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NFSCarbon

8K views 28 replies 4 participants last post by  Aus_Karlos 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Looking over the threads i have come to the conclusion that its the 8 Series. As i have an 8800GTS the game also freezes on mine. But its more of a shuttering motion when i move really fast, like my HDD is to slow (When the led light hardly flickers)
It worked great in XP but with Vista and especially 64-bit there are lots of bug to work out.
The best you can do is make sure all drivers are up-to-date as well as the game. Close all unwanted processes, and try disabling any Anti-Virus they have the most adverse affect on games.

I also would like to know your full specs of your PSU running 2x 8800GTX require a very decent PSU, Its not all about the Wattage.
For a spec example look at my system PSU on the left.
 
#4 ·
Just as i suspected your PSU is no where near powerful enough to run 1 8800GTX at full speed.

Yours: +3.3V@25A
Nvidia rec: +3.3V@30A

Yours: 12V1@18A
Nvidia rec: 12V@34A

For now i would remove 1 of the 8800GTX and play the games, sometimes under-voltage hardware can be damaged. Then buy a new PSU.
If you need any help to pick out a PSU just ask.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Huh?

I was told by an official nvidia member that my PSU was more than capable of running 2 GTX's it's actually a powersupply recommended for SLi for 8800GTX's.

I can play Hellgate london; which is more intensively graphic in detail than NFSCarbon and with SLi enabled I can run that game at 70-90 sometimes up to 140FPS with no drops in FPS, and your telling me a game I run at 50-70FPS that drops down to 0FPS 3-4 times a track is caused by my PSU, I'm sorry I just don't believe that. I also play trackmania united and it's more intensely graphic than NFSCarbon and I have it on the max settings, not one glitch at all from that game and that's with 16-30+ cars running around the race track.

I'm sure if my PSU was too weak I'd be experiencing BSoD's for sure.

From wwwSLIZone.com (http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html)

For Dual GeForce 8800 GTX
Choose from the following manufacturers:
Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W (RS-850-EMBA)
what's in my specs?
PSU: COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-850-EMBA ATX12V / EPS12V 850W
.... looks like a match to me.

Plus I have 2x 12v rails going into a PSU thats 18+18 = 36A x 2 that's 4 rails taken up for the cards a total of 72A and a total of 2 rails left for the motherboard drives, etc.

Yours: 12V1@18A
Nvidia rec: 12V@34A


Also that 12V1 rec rail is "IF" the card only has 1 12V rail that is powering everything and it's not split, some PSU's do have that and have a much higher amperage for the 12V rail, but mine uses 6x 12V rails.
 
#7 ·
Hi,

Before going any further, please click on "Common Game Issues" in my signature, and run through all the steps there. Post back with results.

In one of the NVIDIA Forum threads you linked to, you said you were using the 169.04 drivers. Those are Beta drivers, and can't be considered stable; go here and download the latest release version drivers - 163.75.

I do not think the power supply is the problem, although I would be running that system on a 1000W. Your 850W should be able to handle it though.
 
#8 · (Edited)
I did say that I used the 163.75 drivers in the links I posted in my OP, but I still get the same issues. That's why I went to 169.04, but instead of nvidia's site I went to XFX's site and am now using the Official XFX 169.04 drivers as of now.

I already read the stickied post about what needs to be done before posting on the forum, I can assure you my system meets the specs, I can run the game with the CD or through a backup and it still occurs. In SLi it's worse, in Single card mode it still occurs but not as bad. I can assure that maybe NFS Carbon is not rigged up to handle SLi, but the problem is not entirely resolved with just the single card. The game is patched to v1.4 and I restart my computer every time I do anything drastic like change drivers, install something or get a nvlddmkm.sys error.

**note about the nvlddmkm.sys error** It seems I get this only in SLi mode, but I'm testing it thoroughly. I thought I narrowed it down to the issue occuring with the Vista GUI and the Nvidia drivers or DX10, but that ruled that problem out when I got the error on Windows Classic GUI with no addons running such as WindowBlinds that would attempt to force some features of the Aero GUI to run. So now I'm just running 1 card with the SLi feature disabled; like I mentioned above, NFS Carbon runs a bit better, but the drop to 0 FPS for 1-1.5secs still occurs but not as frequently as it did before, and it doesn't stall out as much on some maps as it does on the first map I tried. Where my example was 3-4 stalls during a race of 2 laps around the track, where on a mountain drift run it might stall out 1 or 2 times.

It's hard to believe though how smooth the game runs for it to abruptly stall out like that.

Here's my dxdiag just in case anything else may be needed from it.


--- Also let me give you a listing of games I play that DO play fine.

WarCraft 3 - FT (Runs with SLi fine, even though there's no benefit)
Unreal Tournament 3 Demo (Ran SLi Fine)
Titan Quest (Ran SLi Fine)
Supreme Commander and FA (Runs fine in SLi, never seemed to have an issue with nvlddmkm.sys error with this game)
Oblivion (Runs in SLi fine, until nvlddmkm.sys error shows up)
RF Online (Runs in SLi fine)
Need for Speed Pro Street (Only runs good with 1 card, SLi not supported)
Need For Speed Carbon (Already a given)
Lineage 2 (Runs fine in SLi)
Hellgate London (Runs great in SLi, except for the nvlddmkm.sys error)
Halo 2 (Runs fine in SLi)
Gears of War (Runs fine in SLi, havent had an issue with it yet)
FarCry (Ran fine in SLi when I played it, had some BSoD errors but that's when I first got my 8800GTX's and drivers weren't mature, ran good after that)
F.E.A.R (Runs fine in SLi)
EverQuest 2 (Could run in SLi but FPS dropped, only supports single card)
Company of Heroes - OF (Ran fine in SLi, until nvlddmkm.sys error occurred)
Call of Duty 4 Demo (Ran fine in SLi, no issues)
9 Dragons (Ran fine in SLi)
Half-Life 2 (Ran fine in SLi)
CounterStrike Source (Ran fine in SLi)

now most of these games ran good, the nvlddmkm.sys error is very random it could happen 5mins to 2hrs to 2 days later from showing it's face. It's a very odd error and something new to me with Nvidia cards, honestly I've used ATI up until Dec last year when the 8800's were out. I never once had an issue that would disrupt my system with ATI like I am now with Nvidia, ultimately it's greatly irritating.

So the games I did not receive that error on doesn't mean that the game itself was immune to that error, it just probably wasn't that right time, whatever in the hell that means I dunno, but that's just how the error seems to work, it want's to show up when it feels like to.

I could play maybe 3 or 4 different games after another without the error, really it hasn't been that big of a deal for me and really I remember having this issue before a long while back and haven't seen it since so I really don't know what was done to fix it, if it even was a driver issue or not. Some people recall not even seeing the error at all so that's just some added information to include with my main problem NFS Carbon's performance drops.

I don't experience any BSoD's, no crashes, no freezes or random reboots, nothing out of the oridnary. My BIOS are at F7 and my drivers on all my hardware is at the latest version or firmware.
 

Attachments

#9 ·
Also on top of that, let me give you the link to my nvlddmkm.sys error post I created on another forum just to give you some extent in detail of what I've already done and tried doing with my troubleshooting.

It's very important you read this thoroughly for some of your idea's you may be giving me to try may have already been tried or done in my post here.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?act=ST&f=25&t=50939&st=0#entry278211

I ended my posting on troubleshooting there so far for the moment after trying out the XFX Drivers have failed after they worked for such a long time without giving me that error.

I've also contacted XFX and they are supposedly contacting their managers about something, regarding this issue, I have yet to hear any updates from them yet. I can post it here too for you to see what they replied with.


Messages
[Xeno326 - 11/15/2007] I don`t know who to take this up with. It appears I cannot contact Nvidia directly. I ruled out the issue to be related down to the Windows Vista Aero/Vista Basic GUI and either the Nvidia Drivers or DX10. What happens is when I have one of those 2 GUI`s enabled after awhile of gaming or exiting the game I get the notorious "nvlddmkm" error. I resolved it by using the Windows Classic Theme. There are a few posts I have on the SLI Forums that you can find here with some extensive testing (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?act=ST+f=25+t=50939+st=0#entry278211) I also have another issue where no matter what I do I cannot stop random drops in FPS from 70-90 down to 0 FPS on the game Need For Speed Carbon. No clue if it`s driver related or what, but it`s an issue that needs to be brought up for fixing none-the-less. I have a YouTube video made of the issue happening and I have 2 posts made, here (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=51182+st=0+p=279315+) and here at the end (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=45422+st=0+p=279787+) Also I`m using driver version 169.04 (no need for the latest one) and I`ve also ran 163.75 WHQL and had the same issues. The name I go under on the forums is Xeno326. Hope that helps with all the information needed to assist in solving my problem, thanks.

[CURTIS - 11/16/2007] Thank you, I will forward this information along to our management for a bug submission. Is Neeed for speed carbon the only application you get these randome drops in performance? Do you have the latest patches and hot fixes for the game installed. Also if possible , update your motherboard BIOS and chipset drivers. Please let us know how you are doing. Curtis

[Xeno326 - 11/17/2007] Yes I have the latest v1.4 patch for NFSCarbon as well as any and all posted hotfixes for WinVista 64-bit. BIOS is already updated as well as the nforce drivers to the latest version and this is the only game I`m having issues with in this manner. As for the nvlddmkm error is there nothing that can be done with that, or just wait from a response to that issue when you get info back from management? Also if that`s the case will I hear a response of what will be happening, as in a fix in the works a fix in an upcoming patch, et cetera.

[Xeno326 - 11/19/2007] Figured I`d update this, oddly enough while using just the Windows Classic theme, I started up Hellgate London and when I entered the game I got the error again. So I don`t know where to pin-point this issue now, because it`s now happening in the any theme used, just seems more frequent and determined witht Aero or Vista Basic enabled. Something wrong with my cards or is this a driver issue? Also I was using AF2 in the SLi config.
 
#10 ·
I use to get the "nvlddmkm" error on all source games. I later found out i had a faulty motherboard (after going through three other GPU's). But it may not be the same case. But as i said before i also own a copy of NFS:Carbon and a 8800GTS and the same thing happens to me. Considering we both have Vista 64-bit and a 8 Series GPU, it must mean the problem lies either in the Nv Drivers or Vista.
But try what a few ppl say on the other forums, undercock your GPU's only by 15-20mhz, you wont notice any loss and it wont void your warranty.
The 8 Series temps have a max of 80c before they throttle down to stop damage.
 
#11 ·
Ya underclocking is the only thing I haven't tried yet, but my temps I recorded on the other forum shows 58/64c or 62/70c on the temps. It's barely even passing 70 if even. I've had the nvlddmkm.sys error happen to me when the card was VERY cool, so I doubt underclocking would fix that error message from showing up. The card at max is supposed to withstand what is it up to 110 or 120c before completly burning up. So it's hard to figure in a heat issue when it happens, see the wierd thing is, the skip happens EXACTLy in the same parts of the map, it's not like a random thing that happens when more action takes place in certain areas, it happens whether I got 6 cars near me or I'm in the lead by myself ahead of the pack.
 
#12 ·
If they happen in the same part of the map, all the time you may have a fragmented HDD. Also underclocking isnt always to keep heat at bay, underclocking should help stable any driver issues, or if your M/B FSB is working to hard, underclocking may help stability in that area.
 
#13 ·
Well I defrag'd my hard drive 2 days ago using ultimate defrag so I'm sure that's taken care of. I underclocked the card 20Mhz on the core; which automatically took it down to 1300 on the shader clock and then I took the memory clock down to 880.

My original clocks are 576 / 1350 / 900

I'll give it a try running SLi on NFS Carbon see if it skips anymore, I'll try with single first before enabling SLi to see if that changed anything at all. Then if it did or didn't I'll run SLi and see if it gives me an error at all.
 
#14 ·
Ok tried it out, NFS Carbon still does it. The reason it's not as noticeable as it is in SLi is because when SLi is running the game seems a bit more sluggish, but much smoother in Single-card mode. The frames still drop in those 2 places goes from 60FPS on menu to 40-50FPS at start of game down to maybe about 30-40 in some areas then it hits that recognizeable area and drops to 16fps for a second and pops back up to 30.

That is a single card, underclocked 20+Mhz and I can tell ya right now that I will not see the nvddlmkm.sys error with a single card, BECAUSE I've been playing EverQuest 2 for the past few months and that's the reason it hasn't popped up, since EQ2 is not SLi capable I've been just running the single card mode during that time since that game was more of a daily thing, now it's not so much and I want to play my games that actually use SLi, meaning HGL, CoH and I'll get the errors randomly and just to make it clear it didn't just happen in-game all the time, I had an example of where it occurred just on a simple menu right click in the OS and the screen just flashed and displayed the error balloon.

So I dunno where to go from here, Single card works fine in some cases, unfortunately theres some issue with NFS Carbon, but SLi is what I paid for and I want it to work without those issues. Someone asked me before if my SLI bridge was cracked or damaged in any way, nope I can guarantee nothing is wrong with the chip. I examined it closely and I have only removed it from the cards a total of 2 times during this PC's life and it seems to be working properly, I'm sure if the SLI chip was cracked it would cause a problem with detecting SLi with my system.

Man I dunno where to go from here, I mean EA can go to hell they make **** games, I don't think I'm worried too much more about the NFS Carbon issue, what my main concern is - is the nvlddmkm.sys error that pops up when SLi is running.
 
#15 ·
If the error is constantly poping up (even on the desktop) then more than likely you have the same problem as i did, a faulty motherboard. But it could just be the drivers ur using. But wait until Indoril Nerevar pops his head in as i dont want you to spend money and find out the M/B wasnt the problem, he may have some tests u can try.
 
#16 ·
Well not constantly, I may use that term a bit loosely, but it feels that way, it's several times a day for sure and of course once that error shows up because the GPU is resetting itself to overcome the error, you are forced to reboot otherwise if you start up a game and once it starts rendering anything 3D again it will consistently blank out the screen until you go back to desktop to see the error there.

I can play games for awhile like 2hrs or 2days and be fine or I can play them for 5 -10 minutes and have it appear, it's oddly random.

I updated BIOS from .F7 to .F8H version, all it had was CPU ID G1/G2 stepping though.

I'll try testing it some more in SLi mode later on today, going to get some sleep now. If ya think of anything just let me know.

What's wierd about it being a mobo issue is that it runs fine with 1 card and errors out with SLi and I had my first card i bought in the primary slot for a long while then bought my 2nd card and put it into the secondary slot, then I dunno what the deal was but I had switched the cards in their slots and I know I didn't have any problems in Single card mode with my primary card nor my secondary card that has been in the primary slot for awhile now.

I remember when I first started having the nvlddmkm.sys error was an actual BSoD screen telling me the error and not a pop-up balloon. This was early when I first had my 8800GTX and I was testing out Far Cry. The game seemed to work on everything but Far Cry and I believe they fixed it with a driver upgrade to where I didn't get that error anymore and I could play it just fine. That's why it boggles me why it is appearing now, and I can't remember if I was using WinVista 32-bit or if I was still using WinXP Pro SP2 at the time it occurred, but regardless the problem was solved.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Well yes they're the same manufacture model number. The only thing different; which is what kinda dissappointed me a bit was the one I bought first in Dec was made out of black PCB material and the second one I bought a few months ago was made out of green PCB material, but the name, stickers, model identifications are the same. I doubt PCB material would have an impact on the card functioning or not because PCB is made the same and stamped on with the electronic components, just various different colors.

The only thing I can't verify is if the clocks are set the same on both cards, like I mentioned before with RivaTuner I wasn't able to set any underclocks or overclocks in SLi mode, but I could with just single-card enabled.

I can see the backs of the cards easy in my case and read the sticker labels, the one that tells about the cards read

Card 1: Black PCB
PV-T80F-SHF9 v1.2 W11/06
GF 8800GTX 575M 768MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV
Card 2: Green PCB
PV-T80F-SHF9 v1.2 W12/06
GF 8800GTX 575M 768MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV
 
#19 · (Edited)
I did another test today running some games.

Temps Idle: 49/58c
Company of Heroes (Started Game 6:00pm / NVLDDMKM.SYS Error at 6:16pm)
Temps on Error: 48/62c
Game Settings: AA off / VSync Off / Rest of settings on and maxed at 1920x1200 res
Game Type Settings: Victory Point Control / Point Goal 1000 / 8 players 7 AI / Dusk Rain Weather
NV Control Panel Settings: AF 8x / On / Override App / AA 4x / Multisample / Use hardware / off / off / Trilinear / Single Display / Force SFR / on-board DIN / Off / Clamp / High Quality / Off / Auto / Off / Force Off

Rebooted PC

Temps Idle: 52/55c
Supreme Commander (Started Game 6:31pm / NVLDDMKM.SYS N/A)
Temps on Error: N/A
Game Settings: AA off / VSync Off / Rest of settings on and maxed at 1920x1200 res
Game Type Settings: Annihilation / 8 players 7 AI / Setons Clutch Map /
- First attempt showed a wierd 4'x3' rectanglular box in the upper left hand corner with a mesh of virticle lines showing colors that matched the ground map and scrolled as I panned my view over the map.
- When I hit spacebar to get into a 3d view of the world terrain I noticed pixelated black dots in the sky area.
- Closed game out opened again same issue. Took screenshots.
- Changed SLi to AF1 tried again, still occurred.
- Went to GPGnet checked for any updates, updated to latest, tried again same issue.
- Disabled SLi went with just Singl-GPU for the app only, same issue.
- Disabled SLi completly in the NVControl Panel, game runs faster, the 4'x3' box is gone, but black dots still appear in the sky.
- Tried running Oblivion and I get no artifacts inside that game - took screens.
- I haven't played Supreme Commander with the XFX 169.04 drivers until now, so it may be a driver issue.

NV Control Panel Settings: AF 8x / On / Override App / AA 4x / Multisample / Use hardware / off / off / Trilinear / Single Display / Force SFR / on-board DIN / Off / Clamp / High Quality / Off / Auto / Off / Force Off
(Graphic Artifact Problem ruined test in search for a NVLDDMKM.SYS Error)

Temps Idle: 45/56c
Trackmania United (Started Game 8:42pm / Ended Game 9:14pm No Error)
Temps on Error: 54/65c (No Error)
Game Settings: AA None / Shader PC3 High / Texture High / Max Filtering Trilinear / Shadows Complex / PostProcexx FX's On / Force Motion Blur On / Lightmaps On / Force Bloom On / Water Geometry On / Geometry Details Normal / Cars Qualty All High / Cars Particles All High / Projectors on Cars All Cars / Opponents Always Visible / Opponents Shadows On / Opponents Limit Count 15 / Background Quality High / 1920x1200 Res
Game Type Settings: N/A
NV Control Panel Settings: AF 8x / On / Override App / AA 4x / Multisample / Use hardware / off / off / Trilinear / Single Display / Force SFR / on-board DIN / Off / Clamp / High Quality / Off / Auto / Off / Force Off

Oblivion

Temps Idle: 54/64c
Trackmania United (Started Game 9:17pm / Ended Game 9:43pm No Error)
Temps on Error: N/A
Game Settings: Maxed Sliders, HDR on, AA Off ingame / 1920x1200 Res
Game Type Settings: N/A
NV Control Panel Settings: AF 8x / On / Override App / AA 4x / Multisample / Use hardware / off / off / Trilinear / Single Display / Force SFR / on-board DIN / Off / Clamp / High Quality / Off / Auto / Off / Force Off

Other games I know I don't get the NVLDDMKM.SYS error in are Half-Life 2 and CounterStrike Source. So it still appears to be software related instead of hardware related.
 
#20 ·
--- More Info ---

Temps Idle: 47/55c
Gears of War (Started Game 12:21am / 12:29am Game crashed to desktop, no NVLDDMKM.SYS Error)
- Reinstalled 169.09 Drivers
- Testing again.
- Still crashes, still no nvlddmkm.sys error
- read up that you need to start-up GoW as administrator; I didn't need to do this before. When I first installed it I was able to play it fine without any issues up to the area where theres the courtyard and a round fountain type courtyard to take cover in.
- Tried as administrator and the game crashed 2 different times in 30 seconds, one on the menu looking at my keyboard controls and another loading into the game, this second one did produce the nvlddmkm.sys error, even though it didn't balloon, the screen blinked to reset and showed the yellow icon in the corner.
- Trying with single-card selected for this app while under SLi.
- Crashed to desktop again, but no nvlddmkm.sys error this time. (Guessing there's some kind of conflict with this game, running through campaign)
Error Temps: 48/57c
Game Settings: DX10 On / AA off / Maxed settings on 1920x1200 res

Supreme Commander (Graphic Artifact problem fixed)
- Figured out the pixelated dots was coming from the "background image" for the strategy map display, disabled that option and the graphics are fine now for the rendered clouds not looking artifacted anymore.
- Reinstalled 169.09 and can run Supreme Commander in SLi just fine without that 4'x 3' box showing up.
 
#21 · (Edited)
- Received nvlddmkm.sys error 25 minutes into gameplay with 8 players 7 AI on Setons Clutch (Large Map) with unit limit of 1000 for each player on max settings, no aa, 1920x1200 reso.
- Went into Single Display mode 5:56am, 51/53c temps idle, 54/56c load in game, had improved FPS with single vs SLi, 80-90 on menu vs 30, 40-50 in game until mass units were on screen vs 15-20, played for 15mins in game, about 30mins real-time due to slower processing speed of units and action on map no nvlddmkm.sys error.

--- Notice a pattern here? Some games work flawlessly with SLi enabled, others don't and error out with nvlddmkm.sys.

I'm going to try something physical with my cards and see something, I wanna make sure though when single GPU is enable it is definitely useing the GPU on top closest to the CPU; which to me would make logical sense, right?

Also when SLi is turned off it's like I'm removing the second GPU completly out of my system physically (without the physical work) and running based off the 1 GPU, without that 2nd card interferring with anything, right?

What I want to try first if that's the case is disable SLi completly, try Gears of War again and see if it fouls up again, because I think the reason I got as far as I did on that game was because SLi was completly disabled before. So I'll give that a shot again.

Also my other test will be to run NFSCarbon with 1 card and test between the 2 cards to see if one or the other performs better in that game.

What I will end up doing is putting my 2nd card that I bought first, back into slot 1 and trying the same games out with just that one card and see if I see some repeat issues on some games that had problems with just 1 card; which seems to be only 2 game titles.
 
#22 ·
This is the error I get with GoW

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<ExceptionReport Version="4">
<Application Build="28887" Command=""C:\Games\Gears of War\Binaries\wargame-g4wlive.exe" -seekfreeloading -final_release -installed -langid=0409"/>
<OperatingSystem Type="2"><Version Major="6" Minor="0" Build="6000"/></OperatingSystem>
<Exception Code="C0000005" Address="07660D93"></Exception>
<Registers EAX="8004930B" EBX="00000000" ECX="0783F274" EDX="00000001" ESI="6FFA1E20" EDI="00000009" CS="0023" EIP="07660D93" SS="002B" ESP="28EDFDE0" EBP="28EDFE64" DS="002B" ES="002B" FS="0053" GS="002B" Flags="00010282"/>
<BackTrace>
<Frame ProgramCounter="07660D93" StackAddress="28EDFDE0" FrameAddress="28EDFE64">
<StackHexDump From="28EDFDE0" To="28EDFE60">00 c0 3b 00 c8 e1 3f 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 c4 01 dd 00 00 00 00 00 3f 77 00 00 00 00 32 31 88 75 b0 66 34 00 01 00 00 00 88 74 34 00 20 fe ed 28 df b2 41 77 7a a8 43 77 55 18 88 75 ff ff ff ff 48 fe ed 28 00 00 00 00 34 fe ed 28 00 10 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 58 d5 79 70 06 00 00 00 68 84 06 70 20 ff ed 28 64 d5 79 70 06 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 20 ff ed 28 1c 96 31 70 c0 fe ed 28</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="28EDFEF4" StackAddress="28EDFE6C" FrameAddress="70068653">
<StackHexDump From="28EDFE64" To="28EDFEE4">53 86 06 70 f4 fe ed 28 00 c0 3b 00 c8 e1 3f 00 0e 9b 31 70 6e 00 00 00 ee dd 02 00 00 80 0c 00 53 06 00 00 74 2a 7d 70 87 4f ff 6f 02 00 00 00 fa a5 05 00 61 84 0c 00 f2 01 f9 0c 61 e0 de 2d 3f a6 05 00 fa a5 ff 6f 00 01 02 03 04 05 ed 28 44 ff ed 28 8c 00 66 07 61 00 00 00 19 b0 9b 89 c1 c9 e4 01 00 00 66 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5b a6 05 00</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="83E52E6E" StackAddress="7006865B" FrameAddress="70068657">
<StackHexDump From="70068653" To="70068657">eb 08 8f d3</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="468BD57E" StackAddress="7006865F" FrameAddress="7006865B">
<StackHexDump From="70068657" To="7006865B">6e 2e e5 83</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
</BackTrace>
</ExceptionReport>


Happens when the grub hole spawns, last time it happened a good while after the grub hole spawned in both SLi and single card, so I'm sure it's a game issue. No nvlddmkm.sys error or icon pops up when it crashes to desktop so that's legitimate.

Now I tried with my black PCB card

Need for speed Carbon
- still drops frames at the same spot around the track.
- steady 45-57fps
- card temp 54c
- dropped down to 16fps the first lap
- dropped down to 0fps the second lap

Hellgate London
- Ok, got the nvlddmkm.sys error with my black PCB card
- So what's this say? Possibly something wrong with a ram stick on that card? When it finally loads data into the ram it jacks up? Who knows. I used both cards (Green and Black PCB) in my primary slot for SLi. (Green was already in that slot through all the testing with SLi disable entirely)
- I even used the same power cords used to power my Green PCB (Secondary purchased) to power my Black PCB (Primarily purchased), I've been using the green PCB as my primary card through all this testing.

I'm going to do 1 more test and thats with supreme commander to see if it errors out like it did for me yesterday in SLi. If it does then I know definately something is wrong with the card.

Give me 15mins I'll have a post here after reboot.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Supreme Commander
- Ran good with my 1000 units + 7 other AI's units, no nvlddmkm.sys error.

Company of Heroes
- 6 minutes in the game I received nvlddmkm.sys error.
- 7 AI's total FPS was going good, no other glitches or slow downs until the error occurred.

Now what I'll do is swap back in my green PCB card and try those games out again with it and see if it continues to happen.

Any other suggestions possibly while I try this out? Haven't heard from you or anyone else in a day of course it's getting close to thanksgiving and possibly your out of town.
 
#24 ·
Here's a compilation of all the data in the forums I posted about.
Issues:
- NFSCarbon freezes dropping FPS from 50-60 down to 0 on certain parts of any race track. The track itself doesn't appear to matter one way or another. (Drift, Circuit, Sprint)
- Gears of War crashes to desktop.
- Most not all games blank out the screen with a NVLDDMKM.SYS error.
- Hellgate London gets a nvlddmkm.sys error
- Also got an nvlddmkm.sys error while proceeding with the right click menu with Vista Aero enabled on my desktop, could have been a glitch can't remember if I had a game running at the time or if it was closing out as I was proceeding with the mouse command and it was just coincidence.

My Specs:
CASE: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
PSU: COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-850-EMBA ATX12V / EPS12V 850W
MB: GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5 Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD(Has F7 BIOS)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Windsor 2.8GHz Socket AM2 Dual Core (AMD DC Optimizer Installed)
RAM: 2xG.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit(4-4-4-12-2T)
GPU: 2xXFX PVT80FSHF9 GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP(Controlled by RivaTuner, 169.04 XFX drivers)
HDD: 2xMaxtor MaXLine Pro 500 7H500F0 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
SC: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS 70SB035000000 7.1 Channels
Bay 1: PLEXTOR 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Beige SATA Model PX-716SA/SW(Firmware v1.11)
Bay 2: SIIG JU-91RW12-S4 9-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader/Write + Floppy
MNTR: Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP Wide-Screen
MS/KB: Logitech Cordless MX Duo 967300-0403 Black USB + PS/2 RF Wireless
SPKR: Creative Inspire 5.1 5200 Speakers
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate

My Game Specs:
Max res 1920x1200 if available in the game, max settings/sliders with DX10 if available.

Things that don't seem to make a difference with my issue:
- Game style, gameroom/map settings.
- Video Driver version, used official XFX 169.04, beta nvidia 169.09, official 163.75 happens on all version.
- NVLDDMKM.SYS - Different OS GUI's doesn't seem to resolve the issue either with Vista, Vista Basic, Windows Classic or a WindowBlinds Theme.
- Although Windows Classic seemed to prolong the issue from occuring quite as often compared to the other GUI's I used.
- GPU choices such as SLi enabled or Single-card enable or taking out my cards and testing them out one at a time through each game doesn't seem to matter to prevent the error.
- Time, the time when NVLDDMKM.SYS appears does not seem to matter, it occurs from 2mins to 20mins to 2days. I had prolonged this issue up to 2 days running Windows Classic GUI.

Games that do not give me any problems:
WarCraft 3 - Frozen Throne, Unreal Tournament 3 Demo, Supreme Commander & Forged Alliance, Oblivion, RF Online, Need for Speed ProStreet, Lineage 2, Halo 2, Call of Duty 4 Demo, Half-Life 2, Counterstrike Source, 9 Dragons, Trackmania United, EverQuest 2. F.E.A.R., Far Cry, (I can run both these games in SLi, I have yet to try with 169.09 drivers)

About my 8800GTX's
- I have 2 cards, one is made out of Black PCB material the other is made out of Green PCB material.
- I bought the black one in Dec 2006, I bought the green one a few months later.

Things I tried:
- Running ATITool and checking for artifacts.
- Ran 10mins on single-card mode with no errors.
- Ran 1min 40secs with artifacts in rendering window (See below for further information)
- Uninstalled nTune and installed RivaTuner
- Checked the clocks of my cards. They run at 576 / 1350 / 900
- Underclocked my cards by 20Mhz
- Installed various drivers XFX 169.04, Beta Nvidia 169.09, Official Nvidia 163.75
- Ran driver cleaner pro in safe mode inbetween each driver install as well as removing all nv files that remained after the cleanup.
- Went through a step-by-step guide in removing any files with NV that could cause a "Corrupt Legacy Driver Issue".
- Double checked my PSU specs and requirements for Dual 8800GTX's. (Nvidia posts PSU as being comapatable for this SLi setup)
- Updated my BIOS to the latest version F8H
- Updated my nForce chipset drivers to the latest version
- Checked my SLi Bridge made sure it wasn't loose or cracked. (nothing from what I can see is damaged)
- Double checked my card's model numbers and making sure they matched. (They did)
Card 1: Black PCB
PV-T80F-SHF9 v1.2 W11/06
GF 8800GTX 575M 768MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV
Card 2: Green PCB
PV-T80F-SHF9 v1.2 W12/06
GF 8800GTX 575M 768MB DDR3 DUAL DVI TV
- Adjusted NVControl Panel settings trying different settings there as well as different SLi rendering profiles.
- Ran each card separately in the primary PCI-E slot.
- Tested various SLi configurations SS, AF1, AF2.
- Ruled out heating issues at various temps causing the problem.
- Had NVLDDMKM.SYS errors occur at 48c 58c 62c 65c
- Tested DX10 vs DX9 on the game apps I'm having issues with
- Tested Green card vs Black card on game apps.
- Installed any and all hot-fixed via Nvidia's site.
- Defrag'd HDD's.

Game tests and settings I've tried:

Gears of War
Here is the error message I get from XFire report:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ExceptionReport Version="4">
<Application Build="28887" Command=""C:\Games\Gears of War\Binaries\wargame-g4wlive.exe" -seekfreeloading -final_release -installed -langid=0409"/>
<OperatingSystem Type="2"><Version Major="6" Minor="0" Build="6000"/></OperatingSystem>
<Exception Code="C0000005" Address="07660D93"></Exception>
<Registers EAX="8004930B" EBX="00000000" ECX="0783F274" EDX="00000001" ESI="6FFA1E20" EDI="00000009" CS="0023" EIP="07660D93" SS="002B" ESP="28EDFDE0" EBP="28EDFE64" DS="002B" ES="002B" FS="0053" GS="002B" Flags="00010282"/>
<BackTrace>
<Frame ProgramCounter="07660D93" StackAddress="28EDFDE0" FrameAddress="28EDFE64">
<StackHexDump From="28EDFDE0" To="28EDFE60">00 c0 3b 00 c8 e1 3f 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 c4 01 dd 00 00 00 00 00 3f 77 00 00 00 00 32 31 88 75 b0 66 34 00 01 00 00 00 88 74 34 00 20 fe ed 28 df b2 41 77 7a a8 43 77 55 18 88 75 ff ff ff ff 48 fe ed 28 00 00 00 00 34 fe ed 28 00 10 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 58 d5 79 70 06 00 00 00 68 84 06 70 20 ff ed 28 64 d5 79 70 06 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 20 ff ed 28 1c 96 31 70 c0 fe ed 28</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="28EDFEF4" StackAddress="28EDFE6C" FrameAddress="70068653">
<StackHexDump From="28EDFE64" To="28EDFEE4">53 86 06 70 f4 fe ed 28 00 c0 3b 00 c8 e1 3f 00 0e 9b 31 70 6e 00 00 00 ee dd 02 00 00 80 0c 00 53 06 00 00 74 2a 7d 70 87 4f ff 6f 02 00 00 00 fa a5 05 00 61 84 0c 00 f2 01 f9 0c 61 e0 de 2d 3f a6 05 00 fa a5 ff 6f 00 01 02 03 04 05 ed 28 44 ff ed 28 8c 00 66 07 61 00 00 00 19 b0 9b 89 c1 c9 e4 01 00 00 66 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 5b a6 05 00</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="83E52E6E" StackAddress="7006865B" FrameAddress="70068657">
<StackHexDump From="70068653" To="70068657">eb 08 8f d3</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
<Frame ProgramCounter="468BD57E" StackAddress="7006865F" FrameAddress="7006865B">
<StackHexDump From="70068657" To="7006865B">6e 2e e5 83</StackHexDump>
</Frame>
</BackTrace>
</ExceptionReport>

- Game ran fine up to the courtyard scene after you escape the prison, evacuate in the helicopter, speak with the 4 star general, and bypass the abandoned church and go into the courtyard and then there's another courtyard with a round wall you can hop into and use as cover. In this area it seems to crash a lot and usually randomly when the grub holes spawn or if I get close to them as they spawn.
- Game also seems to crash very shortly in the menu screen, happened a few times 30 seconds into the menu.
- I tried both SLi, Dual Cards still installed but Single Card selected, Green Card, Black Card crashes to desktop still occur.
- The NVLDDMKM.SYS error has not happened with this game yet. Just a simple CTD (Crash-to-Desktop)
- I tried with DX10 enabled and then DX9, still occurs. Seemed I could play longer with DX9 enabled rather than DX10.

Need for Speed Carbon
- Tried running the game in SLi, figured out EA doesn't support SLi with this game too well, so I disabled SLi went with single-card mode, then tried Green Carb by itself and black card by itself, still occurs with the drop and freeze in FPS for 1-1.5secs.
- Occurs on any map type and style.

Supreme Commander
- I did received a NVLDDMKM.SYS error when running this game under SLI
- I did not receive an error running it in single-card mode and individually with the Green and Black cards by themselves.
- SLi seems to take a FPS hit on this game, Single-card mode does not.
- I did have an artifact issue with the background image being enabled, disabling that fixed the background and sky artifacts.
- I also had an issue with the XFX 169.04 drivers displaying a 4' x 3' rectangular box in the upper left hand corner displayed a mesh of colors resembling textures of 3d models that depending on my view of the scene, changing as I panned.
- running single-card mode stopped that issue also installing a different driver 169.09 from Nvidia resolved that issue in SLi.
- SupCom gets a NVLDDMKM.SYS error when running in SLi mode got it after 25mins of play, but runs fine with single-card activated.
(I have yet to try running this game in SLi again with 169.09 drivers, I did run it in SLi with 169.04 before but with problems, I don't expect to see anything different with SLi and these drivers)
- I ran this game with instabuild and freebuild to make units put load on my system faster and so I could get up to 1000 units myself with 7 other AI's on a large map. I did not get the nvlddmkm.sys error on my Black or Green card.

Hellgate London
- Enabling SLi seems to make the NVLDDMKM.SYS error appear.
- When swapping out cards and trying them individually I noticed I got the error on my Black card but not my Green card.
- I thought maybe there might be something wrong with the ram on the Black card when the data is loaded to jack this up. With the other game test I'm not too sure on this though.
- There is a possibility where I was lucky running this game with my Green card and the error didn't occur during the time I played this game with this card. Played for 45 minutes on my Green card without an NVLDDMKM.SYS error appearing while using DX10.

Company of Heroes
- Ran with SLi and Single-card, both seem to get the NVLDDMKM.SYS error.
- Ran with just the Black card, 10 mins into the game I got the NVLDDMKM.SYS error.
- Ran with just the Green card, 2mins into the game I got the NVLDDMKM.SYS error.
- Ran performance test with DX10 off, no error. Passed with "Great".
- Ran game with DX9 instead of DX10 and about half-way through the map I got a crash to desktop after 20mins of play, but no NVLDDMKM.SYS error.

ATITool
I noticed some differences when running the artifact checking test.
- Running this test with SLi enabled I received artifacts.
SLI Enabled:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning On:

- Running in single-card I got a clean test. It appeared obvious that maybe SLi wasn’t supported by ATi Tool.
Single-card Enabled:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning On:

- While testing individual cards I noticed my black card with fraps on and the counter on that the artifact test would show yellow streaks of artifacts across the top of the rendering screen.
Black Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning On:

- When disabling the FPS counter and not scanning the rendered image looked normal.
Black Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning Off:

Black Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter Off:
Scanning On:

- Now with my Green card I could have the FPS counter from fraps on or off and it didn't show any sort of artifact graphic corruption in the rendering window.
Green Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning On:

Green Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter On:
Scanning Off:

Green Card:
Fraps On:
FPS Counter Off:
Scanning On:


My Opinions:
I feel DX9 and DX10 have different issues
- I notice the games that do not give me issues with NVLDDMKM.SYS are not running DX10. Except for SupCom (Which I don't even think runs DX10); but I feel that was a driver issue or an SLi issue as I played that game a lot since it first came out and never experienced an issue, but I also did play it with just a single GPU too because of the increased performance.
- Company of Heroes did get the error on both cards using DX10, and just had a simple crash to desktop with DX9
- Gears of War just crashes to desktop and doesn't get a NVLDDMKM.SYS error and it's just as advanced in graphics and happens in both DX9 and DX10.
- The games I listed above that do not give me issues with NVLDDMKM.SYS all run in DX9.
- Need for Speed Carbon's issues not only occurred on this system, but my other system as well, AMD64 2.0Ghz 2GB RAM x800 256MB/256-bit ATI AGP on Windows XP Pro SP2. So what's the conection? AMD? I dunno.
- I also don't see any graphics corruption or artifacts at all in any of the games or 3d programs I use.

Peoples Responses to me (Forums and Support):
- Issues with drivers and WinVista 64-bit.
- Issues with my PSU not being sufficient to power not even 1 8800GTX
- Make sure hotfixes are installed for the OS.
- Test each card out individually.
- Remove Ntune Install RivaTuner
- Issues with heat.
- Back off on NVControl Panel settings and use different SLi rendering settings.
- Make sure games are updated to the latest patch.
- Try non-beta drivers.
- Defrag HDD.
- Possibly faulty motherboard (have not proceeded in this area yet as I have had no issues with my motherboard nor is it possible for me to have my PC out of operation for a week)

My logical complaint based on everything thus far:
- Maybe there is something wrong with my black card where it gets corruption with fraps counter enabled while doing the ATITool artifact test while my Green card does not get those.
- If that's the case, explain to me why both the Black and Green card fail to run Company of Heroes and both get the NVLDDMKM.SYS error.
- Explain why I can run most of my games in SLi that are DX9-based?
- Explain why I didn't get the NVLDDMKM.SYS error with Supreme commander individually between the Black and Green cards.
- Explain why it's going to be a motherboard issue, why because it fixed another persons problem? What motherboard did they use?
- Maybe there's an issue with my CPU, ya lets go RMA that too.
- Can't forget the soundcard Creative doesn't update their drivers enough, they're full of problems.
- Why not the Memory as well even though it passes memtest with no errors.
- Let's send the HDD's back and my case fans, those might be causing an issue too.
- Who knows maybe Vista is not compatable with my DVDRom and that's the culprit?
- If you (speaking to anyone not anyone direct, including the companies who are providing the support) are able to provide the money I'll ship everything back for RMA's unfortunately to test those theories out, but I don't have the money to waste to figure out a problem that is "File related" NVLDDMKM.SYS. I still think the file itself is causing problems since it's associated with the nvidia drivers and Nvidia is just in denial.

- My point is this, by the time I ruled out every part in my system as being the possible culprit I may or may not have the issue fixed 2 months from now based on shipping the part out, having the company test it, verifying it’s bad or not and then shipping it back or a replacement to me then rinse and repeat with the next part until every part is ruled out. Like I said I don’t have the time nor the money to spend on the shipping for a blind no cause issue that will be for nothing

- Which is why I repeat myself again, What exactly does the NVLDDMKM.SYS file do? What does this file communicate with, what processes does it do, what is its importance in the functioning of the nvidia drivers? I’ve never seen this file until I installed a nvidia card, yet I’m told oh this error is caused by any random part in your PC system, Ya THANKS, be MORE vague please.
Now I'm throwing my 2 cards back into my system and running it in single-card mode since I wasted money on 2 cards that apparently don't work in SLi due to a DRIVER issue and seeing how that’s the best working way for my system at the moment until I hear of the real issue.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Already got that update and I appreciate the effort, but not to be rude or anything. I posted a great deal of information for a reason. I wasted a bunch of my time jumping through hoops troubleshooting this issue, I expect people to atleast take the time to read what I've adventured through. It's mentioned I have all hot-fixes installed and I'm literal on that, everything listed available for my OS at Microsoft and everything listed on Nvidia.

One thing that perked my interest in that forum you linked was reducing the pagefile to 2GB. I'm using 4GB of ram, would I want to reduce the pagefile to 4GB or down to 2GB?

My current pagefile is 4394MB
 
#27 ·
Eh I read a bunch of posts about pagefile, read them all before, but never made it an imprint into my memory, because I never had the need or use of the knowledge, until now where I'm scrambling for something to be solved about this issue.

I'm just going to leave the pagefile alone to where it's at, other than that I don't see anything else on that forum post that would help me out.
 
#28 ·
Figured I'd update this post, the NVLDDMKM.SYS error is an issue with Microsoft's DX10, finally found out that an official word was mentioned about getting it fixed, funny when I was searching for issues with DX10 I never found an actual public posting of the issue being announced.

It also appears that DX10 can be run fine without SLi, but fails under SLi, meaning having your "SLi Enabled" box checked no matter if you choose single-card on the drivers control panel, it will still error out with NVLDDMKM.SYS.

So if your running SLi and getting this issue running Vista or any DX10 game, "issue can happen in vista normally too, because Vista uses DX10 to render the GUI" then this is your problem, just disable SLi and hope DX10.1 fixes the problem.
 
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