Portal 2 unplayable

[The Unholy Taco]

CPU: i7-4770, 16G RAM, 2x R9-290s (Crossfired), 1x120G SSD & 1x1TB HDD
OS: Win 7 Prof 64-bit
GPU Drivers tried: 13.12, 13.10, 14.4 beta

Portal 2 is unplayable. I've tried Reinstalling the game thrice, Verifying The Cache at least a dozen times, and Clean Installed (using AMD's Clean Uninstall utility) between each graphic driver version. Ran Speccy in tandem to Monitor GPU/CPU Temps. CPU never cracked 60 C and the GPUs didn't even crack 50 C. Tried both Crossfire Enabled and Disabled.

I've launched the game successfully and played for about 5 minutes before it CTD'd. Sometimes, I can only play for 1 minute at a time. Graphical recovery after CTD'd often leads to a second CTD that blackscreens my computer if I continue to try and play (causing a manual shutdown/reboot).

Any suggestions would be welcome.

[⚡🍉OverlordTomala🍉⚡]

Which hard drive are you running Portal 2 from? You might want to try moving the game from one to another to see if there's an improvement. If there is you might have a problem with one of your HDD's.

[The Unholy Taco]

Tried both HDDs, still CTD/Recovers Drivers. Rolled back to 13.12 for AMD drivers and I no longer get blackscreen but am still getting CTD/Recovery every 1-5 minutes.

[The Unholy Taco]

On a side note, when I first ran Portal 2 it tried to force resolution to 1080p. I'm running a 720p monitor right now (I know, I know, I need a new monitor) so maybe that's part of the issue...

[⚡🍉OverlordTomala🍉⚡]

Originally posted by Kermit the Frog:

On a side note, when I first ran Portal 2 it tried to force resolution to 1080p. I'm running a 720p monitor right now (I know, I know, I need a new monitor) so maybe that's part of the issue...

Ah, in that case you might want to see if you can fix the refresh rate on your display or lower your screen res. Or just wait to buy a new one. Because with your specs you shouldn't have any problems running Portal 2.

My desktop and laptop both run Portal 2 flawlessly under both Windows 7 Ultimate 64 and Linux at full specs.

[The Unholy Taco]

Yeah, I lowered Portal 2's resolution to my monitor's res and didn't help. I might just have to wait until I get a 1080p monitor. Refresh is 60hz, tried the game with VSync on and off, no luck.

[BumbleGrum]

The game should run at the optimal resolution of your monitor. Make sure you have the latest drivers. I suspect a video card problem. The other thing you should try is to see if something else is interferring with the game. Try starting your PC with as little running as possible by using msconfig from the 'Run' dialog. Go to the Startup section and disable everything but steam, and perhaps whatever firewall you have installed (although this is also suspect). Reboot and try the game, see how it runs (sounds like a good name for a song).

If it runs OK (fingers crossed) you can start re-enabling one thing at a time untill you find the problem. It is a labourios process but sometimes the only way to eliminate a problem with cross interference.

It could also be a problem with one of your hardware drivers. But let's hope that isn't it for now. I'll keep an eye on this thread to see how you go, so please do report back, especially if you nail the problem.

Bumbles...

[The Unholy Taco]

I have the latest stable drivers for my GPU (AMD 13.12, I've tried 13.10 AND 14.4 beta) as well as the rest of my hardware. I'm not running a firewall. I've also created a support ticket with Valve on the issue, but I figured I'm might as well toss more than one line out as to see if someone can toss me a solution in the mean time.

It SHOULD run at the optimum resolution for my monitor, but my monitor isn't rated for anything above 720p and the game SET ITSELF to 1080p upon initial startup, which makes me think that it's some weird quirk with the game wanting to run at 1080p.

[The Unholy Taco]

I've also tried disabling all boot services. No luck.

[⚡🍉OverlordTomala🍉⚡]

Originally posted by Kermit the Frog:

I've also tried disabling all boot services. No luck.

I know you said you've tried running it with crossfire enabled and disabled, but have you tried running it with one GPU at a time?

[The Unholy Taco]

Like physically removing the GPU from the board? No, not yet, but I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Work graveyard and I'm off to work.

[⚡🍉OverlordTomala🍉⚡]

Originally posted by Kermit the Frog:

Like physically removing the GPU from the board? No, not yet, but I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Work graveyard and I'm off to work.

Yeah, give that a go and see what happens.

[The Unholy Taco]

Nailed it. It was the Multicore Rendering. Since I don't have an APU, it was going buggy. Turned that off, works like a charm.

[BumbleGrum]

Good news. Thought it ws a video problem of some kind.