WoW: TBC + 8800GTX = Lock Ups?

[Aikouka]

Before I start the ol' witch hunt... I'm a bit curious if anyone else is having the same issues as me. There's also a shortened version below!

In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, I was playing in Terakkoa Forest yesterday. All was going fine until I started to do a quest in an area called "Veil Skith" (a Arrakoa (Bird Man) village). All of a sudden, my computer just locked up. I kind of shrugged it off, turned the computer off, and then turned it back on. I logged back on and about 3 minutes later, the same thing happened again.

So I was eventually able to finish in that area and I went around doing my thing. Eventually I picked up a quest to head to another Veil *insert word here* area. Once I got close to the area, my computer locked up once more. Shut down and restarted, once I got into the game, my computer immediately locked up once more. After this next restart, I grabbed my configuration and add-ons and threw them on my HDTV's PC (my old machine with a 6800GT) and was able to play and finish in that area (I excluded my add-ons using this as it was the exact same).

I upgraded the driver to the latest on nVidia's website and that did not help. I went to another bird man place (another quest ) and the computer was fine for awhile, but eventually it locked up again.

I believe this isn't a memory issue as nothing else crashes and it always messes up in the same graphical areas (as all the bird villages look fairly similar). There are no graphical anomalies to suggest a video memory corruption (unlike my poor 6800GT with the white dots ever so often... stupid BFG). Windows reported a 0x1000008e error and I have had these before, but they went away after I replaced my nVidia drivers. I used to get these when playing a video while playing a game. Note that sometimes my computer starts to "chug" or almost lock-up while playing a video again.

Has anyone else had an issue like this?

Shortened version:

WoW completely locks up my computer in certain areas only (areas that have visually common components). Doesn't seem to be an issue with an add-on or any setting. Nothing else crashes. Windows reported an error of 0x1000008e. Used to do this while playing videos and a game at the same time. Drivers were upgraded to the newest version.

 

[terentenet]

I had a similar problem with WOW. The game was running smooth. I was in Stormwind and went to the class trainer. When I right clicked, I got a BSOD.
Rebooted, got back in the game, right click, BSOD.
After that each time I logged in the game I got the BSOD, without even right clicking. I just couldn't move my char away from the class trainer so the problem would dissapear. I had to wait for 97.92 to fix that. It now works OK.

 

[AdamK47]

I haven't had any problems with WoW using my 8800GTX. I do know that the nVidia drivers did have a problem with enabling Vertex Animation Shaders in the video options at one point. This option works for me, but you can try to disable it. I don't think it decreases visual quality.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: AdamK47
I haven't had any problems with WoW using my 8800GTX. I do know that the nVidia drivers did have a problem with enabling Vertex Animation Shaders in the video options at one point. This option works for me, but you can try to disable it. I don't think it decreases visual quality.

I'll have to give that a try, although I'll feel a bit wary venturing into these places again to test it.

I'm pretty disappointed in the quality of drivers that I've seen for the 8800GTX (and possibly the entire line, I don't own a GTS, so I have no idea if some defects are specific to one card). I've owned prior products close to launch and I had no issues at all, but this card has been so problematic that it's barely worth owning sometimes. Although, getting 400FPS in Stormwind is always fun .

 

[QuantumPion]

I had one lockup after playing for several hours straight. The BSOD was on the video driver, so I suspected the card was overheating. I turned the fan setting up to 80% from the default of 59% and haven't had a problem since.

 

[AdamSnow]

Yep, same problem as you exactly... I thought I had something messed up on my machine, RAM, not enough voltage on my CPU, etc... thought it was just my PC...

Went to my wifes machines which has a 6600GT, finished the area, and now it works fine...

You are not alone - and that makes me feel better as well... I know it's not bad hardware on my end.

 

[Xed]

Had constant lock ups for no reason requiring a hard boot since 2.0.3

I eventually dropped aa to 2x from 4, turned off the ui acceleration, and turned off hardware accelerated sound, no lock ups in 3 days since. Few others I know say turning on smooth mouse stopped their lockups. /shrug

 

[Rangoric]

No issues with mine & WoW, been playing alot since release.

Sig is a bit off, using 1 8800GTX.

 

[JohnAn2112]

I had one problem in Thrallmar, but I'm using an ATI X800 Pro card. I right clicked on the jewel vendor to sell loot/do repairs and my entire screen went snowy, got kicked back into Windows and a windows popped up saying that Windows recovered from a VPU error. It didn't kick me out of WoW though. It was minimized and I was able to just maximize the WoW window and keep questing.

 

[nitromullet]

No lockups here anywhere since TBC with an 8800GTX, and I've been playing a lot. I don't think I've gotten as far into Outland as you have yet. I've rolled a few Blood Elves, and generally have been playing my alt after dinging 61 on my main. (with the amount of XP required to level, I really don't want to do it while I'm in the purple)

WoW runs pretty well for me. I have had occasional lockups, but they are very seldom. The last time I experienced issues was when I had my rig overclocked a bit... Brought it back down to stock, and it has been rock solid again.

 

[Aikouka]

Hmm I think I'll list my settings when I get the chance (was too busy playing in Nagrand last night ). I know that I'm running all graphical settings maxed out; except AF was set to 0 since I originally did this via the drivers and I heard leaving AF on and letting the drivers handle AF caused slight graphical issues and AA was set to 4x. Now, AF is maxed out and AA is set to 8x in game. I turned off Vertex Shading as per the advice above. I have Hardware Mouse control on, but I don't think I have smooth mouse control.

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
I had one lockup after playing for several hours straight. The BSOD was on the video driver, so I suspected the card was overheating. I turned the fan setting up to 80% from the default of 59% and haven't had a problem since.

I thought that may have been the problem, so I opened the nVidia monitor and kept it open on my second LCD. The temperature when the PC froze was about 69C, which was actually not the highest the card ever got (I think it went up to about 71 or 72). The card "idles" around 62C if I remember correctly.

EDIT: To also add to that, I didn't suspect that it was a heat issue, because the problem seemed to be located to JUST those arrokoa villages. Usually something so specific wouldn't be a heat issue, unless there was possibly something intense going on. The thing is, there really isn't anything intense going on.

EDIT 2: Here are my WoW settings (when the game was crashing):

Resolution: 1680x1050
Refresh: 60Hz
Multisampling: 24-bit color 24-bit depth 4x multisample
*Windowed Mode* - *MAXIMIZED*

Terrain Distance: High
Terrain Texture: High
Spell Detail Level: High
Environment Detail: High
Texture Detail: High
Weather Intensity: High
Anisotropic Filtering: Low

*Use Desktop Gamma*

*Enable All Shader Effects*
-- *Terrain Highlights*
-- *Death EFfect*
*Vertex Animation Shaders*
-- *Smooth Shading*
*Weather Shaders*

*Trilinear Filtering*
*Cinematic Subtitles*
*Hardware Cursor*
-- *Smooth Mouse*

 

[Count Dooku]

Yo im having the exact same issues as the original poster. Up until that patch tuesday morning my game was working fine. I logged on last night and i began to get that NV blue screen of death. I logged back on to play a bit more after a hard crash and restart..........


same thing. I got to play a little bit and it crashed. This happened a few more times. Tonight i deleted every add on and WDB WTF folders and still............ crash after crash after crash. This definitely is not a hardware issue. I run every game i have (Oblivion NWN2, COD... No problems)

Man i hate when crap like this happens. I also used Driver Cleaner Platinum and did fresh install of drivers.............. ran Orthos stress test. All clear. Dammmmmmit.

Forgot to say my game was working dam fine at 16AA and 16 AF and all the yummies turned up. GG Blizz.......... GG

 

[Count Dooku]

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t25758.html

i found the link above with a lot of info. Heres a snip it for any of you out there getting this horrible .......... and unnecessary crash.

Text

Jan 21 2007, 12:03 PM
There is a thread on the WoW forums for this issue: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=69639426&sid=1. It has more details on machine configuartions. From the list, it appears the only consistant piece of hardware is the 8800 (GTX or GTS). Drivers have been 97.02, 97.44, and 97.92. Blizzard has stated that they can repro the problem in-house, so let's hope that Blizzard and Nvidia can create a fix quickly.

In addition to the problems in Terokkar a consistant repro has been seen in the Blood Elf starting region. The second floor of the troll area, with the chieftan, causes the BSD. It has happend in ghost form (though it seems to be less consistant).

One fix that was suggested was to turn off threaded optimizations, but that fix didn't work. I'll add this thread to the WoW forum and mention the 2x possible work-around.