PC - cars tumble rapidly around screen in menu and race!

[halsteadk]

Odd one this, in the menu inside the garage, there is a model of car that tumbles around the screen making smashing noises with smoke and bits flying everywhere, that eventually makes it way off the screen or out of the door of the garage. (I assume it's supposed to just sit in the garage!) Otherwise the menu works fine. Then when I start a race, the same thing happens as soon as the cars appear on the grid, before the game locks up.

System specs: Q6600, 4GB RAM, 9600GT 512MB, Vista Home Prem 64-bit, Audigy X-Fi Audio.

[AlphaJoe]

Odd one this, in the menu inside the garage, there is a model of car that tumbles around the screen making smashing noises with smoke and bits flying everywhere, that eventually makes it way off the screen or out of the door of the garage. (I assume it's supposed to just sit in the garage!) Otherwise the menu works fine. Then when I start a race, the same thing happens as soon as the cars appear on the grid, before the game locks up.

System specs: Q6600, 4GB RAM, 9600GT 512MB, Vista Home Prem 64-bit, Audigy X-Fi Audio.

I am having the exact same problem. I also have almost the same system specs as well.

System specs: Q6600, 8GB RAM, 8800GTX 768MB, Vista Ultimate 64-bit, Audigy X-Fi Audio.

[AlphaJoe]

Here you go, I fraps'd a video of the craziness. I was quite amused when it first happened, but it does however prevent me from playing the game :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUYP7JtF4ns

[Me3850]

I am having the exact same problem:
Q6600, 4GB RAM, 8800Ultra 768MB, Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1, X-Fi PCI-e...with last driver

disable sound card at management devices and fix this... -.-

:(

PS CODEMASTERS FIX THIS PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[jigglybean]

Did you take the keys out of the car? lol I will get the guys to look into this. Can you please post a dxdiag and anything additional info? What led up to this happening? Or was it totally random?

[Me3850]

this is random at the start, the problem is same at video y see on youtube and is always the same identical...the problem is fix when i disable my audio card (X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express last driver XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_03_0001) i have last OpenAL Driver (6.14.357.23 for OpenAL.dll and wrap_oal.dll 2.2.0.5) this my dxdiag:

http://me3850.altervista.org/DxDiag.txt

my software:
http://img155.imagevenue.com/loc929/th_46176_Immagine_122_929lo.jpg (http://img155.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=46176_Immagine_122_929lo.jpg)

my pc:
CPU: Q6600
Motherboard and revision: LANPARTY LT X48-T2R last bios
Motherboard Bios rev: 01
Ram: OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR10661G 4x1
Video card: xfx 8800ultra extreme
Power supply: Enermax infinity 720watt
Operating System: Vista x86 Sp1
CPU and System Cooling: cpu Thermalight IFX 14 nb HR-05 SLI sb NOCTUA NC-U6 gcard Thermalight HR03
Hd: RaptorX 150GB
DVD: Piooner 215D
Mouse: Logitech G7
Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse

ps please fix this i want try a demo before buy please :(

[MythJuha]

I have the same problem.

System specs are:

Intel core 2 quad 6600
4GB DDR2 ram
Geforce 8800 GTS 512MB
Soundblaster Xi-Fi ExtremeAudio

OS: Vista ultimate 64bit SP1

[piebald3]

Wow, that is hilarious! I imagine that goes from funny to massively annoying in no time though for those affected.

[Me3850]

this game without sound... :( why sound card create this strange issue
I thought it was more a problem of graphics driver instead when I turned off the sound card was that the problem but it is absurd ...

[MythJuha]

this game without sound... :( why sound card create this strange issue
I thought it was more a problem of graphics driver instead when I turned off the sound card was that the problem but it is absurd ...
Creative just sux >.< i told myself many years ago i'd never buy a creative soundcard again. Yet when i bought my new pc i ignored my previous advice and went for a xi-fi of which i heard it was good. Results are bad vista compatibility and crackling sound. Next time i buy an asus soundcard. Don't care if they are more expensive.

[jigglybean]

Did you disable daemon tools?

[MythJuha]

Did you disable daemon tools?

No changes when i do. Still freaking out. I'll try switching to my onboard audio next and see if it also helps on my pc.

Edit: Switching to my onboard audio indeed fixed the problem. Not only that, but unlike the youtube video shown earlier i also had a EXTREMELY low framerate combined with the bouncing cars. Now it runs fluently even on ultra settings.

[Me3850]

the problem is with X-FI Creative sound card -.-

[tImMyW]

Creative just sux >.< i told myself many years ago i'd never buy a creative soundcard again. Yet when i bought my new pc i ignored my previous advice and went for a xi-fi of which i heard it was good. Results are bad vista compatibility and crackling sound. Next time i buy an asus soundcard. Don't care if they are more expensive.

God damn it. I have a glitchy car as well as "Snap, Crackle, Pop". Dont ever buy a creative.

[Druidika]

I'm using an X-Fi Platinum on Vista x64 without any problems, the sound is incredible (and my cars stay on the road too :p).

[Croney]

It does look like it's the X-fi that is causing the problem, I'm running fine with Q6600, 4GB Ram, 8800GT on Vista Ultimate 64-bit, though I am using onboard sound, (have ordered an X-Fi Card, hope it doesn't wreck my game cos I'm Hooked :)

[Me3850]

but when disable sound card (x-fi extreme audio pci-e) it's work

[Me3850]

no help for this many people have this problem... -_-

[Satsumomo]

Creative just sux >.< i told myself many years ago i'd never buy a creative soundcard again. Yet when i bought my new pc i ignored my previous advice and went for a xi-fi of which i heard it was good. Results are bad vista compatibility and crackling sound. Next time i buy an asus soundcard. Don't care if they are more expensive.

I have an Audigy 2ZS and I don't get any of these glitches in the game. Creative is what made games even have digital sound nowadays, and the only decent audio chip for computers is yes, by Creative.

[Drzoidi]

Hey you.

I have a X-Fi soundcard and the same Problems. When I switch to the soundchip the game runs wonderfull.

I´ll hope they give us a patch for the demo ;)

[Me3850]

yep i thinks the problem is only with x-fi extreme audio pci and pci-e :(

WHY NOT FIX THIS?????? -____-

[Uncle Chewy]

It's definitely related to the sound card and we are investigating this tonight. I'll keep you posted.

[Me3850]

thanks very much, hope a fix at soon :(

[bobfish]

Do you have hardware acceleration enabled in the sound options screen? Does it make any difference on / off?

[Me3850]

no hardware acceleration is grey and off and I can not change...

[Fluke71]

Running an X-Fi Extreme Audio with no problems here - however...

A while back, I was having an audio issue with something else, and in the course of updating drivers etc, I found that the update utility that came with the card actually downloaded a newer version of the drivers than those on the website.

I don't know if this is still the case or not, but it might be worth a look for those of you with X-Fi issues.

[DjArcas]

Hi Me3850,

I noticed that your driver is a little out of date:

Driver Name: t3.sys
Driver Version: 6.10.0000.0201 (English)
Date and Size: 1/29/2008 12:03:12, 404480 bytes

There should be newer drivers available for you at www.creative.com

Can you try updating those to latest, and letting us know if that fixes the problem? We're trying to reproduce it here :)

Thanks!

[Me3850]

out of date?????

this is last driver for creative x-fi xtreme Pci-e
XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_03_0001.exe

and on manage device the date is 04/03/2008 same on inf

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=MEDIA
ClassGuid={4d36e96c-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
provider=%CREAF%
CatalogFile.NTX86=t3.cat
CatalogFile.NTAMD64=t364.cat
DriverVer=03/04/2008,6.10.0.201

http://img156.imagevenue.com/loc821/th_12740_Immagine_122_821lo.jpg (http://img156.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=12740_Immagine_122_821lo.jpg)

last driver... HELP ME :(

[Teq]

The latest driver for the original PCI Xtreme Audio card, on either width of Vista, is XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_04_0079.exe, which was uploaded by Creative at the beginning of April. Please give that a try if you're using the PCI rather than the PCI Express version. It does look as if the PCI Express version is lagging behind ;-(

N.B. the X-Fi Xtreme Audio does not have the EMU20K DSP which features in the higher-spec X-Fis, or support the "Game Mode" option in the Audio Console, which is why it only offers the software mixer (though of course that should work as it does on other cards, driver permitting). It is however a lot cheaper than the Xtreme Music, Fatal1ty, Elite Pro etc ;-)

[Me3850]

no the XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_04_0079.exe is not compatible for pci-e card

[Nexevo]

X-Fi Fatal1ty here with zero issues.

[halsteadk]

Yep, switching the default sound device to the onboard Realtek HD chip solved the problem, although I can also confirm I do have the latest drivers as reported elsewhere in this thread and in the FAQ. Very impressive game!

However, this has given me another problem - I'm struggling to tell that the X-Fi audio is any better than the onboard sound chip!

[Me3850]

yep many people with X-Fi Xtreme audio Pci and Pci-e have this problem...

[Satsumomo]

Yep, switching the default sound device to the onboard Realtek HD chip solved the problem, although I can also confirm I do have the latest drivers as reported elsewhere in this thread and in the FAQ. Very impressive game!

However, this has given me another problem - I'm struggling to tell that the X-Fi audio is any better than the onboard sound chip!

You'll notice in games that support it :)

Oblivion was a clear example for me!

[Teq]

yep many people with X-Fi Xtreme audio Pci and Pci-e have this problem...
We're trying to reproduce this. No luck yet, though we don't dispute for a moment that it happens - we can't yet find the crucial combination of driver/card model/CPU/RAM though. You can help!

It seems to be specific to Vista, X-Fi Xtreme Audio - (so not any of the earlier X-Fi cards with the EMU DSP chip and support for 'Game Mode') and has not been seen on systems with less than 4 Gb RAM.

So far only one person (thanks, Me3850 :-) has explicitly said whether they have the PCI-E version of the card. This is the one with lower driver version number. Halsteadk, AlphaJoe, Drzoidi, MythJuha, it would help us a lot of you were to say if your card is PCI or PCI Express.

Codies testing has used the PCI version with the 1_04 driver on Vista in 2Gb (and various other unproblematic combinations - there are potentially millions) and has not shown the problem. So we're urgently trying to home in on the exact problematic combination, and so are Creative Labs in the UK and USA.

All four people with the problem who specify their hardware have X-Fi Xtreme Audio, Vista, and at least 4 Gb RAM. Three out of four have 64 bit Vista, and those are the three that don't say if they've got PCI or PCI-E cards.

Three out of four of those have Intel Q6600 cards. We've got some of those and will concentrate our testing on those, in Vista, ensuring they have 4Gb of RAM and the Xtreme Audio card (in whichever version fits).

Anyone who finds this and does not have a Q6600, please make that clear in your posting. Likewise anyone affected who is not using an X-Fi Xtreme Audio, or not using Vista, or has less than 4 Gb RAM. We might need to rethink our assumptions if those other systems are affected, but on the current small sample we think they're crucual.

If you have Xtreme Audio, please use the latest 1_03 driver for testing with PCI-E and 1_04 on normal PCI.


Drzoidi, please confirm your Vista version, card type and RAM.

This sort of interaction is usually easy to fix once we can home in on it and reproduce it, though Intel, Microsoft or Creative might well be crucial, rather than the game - it's too early to know and pointless to speculate. Let's collaborate to find a working combination for everyone when the full game is released!

[edtheduck]

Hi there,

got the same problem, cars tumble around the main screen and track, bits fly off, really slows down with all that action on screen at once, so it's unplayable as is...

My specs are:

Vista x64 SP1 RC1
Q6600 - not overclocked
X-FI PCI-E (yep..that one!)...driver version 1.3.1
Geforce 8800gts 320mb...175.16 beta drivers
6GB DDR Ram


Hope this helps in sorting out the problem, BTW, disabled X-FI and ran demo-worked like a dream. hope this can get fixed as I want to buy this game!

[Me3850]

damn then I can not try the demo? :(

[Drzoidi]

I have the newest drivers and the problems. I think we can´t fix the problems with an older driver... a newer version do not exist...

[rakanisshu]

Try to turn off one of the cores of your processor?!?! mby that helps...

[Teq]

I have the newest drivers and the problems. I think we can´t fix the problems with an older driver... a newer version do not exist...
Q1. Are you also using a Q6600 mobo, Drzoidi?

Q2. Is your card PCI or PCI-Express (the 'newest' drivers differ)?

Q3. Are you runing Vista 32, Vista 64 or XP?


EdTheDuck, thanks for the info. You're the second to confirm this affects an Xtreme Audio PCI-E card (with the current 1_3_1 driver for Xpress) and your RAM, OS and Motherboard fit the pattern seen so far.

Unless we see someone report this on XP, or another motherboard, we cannot rule out the problem being at least in part dependent upon specific Microsoft or Intel set-ups - although obviously GRID and (some?) Xtreme Audio cards are implicated too, those do work together in other configurations (including Vista 2Gb). Hence the need for specifics. The problem is specific to a combination of factors, only half of which we can identify (so far).

[Me3850]

yep but why when i disable my x-fi pci-e the game work good :S with onboard sound card is work good only with x-fi pci-e have this problem... :S

uhm I suspect that the problem is this hdaudbus.sys it's possible?

the strange is i try without driver with original driver of vista32 (microsoft driver) and same error...

[Teq]

There are several factors interacting - Sound Card, OS and CPU, at least. Changing any one of them seems to make the problem go away.

The demo does works fine on Xtreme Audio cards in other PCs, for example. Switching to XP from Vista seems to cure it. You might also try (temporarily!) dropping to 1 or two cores and see if the demo still goes mad, as we've not seen the problem reported on a HT or dual-core PC. Nor does it occur (so far) on any of the other X-Fi models (the many non-'Xtreme Audio' ones) which have Game Mode and the EMU20K DSP, regardless of OS or CPU.

However we have reproduced it on a Vista Quad Core system, with either model of X-Fi Xtreme Audio, apparently independent of RAM size.

We're continuing to test both the demo and the full game to make sure this can be analysed and fixed, and appreciate all your feedback.

[Me3850]

OMG it's Quad Core problem i have disable 2 core on bios and it's work fine :S

ok i have found the trick for fix i have rename workerMap2Core.xml on workerMap4Core.xml and backup the original workerMap4Core.xml and it's work good the error is on "workerMap4Core.xml" :D

[halsteadk]

Halsteadk, AlphaJoe, Drzoidi, MythJuha, it would help us a lot of you were to say if your card is PCI or PCI Express.

I will take a look in the box when I get home to make sure which version it is, as the PC's very new! 99% sure it's the PCI version though, as the driver version is 1.04.0079.

Be honest now, you just wanted to show off the crash damage effects...

(OT - Have to admit to a small disappointment in that respect, as the game seems very quick to cut out to the "your car's dead" routine after a big crash - really wanted to recreate that spectacular roll in one of the trailers! Difficult also to get a decent camera replay of crashes as they're often very close to the car.)

[DragonFood]

Here are two work-arounds you can try. Neither come with any warranty, but both are safe in my eyes.

===========================
A) Fool GRID into using fewer cores.
===========================

Edit the hardware_settings_restrictions.XML file in the "Program Files\Codemasters\GRID\system" folder. Open it it Wordpad or an XML editor, and make the following changes:

Line 10(ish) - change value="4" to value="400". Since very few PCs have 400 cores, this section of the XML will now be ignored.

Line 5 - change value="2" to value="4". This will mean that on a quad-core machine, GRID runs on only two cores. Performance will theoretically suffer, but it is not likely to make a noticeable difference on these high-end systems.

==========================
B) Revert to older Creative drivers.
==========================

I do not believe the older drivers are available directly from Creative, but search for XFXA_PCDRV_LB_1_04_0078.exe (note 0078 at the end, not 0079) on the internet and download it from a trustworthy source (at your own risk). Be sure to uninstall your existing Creative Vista drivers completely and reboot beforehand. Then install the above drivers, and this should fix the problem.

There is a chance that Vista will intelligently use a saved version of the drivers (i.e. the new ones we don't want) in which case you may need to Right Click the XFi in Device Manager, click Uninstall, check "Delete the driver software for this device" and click OK. Then, try installing the above drivers.

=========================

Hopefully this will allow you to play the demo, with audio, on your quad core machine. I am assured that Codies are working with hardware manufacturers towards a fix for the full game.

Good Luck!

[halsteadk]

99% sure it's the PCI version

Confirmed.

[RFT]

Thanks for the info, Dragonfoot.

In addition to that, the programmers have informed me that this issue will be resolved in the full version of the game.

[DjArcas]

We have now tracked down and fixed this problem, so it's certainly not going to be in the full game. Thanks to everyone who helped us narrow it down! We'll be discussing a fix for the demo with Creative - it appears that if you disable two of the cores in your BIOS, it will run fine - it's only related to quad core PCs using those particular drivers on those particular X-fi cards.

I'm sorry I don't have a better work around at the moment (barring using on board sound or disabling 2 cores), but we'll try and come up with something quickly!

Edit - looks like I was a little slow posting this message!

[Me3850]

see this ;)

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280230
FIX WITH QUAD CORE SUPPORT :D