System upgrade - Games not working?

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BlackScarletLove

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With my old video card I was playing Doom 3 just fine, but I wasn't able to play FEAR.

I upgraded my system, including updating my card to NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT and doom3 launched once, but after that every time i launch it it says 'doom3 has encountered a problem and needs to close'
not only that but I can't launch 'stalker: shadow of cherynobyl' either, it never gets past the splash screen.

What's going on and is it related to my video card or what? Why would doom launch once but not again?
 
try updating nvidia drivers to latest, check that your system is up to date with ms patches and try again, if you still get issues uninstall the games - reboot and delete all files/folders belonging to the games and try a reinstall of them
 
ive got the latest windows updates.

im just installing the latest drivers. i dont know if i already had them but i dl'd again and install and ill let you know what happens.
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ok well i installed the latest driver and i rebooted and soon after i logged into windows i bsod'd.

restarted, havent had the problem yet, but if i do ill have to sys restore... dont know why that would have happened as I specifically selected the driver for the card i have...

gonna try the games now.
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ok, tried the games, still not working.

ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling but no change.

in case you need this:

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
2.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
2048 Megabytes Installed Memory
Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K SE Rev 1.xx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0401 07/19/2007
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT [Display adapter]
LGE T710BH [Monitor]
Realtek High Definition Audio
 
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What card did you have before? ATi or nVidia? If it was ATi make sure to get the cat-uninstaller from the ATi/AMD site to remove everything that the normal uninstaller misses. Then reinstall the latest nVidia drivers.
 
I had ati before this,
nothing was listed as still existing in add/remove, but to be safe i tried the ati cat-uninstaller, then i reinstalled my new driver. i didnt uninstall it then reinstall it, i installed it overtop again, hope that was correct.

no change.

is there anyway to use safe mode or msconfig to ascertain the problem?
 
Try doing a complete un-install of the drivers. try resetting the card again and start over. It could be one of those weird hardware issues where you have to redo it from scratch. sounds like a pain, but it happens.
 
Do the Cat uninstall then an Nvidia uninstall then an Nvidia install of the latest drivers.

You may also have to reinstall the games (yes , that is a nightmare). Many games load video card specific drivers of their own. Before doing a complete game reinstall see if you can get into the game video setup menu to remove the ATI and install the Nvidia.
 
ok, so, i tried uninstalling the latest nvidia drivers 178.24, and installing 175.19 to see if that was the problem, but that didnt fix it so i undid those changes.

Tried booting the doom3 up in safe mode and interestingly i got a process dialog window that i didnt get otherwise, and one thing it said was 'ERROR: The current video card / driver combination does not support the necessary features'
i dont know if this is because safe mode was operating so sparsely that the game couldnt run, or if it was touching on a larger issue. Ive heard that for some reason certain games wont work with certain cards, but it shouldnt be the case with my setup.

Back in fullmode, I tried to copy the information contained in teh optional error report, but i couldnt. however in event viewer i managed to pull this out of the application error log:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 21/12/2008
Time: 12:00:42 AM
User: N/A
Computer: BLACKSCARLET
Description:
Faulting application doom3.exe, version 1.0.0.1, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x7e4a0010.

Interestingly enough, STALKER failing to launch and only getting past the splash screen and crashing, doesnt log under event viewer. Also, when i tried launching it in safe mode, there was an actual error dialog that popped up that doesnt pop up in fullmode, but for whatever reason i couldnt pull it up to read it, it just had the outline of a window that said error but the inside was black.

Still wondering if there is a way i can use msconfig to selectively disable things to try to narrow the problem, but im really only familiar with the startup tab and dont really wanna **** aroudn with the rest of it without knowing what i am doing.
 
It sure sounds like a driver conflict. This used to be common place when switching video card brands but got bette for a while.

You need to use a program to strip out all video drivers. Try Ccleaner, ATI has a tools for stripping out drivers also. Try several of them. A half ass'd attempt will NOT get the conflicting drivers off the machine. Everything has to be thoroughly purged then correct new drivers installed.

There is a small chance the video card has a defect and to rule out those cases I recommend testing it in another computer.

Also download the aticlock tool. It is an overclcoking tool that has a 3D test program built in that will let you exercise ATI or Nvidia 3D operation.
 
Also I would try uninstalling/re-installing at least one game and see if it helps that game. I know some of them configure the game based on the video card upon installation.
 
first off......

BlackScarletLove said:
almost as buggy as vista

i wish that sh*t would just die. People who operate under the twisted delusion that Vista is this buggy behemoth of an operating system really need to get their head examined. I've been running Vista Ultimate x64 pretty much since it was released. The only issue i ever encountered was WHEN it was first released, where i kept getting those "Display driver stopped responding and has been restored" messages, and random BSOD's out of nowhere. Turns out.... it was all because of my memory settings. For some unknown reason, Vista didn't want to run right if i adjusted the settings in my BIOS.... even to just set the memory timings to what they're supposed to be. Did that bother me to run my memory slower than what it was rated to run? no. Did such minor inconveniences deter a lot of people from using/TRYING Vista under the previously mentioned delusion? yes. My explanation.... people in this day and age are lazy as hell.... no matter what they're doing.

I know this is going out on a limb from the discussion under way... but i don't care. Why do i say people today are lazy as hell? because you can see it everywhere you look. Not taking the microscopic amount of time required to park correctly in a parking space. Flying through parking lots seemingly because they think that the place they're trying to go will be gone in the next half a second that it would have taken if they drove responsibly. Leaving a shopping cart in the middle of nowhere.... with a cart return within spitting distance.... or better yet, standing several feet away from said cart return, and just giving the cart a shove... not caring about where the cart may go afterwards. Also not caring how the carts are arranged in the cart return. i've seen them skewed so much that 10 carts fit in a cart return that could probably fit 3 times that and not be past the edge. And believe me.... i've actually taken the time to rearrange the carts at a fairly large number of cart returns just because people's laziness makes me sick. So.... i guess being a non-obese, non-lazy US citizen must make me a freak or something. And i'm only just 24. must REALLY be a freak.

Back to what i was talking about. Didn't care about the issues with Vista and my BIOS settings. SP1 came out.... and that eliminated the ONLY issue i ever had with Vista. Doesn't crash nearly as often as XP SP2 ever did on me. Hell.... I even prefer Windows 7 over XP at this point. Yes.... the OS that isn't even technically in BETA is a better OS than an OS that's been out for what's coming up on 7 years and two months. I actually even prefer Windows 7 now over Vista. The only reason i use Vista right now is cause Windows 7 is on my SSD.... and for some reason it seems that the bootloader is kinda off or something.... because i can't boot into Windows 7 unless the OS install disc is in either of my optical drives. Again.... a minor inconvenience, that i could care less about.

As for your issue.... i'd almost recommend a complete format and reinstallation of Windows. probably the quickest and easiest way to make sure that NOTHING could be conflicting.
 
ok so i solved the problem. i uninstalled all games and all drivers, ran several driver cleaner programs in safe mode, rebooted and ran a chipset driver then my most current graphics drivers and reinstalled games and its all working now. thanks for the help
 
I had some problems with SP3 on a couple brand-name PCs I worked on earlier this year, like a Dell and a Gateway, but they were older P3 systems so I wasn't surprised. Anything P4 or newer gets along fine with SP3, for me anyways.
 
dell and gateway are known to change a lot of stuff on their systems, could have been a dell/gateway issue, on all the custom builds i have done for people and the upgrades i have done, not one issue :)
 
This issue is solved and this thread is going in a bad direction. I'm closing it - thanks to all for your constructive additions :)

-edit-

Also cleaning it up a bit. If you have problems with members or their posts, use the report button and mods/admins can handle it. Public forums are not for bashing eachother, regardless of how you feel about opinions or other members

-edit 2-

Leaving ED's post intact because there is some insightful info in there.
 
With my old video card I was playing Doom 3 just fine, but I wasn't able to play FEAR.

I upgraded my system, including updating my card to NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT and doom3 launched once, but after that every time i launch it it says 'doom3 has encountered a problem and needs to close'
not only that but I can't launch 'stalker: shadow of cherynobyl' either, it never gets past the splash screen.

What's going on and is it related to my video card or what? Why would doom launch once but not again?

Did you re-install everything after upgrading the card? You can encounter issues with dropping in new hardware into an existing system setup due to drivers, profiles and what not and the new hardware
 
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