Witcher 3 stops working, if opened with GF graphics.

[autovidol]

Witcher 3 stops working, if opened with GF graphics.

Hi. I have looked for hours now for a solution, but couldn't figure out one, so maybe someone here can help me. Last night when I was playing W3 (it's been a week when I started, I'm in Novigrad already), it crashed to desktop. There was a system error popup for following event : "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered" ID 4101. Since I installed and played the game I didn't change, update or mess in any other way with the drivers or with the game itself (or with anything else to be honest, I got sucked into the game so much).

I started looking for solutions online. Some ppl said to turn down core clock on the gpu others to change some software settings. None of this helped, but I stumbled upon Display Driver Uninstaller, which apparently helps with a deep removal of a driver, after using it I installed the stock gf driver from my Dell support website. The error stopped popping-up. I ran benchmarks (furmark, gpu-z and heaven benchmark 4.0) to be sure if the card itself hasn't been damaged - it hasn't, everything runs like a charm. I confirmed it by running Metro Last Light Redux on high details.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to run W3, except if I switched to integrated Intel graphics. Upon running it with Geforce it, crashes every time without even getting to the menu. An information that appears during the crash is of course "Witcher 3 stopped working". Here is an event log and my specs below it :

Log Name: ApplicationSource: Application Error
Date: 2015-11-02 15:19:09
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Mysz
Description:
Faulting application name: witcher3.exe, version: 3.0.6.7903, time stamp: 0x561eca18
Faulting module name: witcher3.exe, version: 3.0.6.7903, time stamp: 0x561eca18
Exception code: 0xc00000fd
Fault offset: 0x0000000000e3f317
Faulting process id: 0x5b0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d11581c92809cc
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt\bin\x64\witcher3.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt\bin\x64\witcher3.exe
Report Id: 103a58c3-8175-11e5-8266-c038969430a4
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2015-11-02T15:19:09.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>3120</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Mysz</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>3.0.6.7903</Data>
<Data>561eca18</Data>
<Data>witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>3.0.6.7903</Data>
<Data>561eca18</Data>
<Data>c00000fd</Data>
<Data>0000000000e3f317</Data>
<Data>5b0</Data>
<Data>01d11581c92809cc</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt\bin\x64\witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt\bin\x64\witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>103a58c3-8175-11e5-8266-c038969430a4</Data>

My specs are : Alienware 13, i-3, gf 860M, 12 gb ram, 128 gb SSD.

Does anyone know what to do about it?

 

[nolankotulan]

Running benchmarks and Metro Last Light without crashing doesn't mean at all that your cards aren't damaged.

I had the exact same problem with two Alienware laptops in different (but not all) games:
First was a 2 years old M18x R2 and the cards were indeed damaged. Second was a brand new Alienware 18" (aka M18x R3) which was supposed to take the place of the "dead" R2 which had the exact same problem since the beginning and which I never managed to get working correctly (not even speaking about all the other problems it had) and which I got full refund for. Never bought an Alienware again and definitely dropped the idea to play on laptops. With the refund money, I bought a desktop beast which was 4x more powerfull and stable.

Sorry, I know that it doesn't really help you a lot... but if I was you, I'd contact Dell support and ask for new replacement cards if it's still under warranty.

It can be driver issues, but it's more certainly an hardware issue (or even more certainly both)...
Be aware that the hardware used in all the Alienware laptops and desktops has insanely dropped in quality these last years...

 

[autovidol]

Running benchmarks and Metro Last Light without crashing doesn't mean at all that your cards aren't damaged.

I had the exact same problem with two Alienware laptops in different (but not all) games:
First was a 2 years old M18x R2 and the cards were indeed damaged. Second was a brand new Alienware 18" (aka M18x R3) which was supposed to take the place of the "dead" R2 which had the exact same problem since the beginning and which I never managed to get working correctly (not even speaking about all the other problems it had) and which I got full refund for. Never bought an Alienware again and definitely dropped the idea to play on laptops. With the refund money, I bought a desktop beast which was 4x more powerfull and stable.

Sorry, I know that it doesn't really help you a lot... but if I was you, I'd contact Dell support and ask for new replacement cards if it's still under warranty.

It can be driver issues, but it's more certainly an hardware issue (or even more certainly both)...
Be aware that the hardware used in all the Alienware laptops and desktops has insanely dropped in quality these last years...

I have no other choice than playing on laptops, since I move around a lot. Gaming laptops must've been invented for people like me I guess. In any case, now it works perfectly well again. Judging from a discussion on nvidia forums, it was a screw-up with the driver. I installed the latest one in the end again (one that didn't let W3 run at all before) but left one piece of nvidia software out of installation this time. Lots of people on the forums complained how some Shield streaming service causes W3 to crash a lot.

I'm curious of what you said about benchmark tests not being able to verify, if my card isn't damaged. Is there any possible way I can check that?

Cheers and thanks for reply.

 

[nolankotulan]

I have no other choice than playing on laptops, since I move around a lot.

I understand.

I'm curious of what you said about benchmark tests not being able to verify, if my card isn't damaged. Is there any possible way I can check that?

Except to try almost everything you can to fix it, including testing your card on other PCs, and to be very patient, nothing precisely that I'm aware of. But I'm not an expert.