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: 2x
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit(4-4-4-12-2T)
GPU: 2x
XFX PVT80FSHF9 GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP(Controlled by RivaTuner, 169.04 XFX drivers)
HDD: 2x
Maxtor 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.