Problem with only 1 game

[mmaatt747]

CPU: i5 2500k OC'd to 4.0 GHz
GPU: 2X GTX 570 Zotac Amp Edition (in SLI)
PSU: Corsair TX750 Enthusiast Series V2

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me with this problem. My display driver keeps crashing and restarting while playing Assassins Creed III. This obviously crashes the game. I only get this problem with this game. This does not occur when web browsing or playing any other games. Skyrim and BF3 work just fine. The things I have tried so far are:

Updated Nvidia display driver to lates BETA version
Reduce CPU overclock to stock speeds
Disable SLI --> I've since discovered that the game runs better with just one card
Reduce all in game graphics settings to 'Normal' (lowest setting)
Reduce all graphics settings in NVIDIA control panel (for AC III only)

The strange thing is the driver ALWAYS crashes when I go into the underground sewers below Boston. Sometimes it's immediately when I load that level, sometimes it's a few minutes after being in that level, but it does always crash. When I'm not in that level the driver still sometimes crashes but much less frequently. Also, sometimes I get strange artifacts on my screen at the time of the crash. Usually not, but sometimes. As for temps, both the GPU and CPU are just fine. Besides the game will crash as soon as it starts so heat is definitely not an issue.

Has anyone else experienced these issues with a GTX 570? My next step is to contact Ubisoft and see if they can help. i'm out of ideas.

 

[dheeraj9933]

yes ACIII is a really bad console port, it is all around the web.
it is not only badly optimised for gpu but cpu as well!!
u also might have had FPS drops in Boston.
and the is fairly new too, only patches from dev's and drivers from Nvidia can fix this,
i'm arfaid there is nothing u can do.
A lot of people are angry in a lot of Forums, a 7870 is giving the same performance like a 7970!! and same is the case with Nvidia.
the game is very badly optimised for PC's and is a shame to ubisoft.
I'm dissapointed too.

 

[alvine]

wait for game patches. I'm having issues playing that game too on my 7970, bunch of artifacts and characters body have a mesh around them with a super bright white bar on the bottom...really weird

 

[unoriginal1]

I could be wrong but I recall someone saying that ACIII Specifically has "known" issues with Sli and Crossfire. Would agree with Alvine and wait for updates.

 

[rene13cross]

wait for game patches. I'm having issues playing that game too on my 7970, bunch of artifacts and characters body have a mesh around them with a super bright white bar on the bottom...really weird

I'm pretty sure I had the same thing, just had to turn AA down to either Normal or High (Very High on Radeon cards is a combination of MLAA and 4xMSAA which doesn't seem to work, it's TXAA for Nvidia cards). Still got terrible performance on a single 7950 (had to turn CF off since it doesn't allow the game to run properly in Eyefinity at all).

 

[rene13cross]

I've also come to a point where I have stopped playing and will just wait for a patch and updates. It got pretty ridiculous...

 

[mmaatt747]

Ok so it looks like I have found the problem. I've seen several websites addressing Assassins Creed issues and have noticed a couple that said updating audio drivers can actually resolve some crashes. But somehow I have a newer driver than is what is available on the ASUS website. I have a P8P67 Pro Rev. 3.1 by the way. I'm not sure how this happened.

So with updating not an option I decided to try and use the audio through HDMI from my GPU. Normally I use the surround sound audio ports from the motherboard and a DVI cable to my monitor. I disconnected the DVI cable and used an HDMI cable instead and changed my audio in Windows Control Panel to my monitor speakers. Sure enough, no more crashes. It's crazy. Do the graphics cards use a different driver for the audio on their HDMI ports than the audio ports on the motherboard?

Now I'm wondering if I should try and install the OLDER audio driver that is on the ASUS website. I would prefer not using the crappy speakers on my monitor.