Freezing problems

[Juhl]

Freezing problems

I've been having problems with this game. I'm playing on Steam. I've tried every single thing possible and I've had so many freezes resulting in the need of a shutdown. I've tried entering the registry values suggested, I've tried the registry fix program, I've tried running as administrator, I've uninstalled, re-installed, removed saved games and config files in the documents, verified game integrity. I've done everything and I still get the black screen upon launch with the "cross" mouse icon and then a freeze where nothing is operable and I have to shutdown.

When I ran the game for the very first time I don't recall any problems at all, everything ran fine. When everything went to shit was when I was just about done with the first chapter. I had completed just about every quest and I was off to finish The Kayran quest, so I figure I have a bunch of saves I don't need so I deleted every save (EVERY SINGLE ONE), so instead of going immediately to save another file I decide to go to the quest and highlight The Kayran quest.

Upon doing this the entire game freezes and I think what really made everything go crazy was I was in disbelief and started pressing everything. I have a laptop so I pressed all of the buttons that are controlled by "SCM" by MSI, I tried pressing everything but nothing worked so the only thing left was to shutdown. Upon the restart I had an error pertaining to SCM. Long story short I got SCM working again but I think that whole incident really messed something up because I haven't be able to get Witcher 2 to work correctly ever since.

It's even gotten to a point where my computer would just freeze upon restarting if it were shutdown due to the game freezing. I would love to keep trying different things to make the game work but I just wish there was an update that would just fix all of this because I've just about given up. I love this game but I don't feel right about having to shutdown as the only option every time because the game freezes my entire computer. Prior to this I only experienced one freeze that required a shutdown but I didn't panic because I still had my saves so no extra buttons were pressed just a shutdown when I realized my computer was frozen and the game was still working fine after.

If it matters any I use a PS3 controller emulating an X-Box 360 controller with MotionInJoy 0.6.0005, also I checked for programs that shouldn't be running while playing Witcher 2 and I don't have any of them running.

My specs
Microsoft Windows 7 x64 Service Pack 1
Processor: AMD A10-5750M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics, 2500 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processors
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 8650G; AMD Radeon(TM) HD8970M
BIOS Version/Date: American Megatrends Inc. E176KAI1.500, 6/18/2013

edit:

Guys I think I realize what the problem is, I made the discovery shortly after I posted this. I think it's related to some drivers. It's all connected with .NET Framework and some drivers for my computer. I still haven't tested Witcher 2 yet but I'm going to try some things and if I can get success there I will try the game again and see if that fixes the problem.

 

[Juhl]

OK wow. After about 3 days of headache you guys won't believe what the problem was and why the game kept freezing. It was because of my laptop being plugged into the battery charger while it was playing. At first I thought it was my controller, external mouse or my usb headphone amp that was causing the problems so I kept unplugging them but never the charger. Finally I decided to just unplug the charger and all of a sudden it works. Launched it three times in a row without any problem.

I even plugged back in my controller my amp and mouse and it works. I don't know what the hell I did wrong to cause this but yeah the game only works when it's unplugged from the charger. Also I disabled my AMD catalyst control center because after all of the freezes it seems to be part of the reason why my cpu freezes upon restarting, after a failed game launch freeze occurs. Well I'm going to go ahead and try to get as far as I can.

Hopefully someone will see this and look into it, pretty weird this is the only game I've had this much trouble with but I honestly think it's worth it, the game is so amazing so far.

update:

Yeah being plugged in is definitely the problem. I don't know wtf I did to my computer. I just took my battery out while having the laptop plugged in just to see what would happen and it froze again. Then once I rebooted I launched with just the battery in and it worked again. I don't know if I'll ever figure that one out but just thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[tommy5761]

Thank you for posting your fix . What brand and model of laptop do you have ?

 

[Juhl]

It is an iBuyPower Valkyrie CZ-28 the motherboard was manufactured by MSI "MS-176K". I believe it's all tied in with the AMD Catalyst Control Center. I just noticed every time I unplug or plug in my battery charging adapter there are two programs "MMLoadDrv.exe *32" and "MMLoadDrvPXDiscrete.exe *32" that appear in the task manager and for some reason I believe they are at least partly responsible for the freezing and I think they're associated with the Catalyst Control Center.

I completely uninstalled all of my drivers via Catalyst Control Center and re-installed last night, yet I still cannot play with battery adapter plugged in. It still works with only the battery in laptop. I will continue to try to find the solution, maybe even uninstall all my drivers and see if it will launched while plugged up, I haven't tried that yet but it doesn't really make sense to. I figure it should work as it did when I first purchased and installed like I said the first run everything was flawless. It was only after the epic saved file lose freeze that I mentioned above that all of this started.

update:

So I think I may have stumbled onto something. I removed the two programs mentioned above "MMLoadDrv.exe *32" "MMLoadDrvPXDiscrete.exe *32" from the folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static) and now it works even when plugged in!! I've launched it two times with no problems, if I don't edit with anything else then it's working with the charger plugged in with or without battery inside of laptop.

update 2:

Well that only seemed to help the freezing for only those two times I mentioned. It froze again upon a third try. I'll keep trying but now I'm really confused.

update 3:

Alright I replaced the files mentioned above back into their appropriate folder, this time I exited everything that was on the taskbar and went into the task manager and shutdown the explorer.exe I launched Witcher 2 about three times now and it seems to be another temporary fix. We'll see how long this lasts..

It's almost as if every solution I discover, shortly after playing it freezes and then that solution no longer works. I don't even know what to do anymore. Playing with just the battery still works but the frame rate is sluggish while running on just battery power and it's not exactly fun having to turn the game off because you have to recharge battery before it dies. I don't know what to do anymore but I'll keep trying I guess...



Alright I finally found a solution it's not the best but it works and I think it's the same reason why the game would work when only battery was used as power source and it is associated with the AMD Catalyst Control Center.

In the Catalyst Control Center I went into the "PowerPlay™" section and switched the "Plugged In" to "Maximum Battery Life" and in "Switchable Graphics Global Settings" switched "Plugged In" to "Optimize power savings" for some reason I have issues with The Witcher 2 when the option is set to "Maximum Performance" but switching it has fixed it. I've been playing it ever since the last post edit with no freezing. Only issue now is the audio is occasionally skipping and glitching but....I guess it's a whole lot better than the freezing and shutting down on every launch.

I've been playing Witcher 2 ever since I finally got a working fix so more good news is the audio problems are not associated with Witcher 2, it's something to do with my computer or Catalyst Control Center because it's doing it now and I'm not playing the game. Just thought I'd add that, the game still works great now though.

 

[tommy5761]

I didn`t see anything associated with updating the BIOS but you may have other updates available .
http://www.ibuypower.com/Download/Drivers/CZ-28

 

[Juhl]

Thank you for this link Tommy! I haven't tried anything yet but I'll look into it a bit later. The options that I have chosen for Catalyst Control Center in the last paragraph of my previous post still seems to be working though, been playing mostly all day. I'll try the drivers on that page and see if it makes any difference, but for the moment I'll stick with whats working I'm trying to catch up on all the hours I missed for the last few days I've been dealing with the freeze problem lol.

I don't know if it was the VGA or audio but I installed drivers from the download and I haven't been having any audio glitches ever since regardless of the settings, so thanks again for that link Tommy.