(Nearly 2 Years of Issue Persisting, please help) - Warframe REFUSES To Work With Nvidia Drivers

[Prime-Ares]

FAIR WARNING: This will be a LONG rage / diagnostical / problematic / somewhat-formal post all in one

ANY Help / Insight at all will be immensely appreciated!

 

For well over a year I have played Warframe maybe less than 25% of the time in all the free time I've had. Things had gone well just until around Update 18 when everything began to get "interesting" with systematic issues.

CURRENT SYSTEM SPECS:

• OS - WIN. 7 (64-Bit)
• CPU - Intel i5, 4570 @ 3.20 GHz
• RAM - 16 GB DDR3 @ 686 MHz (9-9-9-24)
• MOTHERBOARD - ASUSTeK Z97-K (SOCKET 1150)
• GPU - GeForce GTX 650 Ti (EVGA), 2047 MB
• STORAGE - 465 GB Crucial CT500MX5 SATA SSD
• PSU - 725W XPLUS POWER SUPPLY
• AUDIO - Realtek HD

 

 

GAME SETTINGS:

 

CURRENT LAUNCHER SETTINGS:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CURRENT IN-GAME SETTINGS:

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

BACKGROUND:

Though a fairly low-end PC, I have had most parts in it for ~4-5 years (with the exception of the PSU and SSD being most recently updated), the GPU perhaps being the oldest component - though it's never given any trouble, crashes, stuttering in games properly adjusted to its frequency. Games such as the Battlefield series (BF3 to BF1), MGS-5, Watch Dogs, Arkham Series, Crysis Series (1 - 3), Call of Duty Series, Dying Light, Talos Principle, etc. have been able to run without a single crash or framerate issue so long as settings were adjusted with respect to the GPU's lower-potential. I have rarely had to go outside any games to adjust settings via. configs, registry, etc. till now.

 

Warframe appears to be (in all of my years of online gaming) the outlier in Everything that has ever taken place and in all of my research into the issues that constantly persist from almost 2 years ago to today. No other game, software, and even viruses/trojans I've been infected with has ever caused the type of seemingly-endless and persisting trouble this game has to function in any way. 

 

Stubbornness has kept me from reaching out in the community or to anyone about this issue till now due to usually being able to always find some solution or workaround for problems like this that occurred from games. I have gone from adjusting every single in-game setting and testing the isolated-functionality of each, to editing registry files, to messing with the GPU's clock speed, voltage, memory, etc. even if it compromised the functionality of any other game/software piece in an effort to get Warframe running.

At this point, I feel lost for any reasonable solution/hope of fixing this problem. It's been so long I've tirelessly worked on it and have compared, contrasted, theorized, tested and drawn possible conclusion after conclusion to finding some sort of pattern, commonality, origin or even side-effect of anything that has happened game-wise to create a system-outbreak of such magnitude that I can't solve with any tools I currently have. I will not quit Warframe or walk away from it, but I cannot say the temptation is easy to break away from after such efforts.

 

 

 

 

THE PROBLEM:

• When this all began (late 2015 - early 2016), the system began giving off bizarre symptoms - bluescreening / black screening while in-game (or even when minimized and just running in the background), audio glitching and the game (incidentally the entire system as well) coming to a halt, stopping and refusing to shut down until the main power button / switch on the Desktop-PC Tower was manually hit (a solution I do Not enjoy applying, but a necessary one for all the problems and analysis that's been undergone in understanding Warframe's functionality)

 

• Warframe would refuse to even start sometimes without instantly shutting down or freezing over and over until some hotfixes were applied after the release of U18

 

• Over time, the issues died down a little but a new problem emerged - WF would now minimize itself at random while in-game (or already previously minimized, in which case it'd just refuse to open when clicking on it in the taskbar or switching to its task in Task Manager)

 

• Upon applying some manual-touches (explained in the next sections), the game cleaned up a little and the problems occurred far-less frequently, but this was only temporary as many of them returned over time consistently at random intervals

 

• Upon U20 being released, the problems came back in full force (including blue-screening) and it wasn't until hotfixes emerged that WF became playable at all once again

 

• Once in a while a message would display in the lower right-hand portion of the taskbar:

 

_{NOTE THIS IS A GOOGLE-IMAGE, NOT THE ACTUAL MESSAGE TEXT. Though the message I get is similar, its hard to screenshot when it appears as the system freezes or the game minimizes so fast while it disappears once seen:}

Spoiler

 

 

 

THE "SOLUTIONS":

Take everything beyond this point with a grain of salt, much of what I have attempted to do has not been in any way a "Solution" but rather a "Band-Aid" to hold off the inevitable freezing/crashing/ stopping this game employs on itself and the system.

PLEASE NOTE THESE "SOLUTIONS" WERE DONE OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME AND WERE NOT PERFORMED IN ANY PARTICULAR ORDER.

 

-------------------------------------THE TEMPERATURE THEORY-------------------------------------

 

Initially, I began looking at my system, surely this couldn't be the fault of just a single game, right? It Must be something wrong with the PC.

Stress tests and benchmarking protocols using FurMark and 3DMark were undergone with Speccy and Task Manager Performance Tabs as a side-observer to compare hardware temperatures, processing speeds. All tests were done at both minimum, moderate and the highest settings possible (RIP FPS). 

Tests came back with (obviously varied) results, but in no time did high-temperature readings (even the highest hardware temp. being a 90-95 Celsius GPU) caused any form of "Crash" or intensive "dropoff" in the system.

This GPU is no stranger to high-stress moments, in Warframe temperatures commonly range between 70 - 80 Celsius (Given I keep the visual settings at what's seen above). 

Perhaps this was too much for the system and Warframe together though? if I could keep the system cooler or even let the game idle for some hours while all settles, it shouldn't crash then in absence of a high-stress environment, right?

I took the side of my PC Case off, ensured no dust; debris; tangled wires and/or abnormalities were present that may "clog" up the hardware/performance and "froze" my bedroom (window open and a fan on high pointed at the hardware) to 30 - 40 degrees Fahrenheit (-1.1 to 4.4 Celsius). System temperatures of the GPU while running in WF were less than 50 Celsius. CPU, Motherboard, Storage devices, and all fans also performed optimally at lesser temperature values with usual fan RPM's. This setup was in-place for ~1 to 2 hours before even using the system.

Nonetheless, shortly after moving around a little in my liset, checking inventories and minor stuff, the game glitched out, froze, the entire system stopped and I was forced to shut it down the hard way once more to restart - thus, ruling any issues via. temperatures of core components out.

 

 

-------------------------------------THE DRIVER THEORY-------------------------------------

 

Warframe is a "special" game in the sense it has had issues with some specific drivers in the past (most notably being Nvidia's "Beta" drivers being incompatible in both older and newer GPU's). Though this hasn't always been the case as some GPU's are just inherently bad from the start or don't adhere well with Warframe's setup, it's worthwhile noting and possibly testing if the removal and reinstallation of various drivers (keeping all in-game settings at what they are) may be of some resolution however. The results gathered here varied considerably.

My current GPU uses the GeForce Game Ready Driver Version 417.35. This driver was installed fairly recently even after reinstalling Windows + Warframe on a new SSD. Upon loading Warframe up on this newer installed driver, voila! It worked flawlessly! No FPS drops, no lag, no crashing, no freezes, no glitching of any sort!

....yeah no, the "solution" was short-lived, in less than a week the game was back to its older ways. Except for this time, it had a different reaction to the system itself with this driver installed. In the 3 times I recorded the game crashing within the 1-week span of the driver being installed, it would either black-screen the entire system (temporarily) or minimize, crash the driver (with the small notification referenced above quickly popping up) and be unable to open while the game noises were still occurring in the background (leading me to believe the game was...ironically...working just "fine", even though I just couldn't un-minimize it to see the picture)?

Frustrated, I was forced to use task manager to shut the process down (right clicking and exiting the client would not work), rather than restart the system all over again. 

I went on Nvidia's driver websites, two of such sites exist offering vastly different drivers released in different time periods, some compatible, some not, even though all listed would be for the same GPU:

https://www.nvidia.com/download/find.aspx

https://www.nvidia.com/drivers/beta

Over the course of ~2 months I found time to remove drivers using the Display Driver Uninstaller:

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

...while reinstalling every driver Nvidia ever put out for the GTX 650 Ti and testing them over the course of some days.

 

It appeared SOME older drivers (388.71 and below) performed better than newer ones and allowed Warframe to play for longer periods of times before crashing in both low and high-stress environments in Warframe. Some drivers would allow it to run for days without any issue and some would allow it to run for only a few minutes. This (partially) confirmed my theory the GPU Driver itself may be at fault here, but further testing was required...

 

 

-------------------------------------THE HOTFIX COLDFIX AND SETTINGS THEORY-------------------------------------

DE has a history of releasing "broken" updates and having to quickly churn out patches galore to remedy the issues both in-game and server-wise for players experiencing issues of any sort. Seeing as most of this occurred after U18 however - applying some of the "fixes" people had posted from the older forums and Reddit threads, opting out for trying to "revert" some of the settings most folks said helped their issues were worth trying, this included...

 --> Disabling FullScreen, Toggling between it and Windowed Fullscreen and noting any changes in performance

 --> Verifying Files

 --> Optimizing Files & Download Cache

 --> Disabling DX-11 From the Launcher Settings

 --> Disabling 64-Bit Mode From the Launcher Settings

 --> Disabling Particle Systems, Depth of Field, Bloom, switching Vsync options, capping FPS, uncapping FPS, fixating FPS, disabling Reverb, and much more

 --> If all else failed, tinkering around with settings in both the launch screen and in-game and praying for the best results

 

All means of adjusting settings, even trying to isolate every single option out over a long period of time over multiple updates proved ineffective. Warframe would still crash while in the liset, while minimized, while standing idle and/or while playing the game itself with no particular pattern. Shutdown / Crash times ranged from minutes of logging in to days of playtime, ultimately - enabling all of these settings, disabling all of them, enabling all of them to their highest degree (RIP FPS) and/or balancing them out respectfully for ideal operation also proved unsuccessful, leading me to believe U18 may have been the single breaking point responsible for all of this, but no other users reportedly had the same problems I've been having (over such a long, consistent period at least), singling out my system alone as the outlier and that something involving the hardware's nature must be at fault.

...Though this does not explain why this hardware can run well in such more high-demanding games adjusting accordingly and contradicts its performance up till now and how long it's lasted under various stresses and system tasks.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS / ATTEMPTS AT FIX:

These are simply some other means of "fixing" the game I have tried. All have yielded no positive results. These adjustments won't be seen in the screenshots posted above, but have been attempted multiple times on various occasions in the past.

1) GeForce Gameplay Experience has been uninstalled and Shadowplay has been turned off

2) Anti-Virus programs (BitDefender) have been uninstalled and/or disabled entirely 

3) Firewall is allowing full access to Warframe and all connections

4) In-Game Ping has been adjusted

5) Chrome, Steam, Skype, etc. / All possible outside tasks have been stopped and Warframe has been set to "High" and "Realtime" priority in Task manager

6) Warframe has been attempted to had been played on through both the Website and STEAM Downloads

7) All forms of Warframe (files, folders, etc.) have been uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times

8 ) A different account has been attempted to be played with on Warframe to discover if the issue may have been account-related (at this point I'm losing any idea of rational solutions, so everything goes)

9) Using the NVIDIA Inspector 1.9.7.8, the GPU base clock offset, performance level, memory clock offset, power and temperature target, fan and Voltage Offset have all been adjusted on various levels dozens of times through repeated tests to discover if any positive outcome may occur gameplay wise.

10) A registry key (Regarding GPU TDR) had been initiated and tweaked to prolong the Crash of (multiple tested) GPU Drivers if any issue was to arise in-game. This did not appear to create any change to the current crashes.

11) All windows, GPU, CPU, Motherboard, software, etc. updates have been installed, reinstalled and some windows updates even uninstalled, tests have been undergone on multiple occasions with this and still no positive results.

12) Windows has been scanned using Malwarebytes, BitDefender, Vipre, Windows Essentials, and other quality programs for viruses, adware, malware, etc. None have been found, nor have any abnormalities been detected. None of the programs conflicted with Warframe either while running simultaneously.

13) Hardware connectors (to the SSD, GPU, etc.) have been physically tested for optimum power supply and all appear to be working up to par

14) Attempting to run Warframe AND Windows on an HDD instead of an SSD has yielded the same results

15) No memory-intensive programs have been running while WF is running

16) BIOS has been updated entirely upon reinstallation of Windows and all settings are recent

17) NVIDIA Beta Drivers (or at least all those compatible) have been tested in the past

18) Nvidia Control Panel settings have been messed with, including Surround Configuration, PhysX (attempting to try and solve the issue on both AutoSelect, GPU or CPU settings, as well as configuring multiple options in the "Manage 3D Settings" Tab as suggested by both DE and other players in the past

Edited January 12, 2019 by Prime-Ares

[sam686]

On 2019-01-11 at 5:47 PM, Prime-Ares said:

RAM - 16 GB DDR3 @ 686 MHz (9-9-9-24)

Ram speed at 686 Mhz? It should be 666.6 Mhz (DDR3-1333) or 800 Mhz (DDR3-1600).

Was the base clock changed? If this was chanced, this might cause stability problems with a few things, including PCI-E communication to graphics card. Restart computer and go to Motherboard Bios settings by using Del button (or F2 button?) a few times when computer is powering up. Can restore all defaults in motherboard settings as some settings like clock speeds or incompatible DDR3 timings can cause problems.

While in motherboard bios settings, check the version number. If too old, it might help to update it. Search the internet for updates in asus.com: ASUSTeK Z97-K tools

You could move graphics card to a different PCI-E slot to see if it is more stable, but this may limit PCI-E bandwidth to PCI-E 2.0, 4 lanes which might have some slow downs.

[Prime-Ares]

2 hours ago, sam686 said:

Ram speed at 686 Mhz? It should be 666.6 Mhz (DDR3-1333) or 800 Mhz (DDR3-1600).

Was the base clock changed? If this was chanced, this might cause stability problems with a few things, including PCI-E communication to graphics card. Restart computer and go to Motherboard Bios settings by using Del button (or F2 button?) a few times when computer is powering up. Can restore all defaults in motherboard settings as some settings like clock speeds or incompatible DDR3 timings can cause problems.

While in motherboard bios settings, check the version number. If too old, it might help to update it. Search the internet for updates in asus.com: ASUSTeK Z97-K tools

You could move graphics card to a different PCI-E slot to see if it is more stable, but this may limit PCI-E bandwidth to PCI-E 2.0, 4 lanes which might have some slow downs.

Thought it was a typo myself, though appears the numbers are true.

 

Spoiler

Thank you very much for the response, didn't expect such a lengthy post to get much activity. Will report back with the findings of the mentioned ideas asap.

[N7.Klitz]

Disappointed aswell i only started 3 weeks ago, the game was runs great now constant nvidia display driver crash when running in missions..

Spoiler

 

Edited January 21, 2019 by N7.Klitz

[cofdeath]

2 things I can see right away from the op is that you need to check the 64bit box, and the dx11 box.  Nvidia stopped support for dx10 back in 2016 (2 years ago).  And running a game in 32bit mode on a 64bit machine may cause problems if you don't tell windows itself to run it in 32bit compatibility mode. Try these, see what happens, and let us know. 

[ZaZoTX]

On 2019-01-12 at 12:47 AM, Prime-Ares said:

GeForce GTX 650 Ti (EVGA), 2047 MB

This video card is out-of-date, more or less to old for the minimum of the game since U18.4
You would need and better 900+ Nvidia Card. (thats the recommendation).

(Second note) you should also have RAM-Memory speed of no-less then 800 or this will cause a crash if it cannot read the info in the minimum
Speed required to update data live feed to your PC (this is not FPS related).

On 2019-01-12 at 12:47 AM, Prime-Ares said:

When this all began (late 2015 - early 2016), the system began giving off bizarre symptoms - bluescreening / black screening while in-game (or even when minimized and just running in the background), audio glitching and the game (incidentally the entire system as well) coming to a halt, stopping and refusing to shut down until the main power button / switch on the Desktop-PC Tower was manually hit (a solution I do Not enjoy applying, but a necessary one for all the problems and analysis that's been undergone in understanding Warframe's functionality)

These are not sounding like game-related concern of issues.
what you explains is mainly common with a CPU issue as (heat is not leaving the core)

Using Watercooler? = (Yes) Ensure its not leaked, the Montage is placed in the correct way (pipes below)
Old-Fan-Heater = (Yes) Ensure you have replaced the pasting on the CPU, these should be changed every 2years. (not to much - not to little) 
- It should cover the middle of the CPU - but not leak out to corners or outside (thats tooo much and prevents heat to leave cpu).

On 2019-01-12 at 12:47 AM, Prime-Ares said:

_{NOTE THIS IS A GOOGLE-IMAGE, NOT THE ACTUAL MESSAGE TEXT. Though the message I get is similar, its hard to screenshot when it appears as the system freezes or the game minimizes so fast while it disappears once seen:}

  Hide contents

Fix can be found for the "NVLDDMKM" Drivers here - 
https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/fix-display-driver-nvlddmkm-stopped-responding-and-has-successfully-recovered/?__c=1

Follow these steps
A. Power Options
B. Change Power Options "High Performance" (Plan Settings)
C. Change Advanced Power Settings
D. PCI Express: (Ensure that the "Link state Power Management" is set to OFF) - if not, Disable it!

Note: This can also be caused of Faulty Nvidia (NVL) drivers, means a corrupt file can occured when newest drivers or they dont fully work with your GPU.
First try - Clean Unistall drivers, Reinstall the latest.
Second Try - Clean Uninstall, Install (2-3 versions Older drivers), If it works now - Problem solved Nvidia drivers causes your issue.

More info can be found Solution 3+ on the "link".

 

Here comes the final questions... about your PC.
A. Did you overview all the hardware - (warframe installed on SSD) - The drive is not harmed or faulty in anyway?
B. Check the CPU - Temperature over an timespan of 8hours (lowest - highest?) -- How does it behave during Stress-gaming?
C. CPU Watercooler/CoolingFan - Fans works at full speed? - can you feel any heat on the radiator?
D. GPU - How is the Temperatur fluxuating on the graficcard during standby ~3hours + 4h stress-gaming?
E. Checked with a tool the power supply intake-output consistancy? (any wierd sounds?, any odd flashing inside?)
F. If you boot WARFRAME > Hows performance with "MAX" and/or "Lowest minimum" ?? what happens? any changes?

About your Bluescreen/Blackscreen situation...
Have you enable the options in BIOS to not auto-reboot upon a Blue/Blackscreen?
Can you take a mobile-Photo of the Error Code?
Can you see Any error or codes for that matter?
What was the very last thing you did before the crash?

Edited January 22, 2019 by Zenpark

[ZaZoTX]

Before we can conclude that the (Bandit) here is the Game Warframe.
We must first exclude the hardware to be the villan, to ensure that we need to ensure everything works as it should perfectly.

Secondary state would be to ensure that the Hardware is driving on the minimum requirement atleast for the game intended.

• ENSURE WARFRAME RUNS ON 64-Bit (otherwise it wont work properly).

Source: https://digitalextremes.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200182230-What-are-the-minimum-specs-for-Warframe-

Edited January 22, 2019 by Zenpark

[ZaZoTX]

On 2019-01-12 at 12:47 AM, Prime-Ares said:

2) Anti-Virus programs (BitDefender) have been uninstalled and/or disabled entirely 

this did cause my game crashes earlier.

on Windows 7/8/10 you should not need any additional antivirus program.
Windows Defender is more then enough and securely updated to ensure safe pc.

[sam686]

On 2019-01-21 at 1:16 PM, cofdeath said:

Nvidia stopped support for dx10 back in 2016 (2 years ago).

That is only for old graphics card that are 8 or more years old that does not support DX11 or newer. They will continue to work on older software drivers.

New DX12 graphics card will still run DX11/DX10/DX9 games just fine, they are compatible. If not, we would have seen huge amount of complaints that new graphics card doesn't run old games.

23 hours ago, Zenpark said:

you should also have RAM-Memory speed of no-less then 800 or this will cause a crash

Are you sure? I have 2 computers, lets look at my older one. intel i7-2600, DDR3 running at 666.7 Mhz, because my CPU can only go up to DDR3-1333. Also have NVidia GT 1030 GDDR5 2GB. No crashes, it is just a little slower. My DDR3 may support 800 MHz (DDR3-1600), but CPU does not. Tried it, beeps and doesn't start. Back to 666.7 Mhz.

Seeing 686 MHz of CPU RAM speed from OP looks like a very unusual number, possibly from base clock changed to something that overclock lots of stuff causing crashes and stability problems? Re-installing the entire OS may not remove possibly unstable overclock when it was done in Bios motherboard settings.

[ZaZoTX]

3 hours ago, sam686 said:

ntel i7-2600, DDR3 running at 666.7 Mhz, because my CPU can only go up to DDR3-1333.

Here you said your CPU can handle an DDR3 1333Mhz... now lets see what you say second line...

3 hours ago, sam686 said:

My DDR3 may support 800 MHz (DDR3-1600), but CPU does not.

You equiped an DDR3 (not supported by motherboard 1600), Not sure why you though that was a "good idea" since it can only support 1333.
in other words it can have an 800 Mhz support up to 1333. with the proper correct-socket and supported version for your Motherboard.

Note CPU does not control your RAM, Thats your motherboard.

Second part, When you mention your CPU - Do not forget that this are based for (example on i5 8th Generation Intel Core Processor supports 1600)
This is based on the technical information regarding "Intel Core Mobile Processor Family" 

Remember before you say "oh its mobile" remember the new Androids are tiny super computers using the same technoligy but in a smaller version.

YES your CPU can ofc not support an RAM that is outside of its own Mhz frequency.
BUT you also need to take into consideration of the motherboard.

--------
however before we can countine the discussion about your flaw / troubles in your PC you need to answer the questions been posted earlier.

[ZaZoTX]

Also as mentioned with picture and source Warframe did increase the DirectX requirement to minimum 10, sure you can run with DX8 thats fine
But you may get some issue. so its basicly your own graficcard/computer holding you back abit.

My recommendation is to (either buy a new) or Start slowly buy best possible pieces to build your own PC from scratch, within a 4-5months you should have a full function great PC
If ofc the money is an option and you can do it this way.

If you do please before make sure you know what you need to know about the CPU-Motherboard-GPU-RAM-PowerSupply-Chassi etc Mhz/Speed/Fitting size and so on.