Vista gaming errors

[Ferral]

I'm guessing that at least some of you Vista users will have come across this.

Whilst running games it tends to stutter as aparently the GPU is recovering from an error (this happens in the background). Now normally when it happens you get the mentioned stuttering but in some extreme cases it causes the game to actually lock up and you have to hit the reset button.

If you do actually manage to get out the game you get a yellow triangle next to the clock with an exclamation mark saying that the GPU has recovered from a serious error. Bizarre thing for me is when I first installed Vista dual booted with XP it didn't happen at all and I was a happy gamer. Now though trying to play Overlord, Oblivion or Mafia it is happening frequently and is starting to get on my nerves understandably.

Apparently it has something to do with framerates dropping below a set limit and Vista starts to do the debug / recovery thing. I can kind of understand it with Oblivion and to a lesser extent Overlord, Mafia on the other hand it should not be happening at all. It ran superb with everything maxxed out at a high framerate.

I have tried all the usual stuff like Vsync, slowing my memory and CPU down by a bit but to no luck, also tried dropping resolution down in the games to get a higher framerate. From what I have discovered trawling the web it is called a TDU error (can't remember what it stands for off the top of my head). My graphics card is only hitting about 60 degrees when gaming so I know it is not that or a hardware fault my side.

So question is anyone else here come across this and a decent fix to rectify the glitch? I don't want to have to go back to XP now even though it is really stable, everything I have attached to my PC is working great under Vista.

[Spitfire01]

I am getting the problems, becuase the graphics drivers stop responding my games lock up and it's getting on ym nerves when playing the WiC beta. I updated drivers as they said stops most "Driver stopped responding" incidences but not changed anything for me.

[dangel]

Sounds like both of you have an nvidia card - try the latest beta drivers they can (sometimes) improve the situation. The drivers are pretty sub par atm. Use a driver cleaner (like http://www.nekrosoft.net/XDC/XDC_0.3.zip) too - like this:

1. uninstall nvidia driver
2. reboot (this allows post-uninstallation file removal to take place)
3. reboot once more, choose to start in safe mode (because in safe mode we can remove system files with the cleaner)
4. run XDC and clean off any nvidia graphics driver remnants. (only the graphics stuff tho!)
5. reboot
6. install new driver

The current Vista driver is 163.11 from here: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_do...etadriver.html

[Ferral]

I'm on ATI but from what I have read he problem is right across the board. Giving the same error regardless what GPU you own. Microsoft know about i and are currently looking towards a fix but nothing yet. Bit of luck it will be tackled from both sides by Microsoft and also the driver creators from Nvidia and ATI.

[Spitfire01]

Loving the look of those beta drivers (stated specifically for the WiC beta) cheers..

[Ferral]

Update on this one. Stopped getting the errors now after installing the new Catalyst 7.7 drivers.

[]EGG[]

Catalyst 7.7 drivers to the rescue, glad I wasn't the only one suffering the same problems and pleased to read these latest drivers help. Off to download and try them now.