All right, I'm back with some updates. After testing for several days I have discovered possible ways to further minimize CTD's.
1. Roll back nVidia graphics driver to 344.65 and uninstall all unnecessary Geforce programs like Audio and 3D. Go to the nVidia website and download the previous version of the driver - 344.65. The size of the file is about 300mb. Choose custom installation. Uncheck for all boxes except for the driver and Physx. This will ensure all the said Geforce programs are fully uninstalled. If you manually uninstall the said programs, it will just roll back to previous versions. Take note of the following:-
Credits to middlefngrsalute. Go and +1 experience for all his posts.
2. Closing all overlay programs. Yes, many suggested this and it is true. Got Teamviewer on? Close it. Got Steam on? Close it also. Got GameBooster on? Alt-F4. Close all overlay programs until only Origin left. If you CTD at the menu, it is most likely caused by overlay programs.
3. Avoid or minimize Alt-Tab out of the game to Desktop. Alt-Tabbing will hasten CTD. But if you happen to have something to do in desktop, try what middlefngrsalute has suggested: "running in windowed full screen, or run in a small window (i.e. 1024x768)". It helps but still causes CTD if you go on a Alt-Tab spree. =/
4. Playing in Windowed Fullscreen. It is all the forum and it does help although CTD's still happen but not as often when you play in Fullscreen. If you have problem opening the game in Fullscreen, use Windowed Fullscreen. It will definitely help.
5. Changing Windowed Fullscreen (WF) > Fullscreen or Windowed in gameplay > Windowed Fullscreen. This may or may not work. In between gameplay (every 10 - 15 mins), change from WF to Fullscreen or Windowed. I know, it is annoying but better than CTD every 10 - 15 mins.
That is all I got. Yeah, I know, this is little to nothing.
Throughout the 3 days of testing I have encounter several Blue Screen error. (error: WATCH_DOG_TIMER) This is bad. Very bad. Blue screen can badly damaged your Windows software, if not, your hardware too. Devs gotta do some *bleep* about this before our machines goes kaboom by playing this game.
Also, after 3 - 4 Blue Screens, my save went corrupted. That was a very frustrating but I manage to find a workaround to restore my save but that is another another topic for discussion. Thank God for the internetz! If you encounter this problem, you may Google it or ask me in this thread.
Lastly, to the devs. I know you guys are trying hard to fix this but may I suggest that you place this as one of your top priority in the "to fix" list? Sure, the party banter thing, shuttering, missing texture, performance issue and etc. are reasonable things to fix but compared to CTD, these are nothing. We can't even play a game that we bought when it boots to the desktop for no reason and impossible for us to know what went wrong when there is no error message. Moreover, presisting to restart the game from crashes will ultimately cause Blue Screen. As mentioned, this may cause your hardware to malfunction and corrupt, not your saves, but also other softwares.
So, please fix this first. You don't want your customers to come up with complains that they have to initiate a regular System Restore because of playing your game.
/endrant2
I've also been tinkering around, and I did a couple things that delayed the CTD again:
1) I read that setting compatibility mode to Windows 7 would help the CTD. That obviously didn't work, so I turned compatibility mode off. (I'm using Windows 8.1) This greatly decreased my load times and framerate issues, and made it so I could play a little longer.
2) Went back to Nvidia driver 344.80. Rolling back to 344.65 seemed to work...for a little while. I'm getting longer play times having gone back to 344.80. (Which kind of leads me to believe that driver version is just coincidental; my computer doesn't seem to care.)
3) Turning post-processing to low seems to give me longer play times.
I'VE NOTICED A PATTERN, THOUGH: It seems to always happen shortly after a save, whether manual or quicksave. I got into the habit of saving manually constantly, and that seemed to make the crashes happen more frequently. I haven't been manually saving at all anymore, and I seem to be able to play for longer. The crashes seem to happen right after that spinning red circle in the lower right hand corner appears.
But, this all could just be completely coincidental, and the crash could just be totally random. Who knows. But it IS happening, constantly, and I hope a fix is coming soon. What I've played so far is great, and I really want to play this game!
@Keataclysm wrote:All right, I'm back with some updates. After testing for several days I have discovered possible ways to further minimize CTD's.
1. Roll back nVidia graphics driver to 344.65 and uninstall all unnecessary Geforce programs like Audio and 3D. Go to the nVidia website and download the previous version of the driver - 344.65. The size of the file is about 300mb. Choose custom installation. Uncheck for all boxes except for the driver and Physx. This will ensure all the said Geforce programs are fully uninstalled. If you manually uninstall the said programs, it will just roll back to previous versions. Take note of the following:-
- This will not remove the CTD but merely prolong gameplay before the next crash.
- You may have uninterupted play for several hours until the CTD kicks in. Once it starts, CTD will be more frequent.
Credits to @DeltaAgent26. Go and +1 experience for all his posts.
2. Closing all overlay programs. Yes, many suggested this and it is true. Got Teamviewer on? Close it. Got Steam on? Close it also. Got GameBooster on? Alt-F4. Close all overlay programs until only Origin left. If you CTD at the menu, it is most likely caused by overlay programs.
3. Avoid or minimize Alt-Tab out of the game to Desktop. Alt-Tabbing will hasten CTD. But if you happen to have something to do in desktop, try what @DeltaAgent26 has suggested: "running in windowed full screen, or run in a small window (i.e. 1024x768)". It helps but still causes CTD if you go on a Alt-Tab spree. =/
4. Playing in Windowed Fullscreen. It is all the forum and it does help although CTD's still happen but not as often when you play in Fullscreen. If you have problem opening the game in Fullscreen, use Windowed Fullscreen. It will definitely help.
5. Changing Windowed Fullscreen (WF) > Fullscreen or Windowed in gameplay > Windowed Fullscreen. This may or may not work. In between gameplay (every 10 - 15 mins), change from WF to Fullscreen or Windowed. I know, it is annoying but better than CTD every 10 - 15 mins.
That is all I got. Yeah, I know, this is little to nothing.
Throughout the 3 days of testing I have encounter several Blue Screen error. (error: WATCH_DOG_TIMER) This is bad. Very bad. Blue screen can badly damaged your Windows software, if not, your hardware too. Devs gotta do some *bleep* about this before our machines goes kaboom by playing this game.
Also, after 3 - 4 Blue Screens, my save went corrupted. That was a very frustrating but I manage to find a workaround to restore my save but that is another another topic for discussion. Thank God for the internetz! If you encounter this problem, you may Google it or ask me in this thread.
Lastly, to the devs. I know you guys are trying hard to fix this but may I suggest that you place this as one of your top priority in the "to fix" list? Sure, the party banter thing, shuttering, missing texture, performance issue and etc. are reasonable things to fix but compared to CTD, these are nothing. We can't even play a game that we bought when it boots to the desktop for no reason and impossible for us to know what went wrong when there is no error message. Moreover, presisting to restart the game from crashes will ultimately cause Blue Screen. As mentioned, this may cause your hardware to malfunction and corrupt, not your saves, but also other softwares.
So, please fix this first. You don't want your customers to come up with complains that they have to initiate a regular System Restore because of playing your game.
/endrant2
I stopped trying to play DA:I as soon as I got Blue Screens. Won't let a single game corrupt my entire PC.
