Dead space keeps crashing 5 times a minute!!!

just got my copy today.. installed it played it for five minutes then i just starts to keep crashing about five times a minute!!.. i get the icon on my desktop saying "nvlddmkm has crashed and sucessfully recovered"..
the game runs perfectly on high settings, i even turned the res down to 1024*768!.. then it ran for a bit longer and stared to crash again..
i even tried two seperate drivers. still no difference..

If any one had the same problem please let me know how to get past through this..
im running this on a 256BG8600MGT 2gig ram

 

that nvlddmkm is a driver error, im not too familiar with nvidia drivers tho, you have to wait for someone to come along and tell you which ones are the best drivers

 

Are you overclocking your card? I have to turn my OC down when playing Dead Space, or I get the constant driver crashes.

 

nope i've never over clocked it so far.. unless it automatically overclocked, which can happen..
still no answer

 

I installed my copy a few days ago and so far it's been stable. I'm using Dox's modified 178.24 and have lowered the more extravagant video settings for playable gameplay. I have the DDR2 version of the 8600m GT.

 

exactly what settings are you playing the games in?...
can you get a screen shot of your settings
thanx

 

Having played a bit more today it seems my driver set isn't much better either. I've had crashes to Blue screen and rather erratic performance which I blame on the video drivers. Now looking at another Dox driver set to see if any improvements can be found.

I'm playing with 1280x800 resolution with Depth of field, Anti-aliasing and Vsync off. That gets me a decent framerate (25-30fps normally and the aiming cursor doesn't lag or jump when monsters are in your face).

 

i think i found away how to avoid all the crashes. just turn off the shadows,.
didnt have any crashes so far.. cant be a driver issues cz i've tried a lot of drivers..
25-30fps?..dude even with shadows i play this at 35FPS+.. how come u get such lower rates

 

no i started getting the crashes again.. now the video card seems to downclock even with powermizer turned off!!!...

 

I've had this problem since day 1. I found out its an issue with the g86 core GPUs (9500m GS and 8600m GT). I have tried various fixes found online, but none seemed to work.

The best I could do was to reinstall drivers in safe mode and sometimes that would give me ~6-10 hours of playtime before the downclocking (rinse and repeat, as after the first downclocking the issue seems to resurface more and more).

I am installing XP on my laptop in the next few days and seeing if this issue still happens.

 

Back with an update: Installed Dox's 180.70 driver set and have the same settings as my previous post (forgot to mention that shadows are off as well).

I haven't been running FRAPS but so far it's playable (i.e. the aiming cursor responds to my mouse commands properly). I'll do a brief benchmark on my next playthrough. I'll see turning the powermizer switch to off makes any difference.

 

thing is so far thisonly happend in dead space!..
most other games run perfect.. playing price of persia right now

 

nope tried rolling back over 4 drivers now. still keeps crashing 2 min in to the game.. goes black screen comes back to the game this keeps repeating until i force the game to shut down..
screw this im gona install GTA 4 and c what happens

 

It's overheating. It will downclock even with the powermizer off, it's a safety feature.

 

I don't think its overheating as it would downclock at temperatures of 68C whereas in other games (Assassin's Creed) the GPU would stay around 78C for hours at a time without a problem.

The only games I've had this problem with are:
-Vegas 2 (very severe, can be within 15 minutes)
-Dead Space (usually takes a couple hours)
-Mass Effect (happens only after at least 3 hours of playing)

Its a very strange bug

 

Are you absolutely sure it's not a thermal issue?
Because the 9500m GS is a renamed 8600m GT and that series has serious issues with thermal cycling/dying prematurely.

Some people have reported similar symptoms to your own before the cards completely gave out.

But I digress ... we can only speculate for now.
Monitor your temperatures and see how the card behaves in the future.
If the problem persists, try re-installing the OS and see if it solves the issue.
If not, backup your data and call your laptop's manufacturer for a solution.

 

I am fairly sure that the problem is not thermal as it occurs anytime regardless of GPU temperature (has occurred at temperatures as low as 68C when my GPU under load can hit 78C and not have any problems)

The downclocking issue is a very well documented problem that some say only appears in Vista. Here's a link to a summary of a 160+ page thread about the topic.

 

so technically we dont have solution for this..
@Dire NTropy dude im suprised u can even run the game for a few hours, mine only lasts a few minutes

 

securom is causing it

 

I had this downclocking issue a little over a year ago, and it was due to bad drivers. Right now I'm using the latest official Dell driver (175.97) and I've never had that problem using this driver. I urge you to check your manufacturer's website for the latest driver because those are usually the most stable.

 

well if its down clocking how come its only this game that keeps crashing?..