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cold aspiration · Jul 11, 2006, 09:38 PM

I tried searching this, but found nothing. I hope I am not the only case. Well I installed bootcamp mainly to play some games. However, I haven't been able to enjoy them because intermittently, the game would freeze and crash and I would get two error messages. One says "the (program name here) experienced an error and needed to quit ... " another one always says "VPU Recovery, the graphics driver stopped responding ... (something along those lines, I'll post the exact words when I get the error again)" I don't know what to do, is this happening because its boot camp?? Help please.

Bolero421 · 09:59 PM

Please list your hardware details (model, processor speed, RAM, etc...) Also, the name of the games and some hint as to their minimum specifications might help.

I can go ahead and tell you that it is not Bootcamp's fault, at least not directly. Would I be correct in guessing that you are using a Macbook or MiniMac? The integrated graphics chipsets on those machines are not exactly suited for 3D gaming, although (surprisingly) they do a decent job of it. A larger problem is the fact that the drivers supplied by Bootcamp for these GPUs are somewhat odd / buggy and do not provide all the features needed by today's games. This is a problem stemming from both the physical hardware and the software (drivers).

If you aren't using a machine with integrated graphics, well, I'll look into it.

Good luck!

cold aspiration · Jul 11, 2006, 10:43 PM

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot I took it out of my sig.

I have a 17" MacBook Pro with 1g RAM. 2.16 ghz. Stock. Games I have the most trouble on are mostly the half life mods, like HL2, CS Source, DOD source. And even sometimes Age of Empires III. I do believe I meet all of the minimum requirements for the games. However, its barely for HL2, though it runs surprisingly well.

Moose · Jul 12, 2006, 09:01 AM

Originally Posted by Bolero421

The integrated graphics chipsets on those machines are not exactly suited for 3D gaming, although (surprisingly) they do a decent job of it.

Which is okay, because DirectX asks the card what it can do and then hardware-accelerates everything it can and does the rest in software.

Originally Posted by Bolero421

A larger problem is the fact that the drivers supplied by Bootcamp for these GPUs are somewhat odd / buggy and do not provide all the features needed by today's games.

The drivers are probably the actual problem here--not because they lack features, but because they're buggy (thus not signed by WHQL, although that's not always a guarantee, either). A card that lacks features won't cause the driver to hang (as described in the original post), but a buggy driver sure will.

Originally Posted by Bolero421

This is a problem stemming from both the physical hardware and the software (drivers).

If it was a problem with the hardware, it'd present in Mac OS X as well. If it doesn't, it's a driver issue.

cold aspiration · Jul 12, 2006, 08:54 PM

i hear bootcamp 1.0.2 is released with udated drivers. Maybe i'll give that a try

cold aspiration · Jul 13, 2006, 12:31 AM

nope. it didn't work. Same problem, I think more frequent now. I just burned the driver cd using bootcamp assistant 1.0.2 and used the cd to install drivers in xp mode. I'm not sure if that was what I was suppose to do. It is mostly happening in Age of Empires III now. and actually in all of my games, a new thing occurs (well it was even before 1.0.2) where all the colors turn really weird and I have to restart in order to get it back to normal. Like all purple white and gray.

The error message is "VPU Recovery has restarted your graphics accelerator because it stopped responding ... "

markponcelet · Aug 5, 2006, 05:47 PM

I'm also having this problem. For me, the problem is serious on EVE Online (which requires only a 32 MB graphics card) and on Star Wars: Empire at War.

I tried reinstalling the 1.0 bootcamp drivers. No good. Then I went to ATI and tried downloading their mobility driver updates. The automatic installer refused to install the driver on the macbok. So I tried using windows and selecting the driver that ATI expanded. Still no good. Then I used ATI's instructions to manually remove its drivers and then installed the Bootcamp 1.02 driver disk. No good.

This isn't looking good, folks. I'm seeing a lot of 17" Macbook users running into these problems, and not a single solution. I'm still looking, though.

markponcelet · Aug 5, 2006, 09:59 PM

Well, I failed.

I tried everything I could think of to get that game to be more stable, and I just couldn't. I even installed non-standard mobility drivers.

I guess we have to wait for leopard. I just wish ATI would release a driver that was more stable on the macbook.

msuper69 · Aug 8, 2006, 07:26 AM

Welcome to Windows!

ghporter · 01:34 PM

Boot Camp is still beta-there are bound to be problems. This is one that makes it hard for you to play certain games, but the rest of the machine is functional, right? That's not such a big problem in the grand scheme of things. And when Leopard comes out, who knows what improvements will be included in it. I understand it's frustrating, but you're in experimental waters right now, so just keep that in mind.

Edited to correct brain cramp.