Photoworks BSOD

Using SW 2005 SP4.0.

I've tried this on two different systems now, the only common element
being the NVIDIA Forceware 81.95 drivers; but Photoworks repeatedly
locks-up and causes a blue screen in nv4_disp while working on a simple
glass model.

I've applied a simple spherical checker environment & glass material,
then I let the preview window render or switch back to OpenGL preview
when I'm done, do a few other things then close the material/scene
dialog and return to the part, but while closing out it grinds to a
halt, then locks-up and goes to blue screen with the above error.

What are your experiences with Photoworks and BSOD's? Is this limited
to the one service pack or is it a problem with the preview? I have
never seen this happen on a workstation with SP3.3 and roughly the same
configuration while working on the same part/scene.

I'm trying new drivers right now, but maybe I'll have to revert or
upgrade the SP, I just don't know at this point.

 

What is the BSOD? Please provide the first couple lines, i.e., STOP
0x000003E ( blah blah...

 

....

The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop....

STOP: 0x000000EA (0x83F2A3C8,0x842D2B90,0xF79OECB4,0x00000001)

nv4_disp

....

I tried the newest drivers available, 81.98, but to no avail. However I
have a much better sense of exactly what steps are causing it to crash
and I can now reproduce the BSOD.

It seems to happen when utilizing the preview window for selecting a
face or otherwise, then clicking outside of it in the component tree or
elsewhere. This basically causes it to freeze momentarily, and if it
doesn't come back right away, it can pause a few more times before blue
screening. This is working from a fresh SW2005 SP4 install.

It seems isolated to a problem between Photoworks and the display driver
or the Photoworks OpenGL implementation. Both systems have very
different motherboards/cpu/ram configurations, but a Geforce FX in one
and a GF6 6600GT in the other. The newer drivers made no difference and
I can't find a known bug in the driver release notes going back through
7x.xx.

 

Yes, 400MB in this case. Total physical RAM installed is 1024MB.

 

From MicroSoft:

SYMPTOMS
You may receive one of the following Stop error messages:
STOP 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
STOP: 0x100000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER_M
CAUSE
This issue may occur if the display driver is caught in an infinite
loop while it waits for the video hardware to become idle. This issue
typically indicates a problem with the video hardware or that the
display driver cannot program the hardware correctly.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, obtain and install the most current driver for
your video adapter, or replace your video card.
=============================================================

You may want to make SW aware of this. My guess is that they don't
always check PhotoWorks when they make up their Graphics Card list.

Another thing you may want to do is a clean install of the video card
drivers. You do this by uninstalling the GeForce driver in Safe Mode,
rebooting and then reinstalling. You can make sure you have removed
all unnecessary drivers by using the procedure here:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-6017628.html?tag=nl.e101

 

I did a little research as well and found the same, and that this
infinite loop was more commonly associated with some cards not even
working at all (i.e. not booting Windows or err'ing out).

Here's an update though. I can now get it to crash in less than 10 seconds.

1. Load assy.
2. Select component to edit texture.
3. Photoworks > Material
4. Drag out the preview window larger.
5. Click anywhere else...
6. BSOD

Since updating to SP5 off a fresh SW2005 install, it now crashes much
faster!

I'm going to try reverting to a SW approved driver set (71.84 WHQL) on
one workstation and see what happens.

 

I think I've got it fixed now.

I rolled back to 71.84 and so far with SP5, I haven't had any BSOD's or
crashes. Same as our SP3 workstations using Quadros and 71.84.

Upon further looking into the driver, it appears that "OpenGL 2.0"
support was the only major change to OpenGL in recent versions. Around
the lates 7x.xx versions, beta OGL2 support was added through a debug
feature, but in the newest drivers, OpenGL 2 support is fully active.
As these drivers are for the consumer cards, they're primarily geared
towards gaming and not professional apps. I wouldn't be surprised if
they're interpreting OpenGL calls differently or something just plain
broke in the 80.xx series.

It's getting way too late and I'm sick of messing with Photoworks...
(stupid planar mapping!). Goodnight all. Don't let the bed bugs bite.

 

LOL, and people say SW performance suffers with newer releases/sps.
Proof to the contrary.