Assassin's Creed

So, here is what has happened so far..


First problems occured when I had paused the game to go do something else for a minute. When I come back, the screen saver is on like normal. I move the mouse, type in my password, and I'm welcomed by the desktop with an error message saying something about how there was an unexpected shutdown or something of that nature. Then it proceeded to tell me about how there was an error with Nvidia, and that there were no solutions. Then it gave some suggestions, one of which was to update the driver. So, I go to the Nvidia website and update the driver.

Wonderful, after installing the newer driver, my desktop icons were rearranged. No idea why, but they were. I do the necessary restart for the proper installation of the driver, then rearrange my icons. Play the game a bit more for a while, and then it freezes, and the graphics mess up, and everything is unresponcive. Then, the computer stops giving video output all together. I do a restart, and my icons are back out of place... Put them back in place, and then I come here, wondering if anyone here has any suggestions.

I might also mention that whenever I go to start the game, it opens in a window, rather than full screen like it is supposed to. I had read to try pressing alt+enter after it finishes loading to get it to go full screen, and it worked.

Would setting the settings to high cause this crashing/freezing problem? I did turn the settings up a bit higher earlier today, thinking that the worse that would happen would be getting a lower frame rate. Maybe turning them up is causing these problems?

 

If turning the settings back down to what they used to be makes all problems go away, then the answer to your question is "yes".

Welcome to MG's

 

I changed the settings and played a while. All of a sudden, I get an error saying that Assassin's Creed has stopped working properly. Then I get an error message saying that a certain driver had stopped working correctly but recovered, or something. This is beginning to be a pain. Too bad I can't take the game back. I didn't write down the error messages exactly because I thought that I took a screen shot of it. When I went to paint to paste the screenshot, there was nothing there. So, apparently, it did not take for some reason, or it cleared the clipboard after I closed Assassin's Creed(only option it gave after it stopped working)

 

Are you overclocking your graphics card?

I had a friend who had a similar problem. When he set all the graphics options to maximum, it set the option for a computer running the next gen capable software. This caused the game to crash. It also corrupted a file used by Direct X, so I had to reinstall it. After this it seemed to work fine. You could also reinstall the game, making sure you save your savegames beforehand.

 

It's the EVGA e-Gforce 8800GT Superclocked Edition. Judging by the title I was under the impression that it came factory overclocked in some way.

 

I played it again to recreate the crash so that I could try to gather more information. Here is the problem report. If you think viewing any of the files listed in the report would help, let me know so I can get them.

Brief description of the problem:
The first time that a problem occured was what I described earlier. I had paused the game and left it, when I returned, the screensaver was on like normal and when I waked it up, I was at the desktop with an error saying that there had been an unexpected shutdown.

The second time I had a problem was while I was playing. Everything froze, and the graphics messed up, and I had to restart the computer.

After that, it's only done the following:
While playing the game the game will suddenly minimize to a window(not minimize to the taskbar, but to a window) and a message saying that "Assassin's Creed Game has stopped working". Then, from the notification area a little message will pop up saying that "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered".


What all I have done so far:
1. The in-game video settings may not be the defaults. As I don't know what the defaults for all of the settings are, I can't really restore them. The settings are not maxed out, though. I had turned up the settings prior to the first problem, and turned them down once I started having problems, but it did not seem to fix the problem.

2. I have updated a video driver in an attempt to fix the problem, but it did not.

 

I've done a bit of research for you on the problem, and it seems to be a common problem for people running the 8800GT. Why? I don't know. A solution hasn't seemed to have surfaced yet, but the common links with all issues are overclocked video cards. While I don't believe a factory overclocked graphics card would have issues such as this your problem seems to me to come from that direction. A few people have posted accounts about their 8800 running very hot while overclocked.

A few suggestions I have found:

-Download an update for vista which was in the windows uprgrade program called "NVIDIA Corporation - Storage - NVIDIA nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controller.

-Try the NVIDIA stability test.

-Using a program called Riva Tuner to set your GPU fan speed to max.

-Decrease the core overclocking from 8800 to 575 mhz.

The card also requires a 450w minimum PSU. I hope this helps, as I know how addictive Assassins Creed is.

 

Thank you very much for your help. I will definitely try those things out.


If I can't find a solution myself, maybe the problem will be fixed whenever the patch is released. So far the problem has only occured in this game, so hopefully it is specific to this game and not necessarily a problem with the graphics card itself that will surface when running other things.(I just got through RMAing my previous card... lol)


Edit: I've done a quick search at the Nvidia website but failed to find the Nvidia Stability test. Is the test you are refering to available from Nvidia, or was it made by someone else?

 

My motherboard came with a utility used for overclocking and such. I installed it thinking that would allow me to adjust some things like fan speeds and also allow me to monitor temps and such. However, it doesn't seem to allow me to view or adjust anything related to the graphics card.

Also, here is a screen of the system health>hardware monitoring screen

Why is it flashing those warning signs?

And good night! Turn audio alert on, and it repeats "danger danger danger" over and over and over with a constant beep in between. I'm not an expert, but those temps don't look too high to me, do they to you?


Is RevaTuner compatibily with Vista?

I think that my bios will show temps and fan speeds and also allows several overclocking options but I have a USB keyboard.


Edit: And sorry for double posting but it didn't allow me to edit the previous post.

 

the warnings are for the fan speeds, but you either don't have a power supply fan and system fan, or, they just aren't being monitored by your motherboard, you can just ignore them (there may even be a way to tell your program not to monitor the fans)

As for your original problem, you might want to download hwmonitor, and let it run during the game you are playing to get the gpu temps.
http://majorgeeks.com/HWMonitor_d5842.html

 

I have 3 case fans but they do not connect to the motherboard. If the processor fan speed is below normal it's probably becuase smartfan is enabled and the temp is low enough that it's just not running fast.

I will download that utility and let it run while playing the game. It looks like exactly what I was trying to find.

How hot is too hot, is the question now?

Just in the menu and just starting the game, no heavy gameplay at all, got the temp of the GPU core up to 75C. Right now, the temp is around 58C. My processor is around 40C. Hard drive, 32C.

Is there any way to monitor or adjust the fan speed for the GPU?

 

Try NVIDIA nTune here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html

Yes RivaTuner is compatible with Vista: http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner

These two programs should allow you to tweak your card and/or motherboard.

 

for my evga 8800gt, they (evga support) said 70 was hot enough. i was getting up to 80 and freezing/crashing, with rivatuner, i put the fan speed to 75% (100 was too loud) and my temps never go over 60-65 tops.

 

Could someone give me a short walkthrough to setting the GPU fan speed? I know, I know, I should go look it up before asking, but I have very little "free" time and I figure it wouldn't be that hard to tell me how to do that one thing.

 

are you using rivatuner? http://majorgeeks.com/Riva_Tuner_d737.html
If you are, I will try to get some screenshots when i get home (i am at work)

 

Thanks for the help.

What I have installed right now is nTune, HWMonitor and Riva Tuner. I didn't really like the utility that came with my motherboard. Have of the stuff it wouldn't let me in to. And for the graphics, it said that if it didn't allow you to adjust, to update to a certain driver, but I have the latest drivers for my card, so apparently the tuner is outdated or something. I also tried the live update, but then the thing wouldn't work at all and gave a ton of error messages. Wouldn't even start up. I also didn't like the fact that it loaded at startup and didn't seem to give any option to not do so. I would have had to allow it to run every time I turned my computer on or rebooted, which, could get kinda annoying depending on how often I needed to reboot. Anyway, that's that. So far, I've played it a bit and it hasn't crashed.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'll be disappointed if it doesn't ever crash again, because then I'll never know why it was. I really would have no idea, except maybe one of the utilities that I've downloaded automatically and permanently
changed some setting.

Edit: Btw, I already have RivaTuner 2.08, but you're link did not work.

 

to use the fan speed control in riva tuner,
click on customize (rivatuner1.gif)

then click on the pic of a video card (rivatuner2.gif)

then enable fan speed control and select desired speed (rivatuner3.gif)

like i said before, 100% just seemed way too loud, and i am able to get away with 75% and no problems

 

Thanks. So far it hasn't crashed again but it does get up to like 78c so I'll increase the fan speed and see if that keeps the temp down better.