DOW crashes using ATI video card

[gandalf72704]

I've cruised the forums and see that I'm not alone in having problems with this game. Same problems, unexpected crashes to desktop or just black screen that forces a reboot. Ok here's what I have and what I've tried and found out:

system:
nforce 3 ultra
amd64 3500
512 meg dual channel
74gig raptor
ati 9550se
the system crashes when the large battles (several units) starts
sometimes I get error message "your vpu has stopped responding and vpu recovery has reset vpu" ati software, or I just crash to a black screen.
I can replace the ati 9550se with my nvidia fx5200, recreate the battles and the fx5200 does not crash(ever), but frames rate slow down to an unacceptable level. After the battles everything speed back up again.
my system has all updated drivers and updates, onboard sound

Then I can play DOW on my laptop (dell 9100) ati 9700 mobile, 865 dual channel motherboard, ac97 sound, with absolutly no problems

what gives, I think its my 9550se (64bit memory bandwidth), but the card plays every other game I have with no problems????

[TBS]

warnings.log and dxdiag please.

[ÜberJumper]

and please read this thread.

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=49944

(ALL of it, but especially the second post)

[Vertigo]

People have VPU recovery errors in tons of games, on tons of different platforms. I've never noticed DoW be unusually susceptible to this.

One note: It's been my experience that people who have lots of VPU errors tend to have AGP fast-write enabled. Do you?

[gandalf72704]

I have been reading this forum, and I take it that if nobody knows how to fix your problem, they ask you to post 6 pages of info, that nobody bothers to read and give back any handy info. If you have no idea of how to fix the problem, just say so don't clog the forum with needless clutter unless you are going to actually read the info and give the person a resolution. DoW does have some problems, would not play on my ati 9550Se, no matter what setting (high or low), would play fine (on medium settings on FX 5200), and will play great on my 9700 pro (at high settings), all on the same machine, I'm beginning to think it is video card memory bandwidth problem, 9550se 64 bit memory access, but much faster than the fx5200, but fx5200 has 128bit memory bandwidth, and played fine.
So come on folks, try to really help people not put them off by demanding information that you are not reading to figure out what thier problem is.

[Moe]

Hi. I strongly suggest you change your attitude towards the people who try to help others with no pay or other incentives whatsoever, in their own free time.
We need the log files to rule out certain errors. Your assumption that we do not read those files is both arrogant and incorrect.
We're not the official tech support, just a group of fans trying to help out. Obviously we can't solve everyone's problems. If you had bothered to read the file titled "readme" you would have noticed that the official support is being done by THQ. Go to their site if your problem isn't being solved here.
Now, you can either provide the log files for us to look at and follow the suggestions from these boards, or you can choose to take your problems elsewhere. In any case, you will NOT bitch at the volunteers again.

[DurochD]

I put this post in this thread because it may fit the best:

I'm away from home right now, but will post the required details this evening when I get home, but here is some preliminary info:

I ran DOW (patched to 1.2) since day 1 last Spetember on both of my Athlon Emachines at home. One was patched to SP2 and the other ran on SP1. Both have Geoforce cards and the game ran great on both systems.

Well, my sons system fried the other day (power spike killed the motherboard or cpu, not sure) and I went out and bought a new Emachines Athlon 64 3200 machine with on-board ATI PCI express graphics. After the initial startup, I loaded DOW and patched it to 1.2. I then ran the game and noticed that it was crashing about 2-10 minutes into each game. I tried updating drivers, etc to no avail. I also went out and got an ATI radeon 700 (?) PCI express card (the best buy geek said it would DEFINITELY solve my proble!) and installed that and it STILL crashes. My daughters installed Sims2 on the machine and it crashes also. I played Empire Earth and it crashed about 30 minutes in. None of these games crashed on my older systems.

I pulled out the video card, reinstalled the recovery disk and the game actually seemed to run a bit longer (actually got through a small skirmish) but it crashed in the second game. If it is due to inadequate cooling, what are my options? Pulling off the cover for added cooling may have had a minor effect, but it still crashes.

I'm beginning to think that this is a problem due to either the Athlon 64 or ATI graphics.

Emachines has been unable to help and I am going to try THX next, but you guys seem VERY knowledgable, so I thought I would post here first.

I may go out and buy a Geoforce PCI express card to see if that helps.

This sucks! I may have to rip my old system away from my son!

Dave D.

[TBS]

emachinesare not designed with gaming in mind...and PCI graphics cards are inferior to AGP ones. Having said that the system you are running should be able to play DoW reasonably well and should certainly run those other games without problems.

Overheating could well be the issue (does the game crash to desktop or does the entire machine reboot/freeze?). If heating is the issue then you will need to buy some additional cooling for your computer - a google search will show you plenty of sites with various options.

If youve already tried opening the case the next step is to point a standard fan in there - if the games no longer crash then youve solved the problem, just buy some proper cooling for a more elegant, long term solution.

[DurochD]

Thanks for the reply.

It is PCI Express graphics which are supposed to be better than AGP, I think. Also, the machine has like a 2000 MHz FSB and lots of RAM, so it should be OK for medium-level games (no Doom 3 here, I would think?). All I wanna do is kick the 'Ooomie butt with my Orks and Eldar. Is that too much to ask? lol/jk.

I will try the cooling after this: I went to Best Buy over lunch and talked with the geeks there. The inisist that the on-board video is inadequate and that I should keep the card (no surprise there!) They say it was a misinstall of the Radeon card and gurantee they can get it to work! I will let them try and if they fail, it will only cost me a day or so of time.

I'll let you know what happens, but I still fear that it may be a problem with the ATI card coupled with the Athlon 64 processor.

I NEED to get this back up and running soon!

Dave D.

[TBS]

a misinstall is a possibility - let them have a look at it, if they cant get it working then I doubt that we will be able to suggest anything (but we will try :p)

[Vertigo]

Based on that info, I'm going to say your problem is NOT with your video card. If that many different cards all demonstrate the same problem, I'd look elsewhere.

Your system may be overheating. Or maybe the onboard RAM is crap, or maybe the mobo is defective. Or maybe your memory timing is too agressive. There are so many potential failure points, it's hard to tell.

But the fact that you already swapped so many parts, and the problem persists, tells me you should focus on the parts you HAVEN'T swapped.

So, you need to start by finding out which part is causing problems.

Me, I'd start by seeing if the BIOS has an onboard heat sensor for the CPU (it should for an AMD64). Make sure that's OK (often, the CPU heatsink is poorly seated and doesn't cool properly). I kid you not, get a housefan and blow into the open case at high speed to cool the memory. It's good to check for overheating first, as it's easy to isolate.

I'd see if you can borrow some known-good memory next, and install it with very slow timings (CAS 3 to maximize stability).

See what happens. If either of those things works, you'd IDed the problem area, and can then start worrying about the fix.

Also, look up your mobo part number and hit the web. If there's a history of stability problems (and some AMD64 boards had that problem), you can typically find out about it.

EDIT: Oh, and there's no universal problem with ATI and AMD64 chips; that's a very common pairing.

[ÜberJumper]

Duroch:

It's probably heat or bad memory... or some errant device driver. But by the sounds of it, one of the first two.

www.memtest86.com to test for bad memory. You could try taking the side of the case off and running it with a fan blowing on it.

Oh, and as you've got an ATI card, turn off that VPU recover.