Problems with GTX 680M drivers?

[Slava]

Guys, I posted this in the Games forum but the two suggestions I got were 1) return the laptop; 2) reinstall Windows. Neither is acceptable, really, as overall the laptop works perfectly. I just have problems with two games. If anyone can offer any ideas or insight I would be very much obliged. Here's the original message:

Hopeful someone may have some ideas...

I have a brand new Origin gaming laptop (specs below) but some games refuse to run on it though they run perfectly on my 3-year old Alienware:

- Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition (Steam) starts fine but comes back with "FalloutNV has stopped working.." after the intro movie when starting a new game; the same error occurs when trying to load a save. I have done all Steam troubleshooting (such as cache file verification, etc.), uninstalled/reinstalled the game, even played with the d3d9.dll and other fixes suggested on various forums - nothing helps.

- Star Wars: The Old Republic plain fails to launch. Clicking on Play in the Launcher screen results in the B.S.O.D. forcing a hard reboot.

Other games such as Borderlands 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Runes of Magic, etc, work just fine on this laptop

Specs:

EON17-SLX

Graphic Cards: Single 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GTX 680M
Processors: Intel Core i7 3740QM Quad-Core 2.70GHz (3.70GHz TurboBoost), 6MB Cache
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz (4 X 4GB)
Operating System: Genuine MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Edition
Optical Drive: 6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD+/-R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive
RAID Configuration: RAID 0
Hard Drive One: 256GB Samsung 830 Series - Solid State Drive
Hard Drive Two: 256GB Samsung 830 Series - Solid State Drive
Audio: Integrated High-Definition Audio with THX TruStudio Pro and up to 7.1 Channel support
Networking: Intel PRO Wireless Advanced-N 6230 + BT Wireless LAN Combo Module - up to 320Mbps

 

[simmons33]

Well, I can tell you from experienc that Fallout new Vegas doesnt like Quad Core CPUs. Best you set the games CPU afinity in the taskmanager to 2 cores. Just suggesting since you didnt mention this fix. Only downside is you have to change if everytime the game launches. There was a link to a program to perm change the setting. Saw it on the steam forums. Best check there

Now if your sure its the driver then just delete the old one from "Programs and Features" and DL the new one from either Nvidia or the manufactuer of your laptop. (I only suggest the last bit because sometimes companies tune drivers just for their machines)

 

[Slava]

Well, I can tell you from experienc that Fallout new Vegas doesnt like Quad Core CPUs. Best you set the games CPU afinity in the taskmanager to 2 cores. Just suggesting since you didnt mention this fix. Only downside is you have to change if everytime the game launches. There was a link to a program to perm change the setting. Saw it on the steam forums. Best check there

Now if your sure its the driver then just delete the old one from "Programs and Features" and DL the new one from either Nvidia or the manufactuer of your laptop. (I only suggest the last bit because sometimes companies tune drivers just for their machines)

Thanks, simmons33, I will try setting CPU affinity as you suggest. The only reason I have not tried that yet is that my old Alienware also has an i7 Quad Core CPU and I've never had any issues with Fallout NV there, but I will try it and post results. I recall I had issues with some games on the Alienware when I updated nVIDIA drivers for the GTX 295 on it, reverted to older drivers and problems went away. Not much in the way of 'older' drivers for the Origin's GTX 680M

 

[popatim]

Have you disabled hyperthreading?

 

[Slava]

Have you disabled hyperthreading?

No such option in my BIOS...

 

[Slava]

Ran WhoCrashed application and quickly found out the root of the crash problems:

I often use multiple monitors with this laptop and I installed eVGA UV Plus+ 39 USB to DVI / HDMI adapter together with DisplayLink Graphics and DisplayLink Core Software (driver) that came with it. It turned out that this software/driver was at the root of the crashes. I uninstalled it and now all games (and other applications) run without issues and no more crashes.

Apparently, some software gets confused when DisplayLink drivers are loaded. Of course, I will have to load this software again when I need to connect multiple monitors to the laptop and remove it when I need some gaming R&R, but at least we know now that this is not a laptop hardware problem.