Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Crysis (Warhead, Wars, Original) Problems with forceware 191and 196

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
Share

I desperately need help with this issue, it has been causing me undue stress for quite a while now.

Firstly, I upgraded my pc by purchasing a new GTS 250 512mb in December and adding additional ram. After installing the new graphics card, I proceeded to install forceware 195.62. In January, I upgraded to the new 196.21 drivers. However, this introduced some major problems. When I tried to play Crysis Warhead, the game crashed to the desktop about 2 minutes after the level loaded and windows informed me that "display driver nvkmm.dll stopped responding and has recovered." This happened every time without fail. I tried the original Crysis, and it worked, for a while. After about 12 minutes, the game crashed to the desktop, and I was greeted with the same "display driver stopped responding" error message. Crysis wars exhibited the same behavior as the original Crysis; it crashed to the desktop after about 10 minutes.

So, I reverted to forceware 195.62 and the problem vanished. However, I realized that the 195 drivers inflicted a significant performance penalty. In Warhead, I was getting terrible framerates at 1920x1080 on Gamer settings. The average was about 17, the min was about 10, and when I stood and looked directly at a wall, the framerate was about 32. The 196 drivers boosted the framerate by about 8 fps in all situations, and much more so when staring at the wall.

With the framerate frequently entering unplayable territory, I decided to try an older driver version. I had a 191.07 installer in the downloads folder, and I decided to revert to that driver. I installed it this morning. I sat down to benchmark Crysis Warhead, and was pleasantly greeted by a substantial performance boost (a return to 196 performance levels). However, after about 2 minutes, the game crashed to the desktop, and I was, once again, presented with the loathsome "nvkmm.dll has stopped responding error message". I tried playing Crysis, and it exhibited precisely the same symptoms as it did when I was using the 196 drivers. After about 10 min, the display driver stopped responding and crashed to the desktop.

My question to the people on this forum is, WHY???? I played all three Crysis games using my old 8600 GT (at a lower resolution) with the 191.07 drivers, and I never experienced such crashes. No other games appear to be afflicted by this problem either. Far Cry 2, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3, World In Conflict, Unreal Tournament III, and many others run without issues on both the 196 and 191 drivers. Why do the 195 drivers perform so poorly (this performance penalty was also noticed in other games)?

I would be eternally grateful if anyone could help me resolve this issue.

My specs are:
Athlon X2 5200+ 2.6 ghz 2mb L2
Galaxy GTS 250 512 mb
4gb DDR2 ram
7200 RPM SATA 3.0 HD
Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit

More about : crysis warhead wars original problems forceware 191and 196

Register or log in to remove

And you got what with the new card at lower res ?..... Your processor is slow. The video card is too slow. There's not enough ram on the video card. You may have heat issues. Uninstall and reinstall drivers.... the ones that worked best. Lower your settings. Increase your virtual ram. 1920x1080 c'mon........ try 1024x768 at medium/low settings at best for your hardware. 32bit Windows won't allow you to use all your ram..... Don't tell me you're NOT having problems with FarCry2 at that res with that hardware...... You can help yourself by trying to run Crysis in DX9 mode.

Hey there,

Crysis will put a strain on any system. In my experience, every card/system has a "sweet spot" for drivers. Newer drivers may not always increase performance.

If you found a previous driver better then newer drivers, use driversweep to completely uninstall before rolling back to older drivers.

Also, you mentioned playing on a lower res and getting good frame rates. Increasing res can have a major effect on frame rates as well.

Good luck.

To swifty:

1024x768 @ low??? I'm not playing this with an 8600 gt, that was my old video card. Have you seen benchmarks for a GTS 250 (aka 9800 GTX+). It is definitely capable of far more than 1024X768 @ medium. When I upgraded my video card, I also got a new monitor. So, I have not tried a lower resolution with my new video card. Also, Far Cry 2 plays quite well at 1920x1080 with ultra high settings. It typically performs at an average of 32 fps. Also, according to the following site (http://www.widowpc.com/2007/11/crysis_tips_and.php), Crysis only uses 490 mb of video memory at 1920x1200 high. My resolution is slightly lower, and, therefore, requires less video memory. 512 mb is quite sufficient. The processor matters little at high resolutions and especially in Crysis (which is almost exclusively GPU limited) (check out this link http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4770,2281...)

I know very well that lowering the resolution and detail levels will result in superior performance. That's elementary.
My problem is: the 191.07 and 196.34 drivers provide a decent frame rate, but they crash after a few minutes of gameplay in the Cry Engine 2 games. The 195.62 drivers allow me to play Crysis, Warhead, and Wars without any crashes, but the performance is much worse when using this driver.

I guess I'll revert to the 195 drivers so I can play the game at least. Then, I'll install the 196.75 drivers when they are released.

Related ressources
Ask the community
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Graphics & Displays categories
!