Installing Beta DisplayLink driver fixes crash in Game

[NeuronFire]

TL;DR: Installing DisplayLink 8.0 Beta Software fixes crash bug in Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, even if you don't have any DisplayLink hardware installed!


Hello,
I recently purchased a HumanScale MConnect and installed the 7.9M7 software for it. As a result, a video game I later installed, Electronic Arts' Mirror's Edge: Catalyst would crash shortly after start up - once the game began rendering the 3D world proper.

I opened a support ticket with EA, and worked through a rather thorough set of operations in an attempt to resolve the crash issue, but came up empty. I also bought more RAM, and swapped out the video card (from a 980ti, to a 980) in an attempt to determine if there was a hardware failure. No luck, the game always crashed in the same spot. EA said there was an error in Kernalbase.dll and that there was nothing more they could do.

Frustrated, but not dissuaded, I continued looking for anything that could be the problem. I tried removing various pieces of software to reduce the number of variables, and eventually came across the MConnect drivers. After removing the 7.9M7 release, I was able to play the game for 10 minutes without the crash.

Sweet! I don't use the MConnect for graphics, as I play fighting games where even an additional 1/60th of a second latency in the screen display makes a difference in the results. But I do use it for the USB 3.0 connectivity as well as a headphone jack. I reinstalled 7.9M7, and the game began crashing again. Next I installed the 8.0 Beta 4 software, and started the game up. I was able to play the game without it crashing. I was very happy, I got to use my MConnect and play the game.

Lastly, I posted my experience to the game forums to let other users who had the problem how I fixed it. The hope was that they also would determine some other software they had installed that was conflicting with the game. Instead they downloaded the 8.0 Beta 4.0 drivers, and were able to play the game, even though they don't have any associated hardware!

So my question is this? What's with the beta's software that resolves a crash in an unrelated program, that isn't in the 7.9M7 software?

I've attached my dxdiag.txt and msinfo.txt logs, as well as screenshots of the error from my system. I know that the game crashing may not be directly caused by your drivers, but installing your beta software fixes it. If there's an underlying solution it would be very valuable to us Mirror's Edge players. Here's the link to the forum post:
https://forums.mirrorsedge.com/discu...3#Comment_6803


Thanks,
NeuronFire

[AlbanRampon]

Hello NeuronFire,

Thank you for taking the time to post this.

Catalyst cannot understand you have a monitor that isn't physically connected to the graphics card itself, that's why it doesn't play nice with DisplayLink. We have tried to get Nvidia to modify the software, unsuccessfully.
Whether you have an adapter/dock connected or not, the driver is still there as until Windows 10 TH2, we have a kernel mode driver (so loaded at boot), among other things loaded so it works when you dock/connect a device.

As some games are bypassing the Windows desktop manager, and our driver use that "standard" interface, this can cause some issues. That's why we had released a driver toggle a few years ago... But the annoying part is the need to reboot when you toggle so we can remove our driver cleanly.

You'll be happy to read we are bringing some major improvements with the Windows 10 anniversary update (already available in the Windows Insiders program) with a lighter driver not relying on the primary graphics card one.

To answer your questions, there are too many changes between 7.9 and 8.0 to list them. We did not specifically look at Catalyst but more generally.

Again, thanks for taking the time to post!
Alban

[NeuronFire]

Alban,

Thanks for your response. I look forward to the official 8.0 release!

NeuronFire