DX 11 issues. Nvidia driver incompatibility?

[Zodeak]

Hi there,
I've recently discovered that a few games I own (Dungeons and Dragons Online, Metro: 2033 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution) have a problem when running in DirectX 11. The games run very smoothly at max settings (40+ fps) on DX 11, but all of the games freeze, display odd green squares in columns on the screen, then it crashes back to desktop, most of the time without any incident (i.e. no need for hard reboot etc). So far i've tried: updating drivers, rolling back drivers, uninstalling GPU drivers, running dx diag, manually uninstalling the gpu from the mobo (and reseating) and scouring the internet for the same problem, with no results...

I can post another dx diag here if necessary.

Specs:

i5 2500K
asus Sabertooth P67
8gb corsair vengeance ddr3 1600MHz
GTX 570 (Factory OC'ed) w/ accelero Xtreme Plus 2 cooler.
Samsung spinpoint f3 1tb hdd
XFX proseries 750w psu
Windows 7 64-bit Pro.

EDIT: The freezes generally happen within 5 minutes of opening the game.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Make sure your directx is up to date.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

Also, have you monitored your GPU temps when playing these games? The green squares make it sound like the video card has some bad ram on it.

 

[Zodeak]

Make sure your directx is up to date.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

Also, have you monitored your GPU temps when playing these games? The green squares make it sound like the video card has some bad ram on it.

I checked out the link, and I have everything up-to-date DX-wise. I did a dxdiag and I have DX 11 running fine allegedly...

Also, I have checked temperatures and I get roughly 60C @ 100% load over 5 minutes, which is relatively cool. That said, most monitoring programs only measure the main GPU and no RAM modules or VRMs right? So technically I could have a super cool processor but a really hot VRM or RAM module... or is this not the case?

 

[Hawkeye22]

It depends. Most video ram has heatsinks on them at the very least. The thing is desktop applications don't eat up much video ram so it may not be using the bad portion of the video ram. As soon as you run a game that requires lots of video ram is when the bad section of ram gets used and causes video artifacts like green squares or lines on the screen. You can always get a copy of 3DMark and run a video test.

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark/all

The free version is limited on what tests you can perform, but should be enough to see if it causes video corruption.

 

[Zodeak]

I forgot to mention, that I tested all the games on DX10, and they run fine without any issue whatsoever. No crashes, nothing and getting 40+ fps... I've almost completed Deus Ex now without a single crash since I changed to DX 10 mode, but its just quite annoying because, obviously, I'd like to be able to use my card to its full effect. I personally put all the heatsinks on my card because its an aftermarket cooler. There are heatsinks on all the ram modules and enzotech sinks on the VRMs, so things run very cool. I thought, until very recently The Witcher 2 must use DX 11 because it looks so great, but apparently it doesn't, which would explain why it works on my rig. I have The Witcher 2 at Maximum setting also. That said.. Skyrim also supports DX 11 and that works fine, so I'm at a complete loss as to the problem.

Thanks for the info so far Hawkeye22.

 

[Hawkeye22]

That's odd that it works under DX10. If you didn't update your directx from the link I posted earlier, you may want to. Perhaps some of your directx files got corrupted. The symtoms definately sound like VRAM to me though. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

[Zodeak]

You've been v helpful so far Hawkeye22. I downloaded the DX end user run time in the link, but it said I had DX up-to-date... I think its possible you're right about the VRAM, but I can't think why it would work fine in DX 10 mode and not in DX 11 mode. Is DX 11 more VRAM intense than DX 10? If so, would it be substantially more intensive as to cause the crash 5 minutes in, whereas I can play on DX 10 mode for literal hours without issue?

Thanks, Zod.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I'm not sure if DX11 is more intensive than DX10. That's where my confusion was coming from also. I just noticed your video card is factory OC'd. If you can use the NVidia control panel to slow the card down to normal specs, try it. I'm grabbing at straws now, but it's worth a try and OC'ing can usually produce some unstable results.

 

[gamerk316]

Yeah, it *sounds* like VRAM, but I would expect this to happen for all DX modes, not just DX11. Unless DX11 is doing something FAR more VRAM intensive though, that can't be it...

But yeah, short term, go to stock clocks and see if that helps. If it does, you might be able to cash in on whatever warentee for the company that produces the card (as a factory OC *should* be covered)

 

[Zodeak]

I OC'ed very slightly up to 1.025mv and the core clock to 800MHz or something similar, and it seems to have solved the problem entirely... VERY ODD.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Most likely the bump in voltage fixed it. It sounds like the factory OC was unstable. If this is truly the problem, then you should be able to get a replacement card for free as long as it's still under warranty.