd

as for your problem, could you just reinstall everything (game a drivers) to the set of catalysts where you had to turn off the "shiny water" and use that set up for a while?

ati makes good cards as does nvidia, i have used both over the last decade and your situation is unfortunate and hopefully the game maker and ati can discuss the issue and get it handled.

 

[Viz79]

Im afraid none of this is working.. can someone loko at this thread and tell me what they think? I have the same dual core processor technology!

http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=449016&forum=80

That is for a different but dated game by Bioware too.. the information on my CP us that it is Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU (dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (Pentium EE 840) processor) and the information on that thread seems to imply that it simply is not compatible with some older games and there is nothing I can do about it. Do you agree with this?

:/

 

[bob4432]

there have been issues with some games and dc processors (from what i have read the dc a64s), but i really don't know why. i have a old 1.5yr old P4 2.8C w/ HT and the os sees it as 2 cpus. maybe i am wrong but the os sees the cpu/s as or there being 1 or 2 and then does its thing through the Hardware Abstrat Layer(HAL) and since most games to my knowledge worked fine on the HyperThreading P4s, one would assume that they would fine for DCs because the os still sees 2 cpus(i could be completely wrong, this is just a theory) i have had no problems running older games, even the first star wars battlefront (albeit with a ati 9800pro).

if your machine ran the game at first and you needed to tweak some settings, i would go back to that setup as far as drivers (as i stated earlier).

i know nothing about NWN or how new/old it is, but i would assume if enough of these problems exist a patch will be made.

also, is it only NWN? have you stress your machine with prime95 and memtest just to rule out ram, psu, etc? can you run 3dmark05 and loop it to stress test? this is not to say that your original thought is true, but i am just wanting you to get a machine that is very reliable and can handle serious gaming as it stress the machine.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Anyway.. I am using Catalyst 5.9 dirvers (the newest ones) and yes the problem is only with NWN. the thing is.. I was hoping someone here was wither a NWN player who had encountered the problem or knew the nature of the error message that coming up. There was an issue with Catalyst drivers and NWN but Bioware kept referring people to ATi and ATi kept referring them back. They were looking into it but I am unsure what has occured and whether this is even that problem

OK, I don't have NWN, but I'll run it by some people I know, maybe they'll have something.

I haven't turned up any issue with NWN for any recent Catalyst driver. A friend says 5.9's work fine on several of his rigs..all AMD however. Sounds like it may be specific to your rig like some conflict or something. Perhaps try an earlier driver?

 

[Viz79]

Bob the game has not worked on this PC at all - fresh from Dell it is Gen 5 3.2 ghz P4 (dual core) and i am suspecting it is either the dual core processor thats causing the problem or the video card.. after all what else can it be? I have downloaded critical patches for the game which eliminates a faulty install and I have disabled sound to remove the sound card frpm the equation.

Since the PC was brand new, Ill focus on the drivers now and think about rolling back although I am wondering if that will help :/

P.S It is only NWN - it runs games like the F.E.A.R demo at amazing speed and settings as you can imagnie with a top of the line processor and vid card. See thats the thing.. everything is perfectly fine for everything 'except' for NWN. I just wish I could pinpoint something that will just fix it!

 

[Viz79]

Here is a link to a private forum where I have posted my message to Atari tech support.. it contains everything I know and a screenshot of my error as well as my NWNConfig file. NWn stands for Neverwinter Nights while SoU is Shadows of Undrentide and HoTu is Hordes of the Underdark (both expansions). For the kind people here that are trying to help, perhaps it will make things a little easier.

Once more I appreciate your assistance very much, thank you!

http://viz1979.proboards37.com/index.cg...oard=anything&thread=1127701270&page=1

 

[bob4432]

is there any way you can disable one of the cores? i know that some of the people that were having issues with the dc a64 x2s were doing something like that, maybe search these forums for that....have you called the company? i would give them a call and see what they say. hell, even call intel and dell. i know those xps machines are expensive, so definately give dell a call.

 

[Viz79]

Yes there is a way to disable one of the cores.. it was the fix used by NWN players if they had an AMD chipset.. basically it involved turning on NWN, alt tabbing and then right clicking on the item on task manager and altering the affinity by disabling one of the two cores. I could not get this to work however (alt tabbing automatically causes a crash with the same error so I did it in windows mode and it made absolutely no difference).

Ive updated the thread linked here with responses from Atari but none of them helped. The thing is - yes it is an expensive PC but it runs all the latest software really well such as F.E.A.R, Doom 3, Half Life 2 etc. It seems that there may be software though that is older for which this sort of thing will crop up - Ive sent emails to Atari, sent bug report email to bioware, posted on their forums. I will message Intel and Dell but I really dont think they will help in this since Dell's hardware is actually working just finre - it is an older software that is not working with THEIR hardware. Likewise Intel is probably going to give a similar answer.. that their chipsets are working fnie and it is the responsibility of the software developers to craete fixes to make their software run with Intel's hardware.

Perhaps I just have to wait and pray something come sout in the future.. clearly this is a very new problem since dual core chips are literally a few months old. The problem is of course few people with them play these older games so the incentive is not there to create fixes. But Bioware did post briefly on the forums about it though there was no guarantee of a fix.. just that they would look into it. I am sure something is out 'there' but who knows what it is. If anyone here has any idea from their knowledge of dual cores or anything else, I appreciate your help thanks.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Viz79
Yes there is a way to disable one of the cores.. it was the fix used by NWN players if they had an AMD chipset.. basically it involved turning on NWN, alt tabbing and then right clicking on the item on task manager and altering the affinity by disabling one of the two cores. I could not get this to work however (alt tabbing automatically causes a crash with the same error so I did it in windows mode and it made absolutely no difference).

Ive updated the thread linked here with responses from Atari but none of them helped. The thing is - yes it is an expensive PC but it runs all the latest software really well such as F.E.A.R, Doom 3, Half Life 2 etc. It seems that there may be software though that is older for which this sort of thing will crop up - Ive sent emails to Atari, sent bug report email to bioware, posted on their forums. I will message Intel and Dell but I really dont think they will help in this since Dell's hardware is actually working just finre - it is an older software that is not working with THEIR hardware. Likewise Intel is probably going to give a similar answer.. that their chipsets are working fnie and it is the responsibility of the software developers to craete fixes to make their software run with Intel's hardware.

Perhaps I just have to wait and pray something come sout in the future.. clearly this is a very new problem since dual core chips are literally a few months old. The problem is of course few people with them play these older games so the incentive is not there to create fixes. But Bioware did post briefly on the forums about it though there was no guarantee of a fix.. just that they would look into it. I am sure something is out 'there' but who knows what it is. If anyone here has any idea from their knowledge of dual cores or anything else, I appreciate your help thanks.

i really hope you get this worked out. what i can't understand is if the software works on a HT or true dual processor machine, it should work on a dc machine as the os sees 2 cpus in all situations.

maybe somebody can explain this to me...