Gears of War and 169.21 WHQL driver problems...

I'm running Windows XP MCE 2005 with a 7900GTX in my Clevo M570U/ Sager 5760 and I upgraded my 86.63 nVidia driver to the 169.21 WHQL driver directly off of nVidia's site. This was prompted because when I went to play G.o.W. with my 86.63 driver, it said that I needed to upgrade to driver 163.44. I searched and read that 169.21 WHQL driver was a very good driver (especially for XP and 7900 series video cards). I installed the new driver through the Device Manager settings (after replacing the INF file with the file I downloaded off Laptop2govideo.com) and now RivaTuner 2.06 does show the 169.21 drivers and the nVidia control panel is different as well when I right click on the desktop and choose nVidia Control Panel. Everything seems good!!!

Now, when I go to play G.o.W. now, I click the "PLAY" button on the screen that asks you if Microsoft can update your info into their database or something....and then I get a Black Screen with the cursor turning into an hour glass. Now if I press CTRL + ALT + DEL, I can see that the program is not responding and I end up having to end the process or the task (in either window tab). It's a slow process, but I eventually get back to the desktop screen.

What is wrong? Every post I read last night said that this driver plays CoD4, Crysis and G.o.W. perfectly!!! I uninstalled G.o.W. and will try reinstalling it tonight... but does anyone have any other suggestions?

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!

Thanks

Brian

 

I am gonna take a blind guess here, when the game ask you to update your information with microsoft, I am guessing it needs access to the internet. So, check to see if your firewall is blocking it causing it to freeze, I use zonealarm and it cause some of my games to crash when it displayed the warnings.

 

Good call! I did have Comodo Firewall Protection on at the time, so once I re-install the game and if it does not work on the first try, I'll disable CFP and try again Thanks for the suggestion.

 

little update:

Shutting off Comodo Firewall didn't do the trick and neither did reinstalling the game. Does anyone have any other ideas what it could be?

BRian

 

Another update: I just played Crisis for sometime so it has to be something related to the game, right?

 

Should I just try installing the 169.28 beta driver version? Anyone? Bueller?

 

Did you create your "profile" for the game?

 

Nope. Could you explain how to do that? Or what program you're even talking about Profile in nVidia's Control Panel? Or do you make your profile through the Gears of War "editor"???

 

Yeah, thats your problem then, the game won't run unless you create your profile, off the top of my head i don't remember how but just read your manual. I had the same problem. It should ask you to create one when you first start the game.

 

^Wow :lol: I'm such a retard haha. I'll try this out tonight and setup my profile! Crossing my fingers!!! Thanks again snowsurfer!

 

Snowsurfer - he can't even get into the game to make his profile.

Pyun - try to run it directly from the .exe file instead of the auto run, it's located in Program Files\Microsoft Games\Gears of War\Binaries\
and the file is obviously "Wargame-G4WLive". See if that will let you get into the game.

 

In order to run the game in single player mode, you need to launch the "Startup.exe", if you use wargame-G4WLive.exe, it would launch however, it will just tell you to use Startup.exe once it gets to the game menu screen.

Just a question for the OP, do you have D4D force Triple Buffering tweak enabled?

 

No, I do not have the D4D force triple buffering tweak...that is if I'm the OP

Original Poster??

 

Yup, OP = Original Poster, and there was a typo in my last post, it's suppose to be D3D.

Well, moving on to next possible solution, the developer had released a patch for GoW did you install it yet? It supposedly fixed a couple of bugs that can cause crashes worth a shot if you ask me.

 

OP, could you give this a shot
I have had this problem before, fixed it by installing windows live redistributable by my self before installing gears of war, where as before gow installed live redistributable during installation

Uninstall Gears of War from control panel
Uninstall windows live redistributable from control panel
Reboot
Download and install windows live redistributable from microsoft
Download and update your direct x from microsoft
Install Gears of War (yes i know it takes ages lol)
Install the Gears of War update from here

 

thanks everybody!!!! you guys are great!!! I'm gonna try all these suggestions today!!