PWI Client refuses to start

jasoncollege24

Being tech savvy, I've decided to provide system specs without using speccy. Speccy's publish feature gives information I'd rather not give out.

CPU - Genuine Intel Core 2 DUO (3.00 GHTz)
RAM 5 GB DDR2
Graphics - NVidia GT610 (1GB) (Running games at 1280 x 720 in full screen)
Sound - HDMI (From Graphics card)
Hard Drive (Where game is) 500GB Hard drive with more than 100GB free. This is drive D
Operating System - Windows 8.1 64-bits

Symptoms:
ARC runs perfectly fine. I click play from ARC, and the PWI launcher opens as normal, and updates. If I click START from there, the client opens with a smaller black screen (at the graphics resolution I've chosen) as if it is going to go full screen, then just exits with no error.

What I've tried:

chkdsk on drives C and D
defrag on all drives
checked for and installed windows updates
installed directx 9c, .NET, and other required redistributables
excluded the entire Perfect World Entertainment folder from the antivirus (AVAST)
completely disabled my windows firewall (Re-enabled it after failure)
Verified the game client something like 10 times
tried running the client without ARC, or the launcher (As administrator, and as normal user)
System File checker

I ran this game a few weeks ago, and had no problems. If you need a dxdiag report, or any other technical information, not present here, please let me know.

as a side note, I bet you wish more people gave you this much information. lol

soulshop

Try to use an older version of nvidia drivers maybe? Like a version of 6 months ago when you was still able to play...

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

jasoncollege24 wrote: »

Being tech savvy, I've decided to provide system specs without using speccy. Speccy's publish feature gives information I'd rather not give out.

CPU - Genuine Intel Core 2 DUO (3.00 GHTz)
RAM 5 GB DDR2
Graphics - NVidia GT610 (1GB) (Running games at 1280 x 720 in full screen)
Sound - HDMI (From Graphics card)
Hard Drive (Where game is) 500GB Hard drive with more than 100GB free. This is drive D
Operating System - Windows 8.1 64-bits

Symptoms:
ARC runs perfectly fine. I click play from ARC, and the PWI launcher opens as normal, and updates. If I click START from there, the client opens with a smaller black screen (at the graphics resolution I've chosen) as if it is going to go full screen, then just exits with no error.

What I've tried:

chkdsk on drives C and D
defrag on all drives
checked for and installed windows updates
installed directx 9c, .NET, and other required redistributables
excluded the entire Perfect World Entertainment folder from the antivirus (AVAST)
completely disabled my windows firewall (Re-enabled it after failure)
Verified the game client something like 10 times
tried running the client without ARC, or the launcher (As administrator, and as normal user)
System File checker

I ran this game a few weeks ago, and had no problems. If you need a dxdiag report, or any other technical information, not present here, please let me know.

as a side note, I bet you wish more people gave you this much information. lol

Curious about the features Speccy publishes that you'd not like given out. Only thing I can think of would be if you were silly enough to use your full name for the user account. It really helps to determine if you have any conflicting software or a video codec. In your particular case, it would bring me to a very quick and easy solution.

Without the Speccy and Dxdiag, all I can do is say a few vague things.
1. Your system specs are almost exactly the same as mine, except I have a quad-core CPU 6GB RAM. a 650Ti, and you won't catch me running that Win8 ****.

2. The issue is most likely caused by...
____a. A bad video driver.
____b. An incompatible/old system or device driver
____c. An incompatible video codec
____d. Corrupted client files. (Looks like you did cover that one)
____e. Conflicting software causing an issue with the client's ability to load correctly into memory.

For A and C, I need the output of the dxdiag at a minimum, though a Speccy helps.
For B and D, I absolutely must have a Speccy

jasoncollege24

I did use my real name in my user account. I've made the speccy report anonymous for you (including my external IP address), and included a dxdiag report as well.

http://seraphina.kd5ili.com/main/desktop8.txt (Speccy)
http://seraphina.kd5ili.com/main/dxdiag.txt (DxDiag report)

These links will expire once this issue is resolved. Hope this helps.

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

jasoncollege24 wrote: »

I did use my real name in my user account. I've made the speccy report anonymous for you (including my external IP address), and included a dxdiag report as well.

http://seraphina.kd5ili.com/main/desktop8.txt (Speccy)
http://seraphina.kd5ili.com/main/dxdiag.txt (DxDiag report)

These links will expire once this issue is resolved. Hope this helps.

I wouldn't worry about the IP address much, that's visible just from you posting on the forum.

First, you have WAY too many processes running on that PC to be able to also run the client. What you have listed there would be pushing the limits of a quad-core.
Here's what you need to shut down...

Bit Torrent (great program, but you don't have the bandwidth to spare)
Dropbox
iPhone/Pod services. If it's not connected, shut them down.
Live Comm (and pretty much any other Windows Live resources, they're all resource hogs.)
Notepad/notepad++ use one or the other. I personally prefer Texpad or Notepad++
Nvidia 3D Vision. Your system is already borderline for having the resources to use the 3D options, and unless you have the glasses, it's a complete waste of resources.
SkyDrive
Virtual CD v10 - You might want to look into slimmer alternatives like CloneDrive
Vmware

It's not that you don't have the RAM to run all this junk, it's that you don't have the available CPU cores to manage it all. When you fire off the client, it's going to try using about 90% of the first CPU core, leaving you with just one other core for everything else. Your bus speed isn't all that great either.

You have mis-matched memory modules. May want to check with your M-board's manual to make sure you have those set in there in the correct order. Usually you don't want an odd size array like you have set up, and their speeds do not match either. Brands aren't a big deal, but mis-matched speeds and sizes can cause problems.

Your video driver shows over 2 years out-of date in Speccy, and is showing a Beta driver in dxdiag. Either something is horribly wrong, or you upgraded the driver in between the reports.
Download the latest WHQL certified driver. Run as admin to install it, then select Custom install, and choose the option to perform a clean install, while also removing the 3d Vision driver check box so it's not installed. (Do that even if you upgraded in between to clear any previous corruption)

I don't see any codecs I know to cause a conflict, but there are a couple I'm not familiar with there. If you still run into an issue, I'd recommend removing any 3rd party codecs you have installed. Also try setting the client to open in Windowed mode instead of fullscreen.

jasoncollege24

Yeah most of the processes you're talking about I shut down, before playing games, and i don't have a monitor capable of displaying 3dvision, so that is not a worry.

The memory modules are an item that can't be changed at the moment. they are in the best configuration they can be in, and I'm extremely limited on funds to replace them. This system is custom. When I got it, it was just the motherboard, and CPU. Everything else is what I had lying around to add to it.

The two reports were gathered within a few seconds of each other. Windows update did do an update on the driver a few days ago, so I'll roll that back to see if that resolves the problem.

jasoncollege24

This issue has been resolved. The cause of the problem was a beta graphics driver that was installed by windows updates. From now on, I'll get my updates directly from the NVidia updater, which i have set to use only stable releases.

Thank you for the help!!

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

jasoncollege24 wrote: »

This issue has been resolved. The cause of the problem was a beta graphics driver that was installed by windows updates. From now on, I'll get my updates directly from the NVidia updater, which i have set to use only stable releases.

Thank you for the help!!

Glad to hear you found it. Never trust Windows Update for your hardware. Always get it direct from the manufacturer. b:victory