[Solved] Blocked by serious graphics driver problems

[drash]

(TL;DR: You can just skim the bold parts below.)

I got all set up on SDK 0.4.1 last night (runtime + Unity stuff), and everything is working great aside from some vertical tearing in Direct mode.

To try and address this vertical tearing I decided to update my Nvidia graphics drivers to the latest version. (Which took me from driver version 311.x to 340.52.) Immediately I noticed that I was getting sparklies and artifacts running my own Unity project from executable. Vertical tearing was gone, but the artifacting is pretty serious and very aggressive. I get artifacting in the Oculus demo scene as well. I am not overclocking my GPU (GTX 680), never have. I checked the temps and load via GPU-Z, it's same as always. No significant dust build-up on the hardware (I already blew it all out a couple weeks ago with compressed air).

And then it started outright crashing on me pretty shortly after getting into my demo or the Oculus demo scene. Sometimes the graphics driver would recover, sometimes not. It sometimes goes so far as to require me to hold down the power button for a hard reset as the PC is unresponsive at that point.

I decided to roll back to older graphics drivers. The one I started with is no longer available via GIGABYTE, Nvidia, or via Windows Update, so I tried at least six other driver versions, all certified for Windows, some older than the one I started with, some are just new but not newest, etc. Lots of rebooting involved, always results in the same heavy artifacting and freezing my PC.

I am using the Oculus-supplied DVI adapter to plug the DK2 into my card's DVI port, and my single monitor runs into the card's HDMI port. After reading about red sparklies in another post, I tried switching these around, but that didn't help (and in fact made it worse because my monitor wouldn't get a signal going through the DVI adapter).

Then I decided to check another 3D game. The only one I could think of that I have installed that's remotely demanding is Mass Effect 2 with all graphics options at max. Fired it up, and saw zero artifacting, and no crashing.

So I roughly conclude that there is a conflict between the new Oculus runtime and my Nvidia graphics drivers? I'm not sure because after initially installing the 0.4.1 runtime (after reboots etc), it was working fine. It was only after I changed my graphics drivers that there started being an issue.

This is a fairly urgent matter as right now I am blocked from doing any Unity+DK2 development (I get hard freezes just working in the Unity editor too), blocked from testing my own demos, blocked from even running the Oculus demo scene, blocked from my other paid VR projects, etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 🙂

[drash]

And here is my DxDiag in case it helps:

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After going into safe mode to thoroughly clean up Nvidia drivers and forgetting my computer's password for about an hour until I miraculously remembered it (Windows 8 goes back to asking for original password instead of PIN in safe mode.... ugh), no change, tried a few more drivers, ended up back on the very latest driver from Nvidia.

This is what I see now when I fire up the Oculus demo scene in "Direct HMD Access" mode:
oculus-demo-scene-direct.jpg

And when I switch to "Extended Desktop to the HMD" display mode, the Oculus demo scene comes up in the DK2 without issues, but it comes with massive artifacting and will freeze my PC within seconds unless I get out.

I have my doubts this is actually an issue with Oculus' stuff, and maybe I'm simply overdue for a new graphics card. Just not sure why it suddenly started going bad with a driver update.

[drash]

"drash" wrote:
I have my doubts this is actually an issue with Oculus' stuff, and maybe I'm simply overdue for a new graphics card. Just not sure why it suddenly started going bad with a driver update.

Just replaced with another graphics card, and all is working again. 🙂 Straight drop-in replacement, didn't even change drivers. Must have just been coincidence that it started falling apart when I updated drivers.

I am still seeing the weird issue (pictured in the above post) with the Oculus demo scene in Direct HMD Access mode though. Works fine in Extended.