GRID BSOD problems?

[SkaarjMaster]

OK, I've had this game lying around for almost two years and I finally tried to install it, updated to the latest patch and now I'm getting BSODs everytime I start it. All my other games work flawlessly (UT3, UT2004, UT2003, UT, Unreal Gold, Doom3, Quake4, Painkiller, Q3A, etc.). I've explored a bit online and it could be the drivers, but I'd like to rule out everything else and I'm not sure I'm going to even change drivers for one game either. I have Nvidia drivers 182.06 right now and they have worked great!

Anyway, I did notice during installation that the game seemed to mess with my DirectX9.0c and added some files (why did it F with DX?). Also, now when I run the DXdiag tests, the Dx cubes spin wildly fast and they have never done that before. Of course, I've also heard that they might do this anyway with no problems. Any ideas? Thank you.

[mmettin]

Are you talking about Race Driver Grid ?

Which rig are you having the issues with ?

[mmettin]

Anyway, I did notice during installation that the game seemed to mess with my DirectX9.0c and added some files (why did it F with DX?). Also, now when I run the DXdiag tests, the Dx cubes spin wildly fast and they have never done that before. Of course, I've also heard that they might do this anyway with no problems. Any ideas? Thank you.

FYI, running this is not a matter of making sure your overall DirectX install being up-to-date. Microsoft has a helper library with D3D called D3DX. You'll find binaries for this like d3dx9_43.dll in your Windows\system32 folder. There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version. As such the game must run the correct D3D installer version that it was specifically compiled with to ensure the binaries exist. Even if a later version of the binary is already installed, that version cannot be used, and even if your DirectX install is up-to-date because you've run a more recent version of the installer that is not guaranteed to have installed all previous versions. Even worse, if a version is installed for x86 it doesn't guarantee the same version is installed for x64, so 64 bit and 32 bit games may need to run the same exact installer version but targeting different platforms when run. Furthermore, Microsoft's licensing terms prevent anyone from distributing the files directly, the only way to distribute them is to run the installer, that's also the only supported method from Microsoft to check that the correct version installed. Trying to manually check for the correct versions is extremely complicated because there are numerous files that must all be present and individual system configuration options like dll search paths complicate the situation. In addition, the dependencies and required checks may change in each new version of the D3DX runtime. The code to check correctly and repair broken installs all exists in the installer and running it is a guarantee that the correct binaries will exist when you run the game and prevents lots of bad cases where a game would fail to launch with an obscure error if a windows install was either missing the correct version or somehow corrupted in the past.

Games which don't use the D3DX helpers (such as Source engine games) don't require running the annoying installer on first launch as they only depend on major d3d9/10/11 versions being installed. However, games that do use D3DX must run it as it's the only way Microsoft has allowed for distributing and checking the version info on the files.

So that's why we do it for lots of game installs. We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries.

The one thing that could be made better on our side is that Steam could be smart enough to know if an exactly matching version of the dx installer is already downloaded and share that content so you don't download it with each game. Since the installer is relatively small compared to most game installs that wouldn't be a huge win though and requires a good deal of new complexity for partners in how they package up their games and manage installation dependencies. You'd also still end up with lots of different versions of the installer, since as discussed above they are often targeting different D3DX versions and as such are all required. As such any improvement to avoid duplicates isn't an immediate priority, but we may be able to improve it slightly in the future.

taken from here

[Activate: AMD]

Those drivers are ancient! I would definitely be looking at updating them to something published this decade if I were you.

Have you run any diagnostic tests, checked for overheating etc?

[Keven]

182.06! I think Abraham Lincoln updated his graphics card to those drivers before he and Ms. Lincoln went out to the theatre.

Joking aside, Odoggy is right, you should probably update to the newest drivers your card supports.

[SkaarjMaster]

Yes, Race Driver GRID. The SkaatrjMasterDuo rig.

mmettin, thanks for the info on DX..........I never knew it was that f-ed up. I guess if all my other games work, I really shouldn't worry about the diagnostic cubes spinning out of control, correct?

Yes, I've run doagnostics and no overheating or anything else that I can see that would mess this up. I'll eventually update my drivers because I still have Rage to install; I think I'll wait until then though and not now. Any other things that might be wrong before I conclude GRID does not like the 182.06 drivers? Thank you.

[Keven]

Is there any reason you're opposed to using the new video drivers?

[SkaarjMaster]

I have had no reason to until now and I'm in the middle of something with a couple of the old games that will take another month or so and I don't want to mess anything up. I'm sure the old games will still run fine, but I would rather wait for now.

[mmettin]

Yes, Race Driver GRID. The SkaatrjMasterDuo rig.

mmettin, thanks for the info on DX..........I never knew it was that f-ed up. I guess if all my other games work, I really shouldn't worry about the diagnostic cubes spinning out of control, correct?

Yes, I've run doagnostics and no overheating or anything else that I can see that would mess this up. I'll eventually update my drivers because I still have Rage to install; I think I'll wait until then though and not now. Any other things that might be wrong before I conclude GRID does not like the 182.06 drivers? Thank you.

Yup, I wouldn't worry.

And yes it's possible the game doesn't like those particular drivers. Nvidia cureently is at 3xx.xx series by the way.

[Activate: AMD]

Yup, I wouldn't worry.

And yes it's possible the game doesn't like those particular drivers. Nvidia cureently is at 3xx.xx series by the way.

especially since those drivers were released shortly after the game, if the game h ad been out a while prior to that release I'd be less likely to suspect them

[Keven]

I play old games all the time, whether they be from Steam or GOG or my dust-covered original CD versions from the archives and I haven't had any video driver issues with 99% of them.

In fact, I've probably had more problems with Win7 when it comes to old games than video card drivers.

[SkaarjMaster]

Yes, it should be interesting when I upgrade to Win8 sometime in the future. Thanks for all the help guys and I'll be back with an update sometime before the end of the summer.