Care when updating AMD catalyst/driver

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Just a warning when updating AMD drivers. Seems a program called Raptr plays.tv is now installing itself with the drivers masquerading as AMD Gaming Evolved on the AMD installer. It is mentioned in the default Express option which most people choose. It never struck me that this would have such a detrimental effect on my Second Life experience, decimating performance.

After installing the new catalyst 15.7.1 on the 25th March, I noticed poorer performance in SL and thought it must be the driver or my card, an old one, failing. Tonight, when experiencing severe lag in a sim I shouldn't be and the computer running very noisily, I checked Task Manager and discovered plays_ep64.exe hogging a huge amount of resources. Goggle search revealed this to be Raptr plays.tv. I uninstalled it (need to uninstall Raptr and plays.tv from Control Panel) and SL is now running much smoother and so is the computer. Just chatted to a DJ friend who said he couldn't even log in to SL with it installed and he had to uninstall it.

I assume I could have just disabled it from running but as I don't need AMD Gaming Evolved I completely uninstalled it. If you don't want it, choose the Custom install option and untick it.

http://support.plays.tv/support/solutions/articles​/5000541606-why-was-amd-gaming-evolved-installed-o​...

[Whirly Fizzle]

Be wary of the Raptr In-Game Overlay too. This causes frequent viewer crashes (all viewers) - stack will show the crash is in ltc_game64-111020.dll.

 

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Thanks Whirly...noted. So is Nvidia doing the same thing with its equivalent Nvidia Experience when installing Nvidia drivers?

I see a number of OEMs are now installing Raptr as standard on new machines. Why is Second Life so badly affected?

[Whirly Fizzle]

The only problem I know of currently with Nvidia is when ShadowPlay is enabled in GeForce Experience.

On Windows 10 systems only (though it seems ALL Win 10 systems are affected), all SL viewers are highly likely to crash during launch and if you do manage to get past login, the viewer again has a 90% chance of crashing when you go to Help -> About or Help -> File a bug.

JIRA issue for that crash is at BUG-11530 - Viewer crashes in nvwgf2umx.dll or nvwgf2um.dll when Nvidia ShadowPlay is enabled when opening Help -> Report bug, Help -> About, & sometimes when detecting hardware during launch

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

I see a number of OEMs are now installing Raptr as standard on new machines. Why is Second Life so badly affected?

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It isn't just SL viewers.

There's countless threads on various games forums where Shadowplay. Raptr or other "game overlay" type software is causing game crashes. This kind of software has always been a PITA.

Example: PSA: Game no launching or is crashing? Try disabling Raptr.

 

Another one causing problems is Asus ROG Gamefirst software.

That's particularly nasty - it can cause a BSOD as soon as an SL viewer is launched - it doesn't even get to the login screen.

Faulting program is: AsusGameFirstS

Faulting IP is: NETIO!StreamInvokeCalloutAndNormalizeAction+60

From the system dumps I've seen from users it appears to be caused by nfc_driver.sys (Network Flow Control SDK WFP Driver (WPP)) which is bundled with the Gamefirst software.

Disabling Gamefirst gives an instant fix.

Full bugcheck for the Gamefirst crash: http://pastebin.com/UbePfWMM

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Perhaps the Raptr In-Game Overlay was causing issues for me too, I had been crashing quite a lot the past week.

Anyway, thanks for that comprehensive explanation and all those links Whirly. I'm sure your posts will help others too.