Windows 10 (Fall update) plus new install of Origin UC (updated) = Unplayable?

@gwynne - Very interesting result! Do you know if I can use an nvidia driver meant for 900 series cards with my 1060? I ask because I have read that the 362.00 driver is pretty stable but it is for 400 - 900 series cards, not the 10X0 series. If tricksy clever new cards with spiffy new features I probably don't use are the problem, could dumbing them down with older drivers help? I don't want to go buy an older card.

@CatOfEvilGeniu - Buying an older card would be shooting in the dark. I have GTX 780 on the setup I use with Sims 2 and my game still likes going crazy with the pink flashing. It also started to do it way before the current wave of problems (1709). So it's definitely not so straightforward that older is also better.

@gwynne - I think it's not entirely unexpected considering how the specific problems seem to vary with different people. Every system seems to be its own case. But it's still interesting. I've been meaning to try GTX 1080 on this computer and see how the things turn out, and your test encourages to try it. But my point with that kind of test would have originally been to try the better GPU as many people have advised that GPU with more memory could help. If your test continues without the flashing that already proves that it's not so.

Quote:@CatOfEvilGeniu - Buying an older card would be shooting in the dark. I have GTX 780 on the setup I use with Sims 2 and my game still likes going crazy with the pink flashing. It also started to do it way before the current wave of problems (1709). So it's definitely not so straightforward that older is also better.

I went through your original thread more carefully. You seem to have developed the 'flashing pink' issue 6-7 months before those of us on Windows 10 v. 1709 got hit.

I'm trying not to succumb to confirmation bias (since it's annoying me when people on other forums are doing the same thing, e.g., 'it's not happening to me so it's not happening and/or it is user error'), but I do feel like pre-1709 flashing pink problems are different from the "my game was 100% fine until I let Windows install the Creator's update a few weeks ago" problems. I get that they are manifesting in the same way and it has something to do with texture memory. But all I can do is lay out my results:

All machines with Windows 10 Pro 1709:

1) PC 1: Gaming machine with 32GB RAM and GTX 1070 (this installation of Windows had literally been running TS2 UC installed from Origin since the day it was first pushed to my Origin account): Flashing pink, started IMMEDIATELY after 1709 was installed. My windows.old folder is dated Jan 11. The first time 'flashing pink' appears in my google search history is Jan 12.

2) PC 2: Identical specs with a clean reinstall of Windows 10 and Origin/UC: Flashing pink (also crashed like crazy until I did the '4GB patch', which I'd never had to futz with before). I can unbreak and re-break this machine by rolling it between 1703 and 1709.

3) PC 3: (Home desktop) Decent gaming PC with a GTX 970: No flashing pink

4) PC 4: Gaming laptop with a GTX860m: No flashing pink

5) PC 5: Differently-spec'd gaming desktop into which the harddrive from PC 2 has been unceremoniously plunged, intact/unchanged Windows, UC and NVIDIA drivers, but with a GTX 970 (this is a different 970 from PC 3): No flashing pink

For what it's worth, listed desktop GPUs are a mix of Zotac and EVGA, manufacturer-wise. I'm not sure it matters since they behave the same, but I'll see if the GPUs in 1 and 2 are the exact same make and model. (I think they're both Zotac, but may be a mix.) Edit: plot twist, the 1070 in PC2 was made by Gigabyte. (Ok, not really a plot twist.)

I can also try on a GTX 560 and possibly some even older cards (I think I have a GT240 around here, heh) but I'll need a fairly compelling reason to do so.

@gwynne - you have really done an impressive amount of testing. Thank you for sharing. I think it's quite curious that the only card with 8GB memory was also the only one which caused flashing.

I totally agree with you about your feelings that the pre-1709 problems might be a different case than ones that occurred afterwards. But since the symptoms are relatively the same I keep my hopes up that solving another may also help with the another. One difference between my system and most of the others is that I use the Education version of Windows 10, so that might affect, but can't know for sure. Anyways... Your results really don't encourage me with my idea of trying GTX 1080.

(03-02-2018 12:56 AM)Epi7 Wrote:  @gwynne - you have really done an impressive amount of testing. Thank you for sharing. I think it's quite curious that the only card with 8GB memory was also the only one which caused flashing.

I totally agree with you about your feelings that the pre-1709 problems might be a different case than ones that occurred afterwards. But since the symptoms are relatively the same I keep my hopes up that solving another may also help with the another. One difference between my system and most of the others is that I use the Education version of Windows 10, so that might affect, but can't know for sure. Anyways... Your results really don't encourage me with my idea of trying GTX 1080.

It's a super annoying problem. Unfortunately I don't have the right kind of smarts to figure out what the problem is, I just have the ability to lay my hands on a lot of different hardware and test relentlessly. I did notice your Education build but I don't know much about that branch. You're not in any kind of insider/preview program, are you? I can find references of previews for the fall creator update as long ago as August of last year:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperie...kip-ahead/

Also, here's this in case it sheds any light:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10...ison_chart

... but even still, your 780 is an outlier. I don't suppose there's any chance that card is going bad? I guess it would be four or five years old now. (I have a swarm of 560s that are still chugging along, but we do burn them out occasionally.)

(FWIW ... I *can't* get my hands on 1080s right now. We might have started to acquire a few at my work, but then the crypto miners blew up the GPU market, waiting for prices to return to sane levels.)

@gwynne - no, unfortunately I'm not in any program. I have actually noticed that my build gets major updates usually a bit later than the other two PCs of this household (Win10 Pro & Win10 Home). With the fall creator update there were several weeks between the other version's updates and the Education's update.

Hmm... nothing in that chart you linked really stands out as something I didn't know already. I only have the Education because I got the license for it while I was studying, and I haven't bothered to change it as I believe the differences mostly concern the remote control abilities.

Yeah, I have considered that my card might be going bad. I think I've had it since 2013, so I'm realistic with the fact that it's getting old. But the reason I'm a bit skeptical about it is that I had my first pink flashing around February or March last year, and that was not long after I actually had moved my game from another system to this one. At that time this computer was heavily used with many other games too, and the only one which ever showed any symptoms was The Sims 2 (still true, but nowadays I use this setup mostly with older games and occasionally to play some MMOs).

One possibility is that the architecture of the 780 differs somehow essentially from the cards you have tried. I know that they made some changes with 780, 780 Ti and Titans compared to the other cards from 700 series, but I really don't know anything about this field. That being said; I have read that they changed the memory architecture with 10 series quite much, so that might be also affecting with those cards.

Super annoying problem indeed. I don't really have the right kind of smarts for this either. I suppose that a graphics engineer would be an ideal person for solving this, but as long as we don't have one it's mostly guessing.

Quote:One possibility is that the architecture of the 780 differs somehow essentially from the cards you have tried. I know that they made some changes with 780, 780 Ti and Titans compared to the other cards from 700 series,

Yeah, wondered about that, too. I know that the "8" in a given series (880, 1080, whatever) is different/a bit better (or significantly better depending on the exact model) than the 7 of the same series, and the 6 is the 'budget' version. But I literally don't have a single '8' I can test, and I also really don't have anything that falls in between 560s and 970s. (Aside from my 860m mobile GPU.)

@gwynne - I don't actually think that it matters if the card is "8" or "7". The major differences may come from the graphics processing unit the card uses. For example from the 700 series only the ones I mentioned use GK110 but with the 900 series both 970 and 980 use GM204. How significant that is probably depends of how much they change the architecture between the models. From what I've read the change in the 700 series was quite big when they moved to GK110.

I actually might be able to get my hands on GTX 980. If I do I'd love to test it, as you have already tested with 970 and the game didn't flash. If (and only if) I'm right about the graphics processing units it should do the same trick than 970.

Ok, I think I'm following you. (Obviously this isn't my field either--I'm generalized break/fix and admin. I've asked colleagues if anyone's seeing *anything* weird with 1709, both on the development side and whatever games they play personally, but other than a Battlefront II crash that seems to be a different problem, this whole thing is so oddly specific. And as a side note, my coworkers are beginning to tease me about it. "Hey Gwynne, is Sims 2 still broken?!")

For what it's worth, I've got *two* separate 970s that are fine, although I've only put significant game time into one of them. (But the flashing pink, in my experience so far, turns up very soon if it's going to.)

I'm curious to see what your tests with a 980 are since that is my card and I had nonstop pink flashing and crashing after 1709 that wouldn't respond to any of the suggested fixes at all. I'm intrigued that you found no problems with a 970.