Hangman2 on 26/12/2008 at 11:34

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Hi everyone and Merry Christmas,

I've got a problem with my XFX 9800 gtx+, running 177.83 drivers. I'm experiencing the Infinite Loop Error in some Unreal Engine games. The games to be mentioned are Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Rainbow Six Vegas. In Chaos Theory, it only happened once so far. I was able to complete the game once without ANY errors, then I wanted to play it again on harder difficulty, but I got the error. My picture froze, sound kept playing for about 3 seconds, then complete lockup. Only hard shutdown helped me out.

I got Rainbow Six Vegas on 23rd December, wanted to play it, guess what? It ran fine, just like Chaos Theory. Only when I quit it normally I got the error :mad: . It goes like this:
After switching back to my standard 1024x1028 resolution, the taskbar becomes grey and almost the complete screen turns black, only a little stripe of my wallpaper is visible over the greyed-out taskbar. This is the sign that my GPU stopped updating the picture and is infinite looping because the black area seems to have the resolution of Vegas (1280x960, can't go higher) and is left black like the last picture the engine generates: black, e.g. no signal on the part of the engine. You can move the cursor one time (it is visible), a typical sign of the error, because people in other forums say that the picture updates 1 or 2 times before completely locking up.
Then, either the infinite loop ends and the computer tells me that nv4_disp isn't running properly and to restart in order to fix the problem (a notification window with exclamation mark on yellow triangle) and the computer responds normally from that point in time.
Second possibility: The picture locks up, BUT the computer keeps working in the background (well, "processing" because you can't see what happens). This was once the case when the screen was black like I mentioned before but I heard the notification sound which is played when this error message I mentioned above is displayed. I pressed the shutdown-button on my machine, and it shut down (no hard shutdown, I only gave the order to shut down via pressing, not holding the button, e.g. a clean shutdown). This was the proof that the computer was still processing, as it wouldn't react when it locked completely up.

Third possibility is that it wouldn't do anything, black screen, no message, no responding, only hard shutdown helps here.
I found out that by closing Vegas via the Task-Manager, I could avoid the error. Tada! Problem solved! Really? No! Just like Chaos Theory, it starts locking up in-game, too! So, as I said: Picture locks up, maybe updates 1 or 2 times, sound plays for about 3 seconds, then it loops the 100 milliseconds soundclip, too, just like Chaos Theory. Hard shutdown. Anger. Desperation.

I want to know form you: How can I get rid of this annoying error? It takes all the gaming fun because the games become a threat! Other games are all running fine with no errors (BF2, Thief II, Crysis, CoD 4, AquaNox 2, H&D2, all non-Unreal Engine games). Even Splinter Cell 1 which uses Unreal Engine 2 ran fine, so did America's Army which uses Unreal Engine 2.5, like Chaos Theory. Maybe it has something to do with the memory management of the drivers and the Unreal Engine combined, because Vegas needs more than Chaos Theory, so Vegas locks up faster. Nevertheless, it must be the drivers, because only these two games cause the error, can't think of any other game. I played through CoD 4 without any graphical error or stuff, just ran fine, so it can't be the temperature because the fans were working, too, it was in August, so my computer became a little turbine ;) .
I think it's sad that you can only play games which support your GPU. I spent lots of money and want to have backwards compatibility. I bet some of you have this problem, too, as it existed even before 2002. Give me an advice what to do, and, if it's the drivers, tell me which one doesn't cause the Infinite Loop Error on Chaos Theory or Vegas.
Thanks for reading all this, as usually a very big post of mine, but I want to get this one solved.

Thanks,
Hang

bikerdude on 26/12/2008 at 17:53

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if its is a DRM issue, then I would suggest getting a (http://www.gamecopyworld.com/) NO-CD patched exe as this will take the DRM out of the equation. As with most games, the DRM only effects people who actually pay for the game......

bikerdude on 26/12/2008 at 19:44

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what version of windows are you running..?

bikerdude on 26/12/2008 at 22:00

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Ok do the following for me would you:

* uninstall the nvidia gfx drivers
* download and run " nasty file removed " - this will uninstall your gfx drivers, but if you have an nVidia based mother be careful not to uninstall the chipset drivers
* reboot the pc, and when windows tried to detect and install the gfx card - cancel the prompts.
* install the latest nvidia gfx drivers
* re-install the latest version of directx
* reboot


and see how it goes

june gloom on 28/12/2008 at 05:44

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Strangely enough that particular driver was causing me serious problems- BSODs, reboots, etc.; I had to roll back one.