Blue Screen of Death with some sound cards

My system crashed about 4 times playing PoE.
This solution if it is one is not my idea but found it at the steam forums [1].
It suggests replacing the OpenAL32.dll of Creative in the game directory with the one of OpenAL Soft [2].
Since then i didn't have any crashes. even tried playing a YouTube video while the game was running.

Here reports generated by WhoCrashed [3]

On Wed 12/25/2013 8:33:44 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\122513-15412-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: portcls.sys (portcls+0x34C21)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8800509BC21, 0xFFFFF88009AB1D00, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\portcls.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Port Class (Class Driver for Port/Miniport Devices)
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Wed 12/25/2013 8:33:44 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ctaud2k.sys (ctaud2k+0x79419)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8800509BC21, 0xFFFFF88009AB1D00, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\ctaud2k.sys
product: Creative Audio Product
company: Creative Technology Ltd
description: Creative WDM Audio Device Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: ctaud2k.sys (Creative WDM Audio Device Driver, Creative Technology Ltd).
Google query: Creative Technology Ltd SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

[1] http://steamcommunity.com/app/204530/discussions/0/846958001157754334/#c630799997857672186
[2] http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html
[3] http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

"

ramodil wrote:

Yea this has been an issue since early EARLY beta and they have known about it since then. I doubt they will ever fix it and with creative adding their sound card tech to some high end motherboards it will lower the game base over time. From the best I can figure it has to do with how they encode the audio which no one else uses. It confuses the card and causes the drivers to freak out since it is a format that, in my experience, only this company uses so far.

They should speak to Creative as creative labs has been helpful with several small companies in finding out what is going on, as long as they agree to put creative logo's on the site. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out what is going on and how to set it to automatically use software audio instead of trying to use the ram and sound processor chip.

this...cant they (the sound guy) convert the current sound files (osg or oss or something like that) to something creative cards dont conflict with for the creative soundcard users out here?-even as as separate install to the main game download/update process. id download that as a 3rd party mod in a heartbeat.

im using the -swa launch option and still crash due to the same thing, an error message about a random sound file not loading properly: /waterfalls, /zombies, etc.

"

awave wrote:

this...cant they (the sound guy) convert the current sound files (osg or oss or something like that) to something creative cards dont conflict with for the creative soundcard users out here?-even as as separate install to the main game download/update process. id download that as a 3rd party mod in a heartbeat.

im using the -swa launch option and still crash due to the same thing, an error message about a random sound file not loading properly: /waterfalls, /zombies, etc.

From what i've read they don't use other file types for audio because of costs and since .ogg is open source they don't need to pay anyone for it's use which is great for a small indie company.

"

lagwin1980 wrote:

"

awave wrote:

this...cant they (the sound guy) convert the current sound files (osg or oss or something like that) to something creative cards dont conflict with for the creative soundcard users out here?-even as as separate install to the main game download/update process. id download that as a 3rd party mod in a heartbeat.

im using the -swa launch option and still crash due to the same thing, an error message about a random sound file not loading properly: /waterfalls, /zombies, etc.

From what i've read they don't use other file types for audio because of costs and since .ogg is open source they don't need to pay anyone for it's use which is great for a small indie company.

ah, that makes sense. thanks for the clarification! im still hoping for a permanent fix. i just tried a registry edit so we'll see how that goes. and hopefully creative updates their drivers to support .ogg. thanks again.

edit: i both REMOVED -gc 1 from my launch options, and did the registry edit listed in the initial post in this thread. i cant be sure which, or if both, did it, but so far so good. my load times are down between areas, and i leveled for about an hour and then without closing poe did a 1 hour race without crashing(and got my first top20 class finish to date due to this! #16 temp!), which never would have happened before. im still getting a random freeze after a few minutes of play, every time i play, but these other issues at this point seem solved for me!

Now i have tried the Steam fix -swa, no success, the --nosound, -gc 2 etc still no fix for random crashes.
If i use one of the above 'fixes' i don't get an error when the game crash. But if i don't use it, i get a lot of sound card errors.
I have tried the regedit fix, with no success.

I have an older Creative Titanium HD sound card. Will this be fixed soon???
Tired to crash every 15-30 min. Or will GGG pay for a new sound card, so I can play the game? :S.

With the latest patch notes:

"

Fixed a problem that could cause crashes on certain Creative sound hardware.

I would like to know what the requirements are for the fix to work.
Does it only work with specific drivers like official creative ones or are unofficial "beta" ones needed and what cards will benefit from this fix?
Will we still be required to use "-swa"?
And lastly are you bypassing the crappy Creative drivers completely as they are the root of the problem or did you find an alternative?

And huge thanks for the effort from everyone who got a Creative card *fingers crossed*

"

psyc1one wrote:

With the latest patch notes:

"

Fixed a problem that could cause crashes on certain Creative sound hardware.

I would like to know what the requirements are for the fix to work.
Does it only work with specific drivers like official creative ones or are unofficial "beta" ones needed and what cards will benefit from this fix?
Will we still be required to use "-swa"?
And lastly are you bypassing the crappy Creative drivers completely as they are the root of the problem or did you find an alternative?

And huge thanks for the effort from everyone who got a Creative card *fingers crossed*

it still isn't fixed unfortunately:( still getting glitches and game crashes without --softwareaudio

Are you serious? It's been 2 years and they still haven't fixed it? wow...

I started playing this game today. scoured the interwebs for fixes to this goddamn blue screen of death and i have yet to find something that works.

i get on steam to play. tried "-swa", "--softwareaudio" as well as "-ns" and still got nothing. with "--softwareaudio" i have 40 minutes to play. I even updated most if not all of my drivers that actually matter. but really, it's useless if something puts a goddamn time limit to how long i can play. I should also say that this is the ONLY GAME where i have EVER seen the blue screen.

this is an incredibly fun game, but it's annoying as hell that i keep getting the blue screen whenever i play it. I might just quit if this crap continues. What a great way to stop people from playing your game.

GET YOUR $^&T TOGETHER AND FIX THIS GRINDING GEARS BEFORE YOU MAKE ALL THE PLAYERS GRIND THEIR TEETH AND QUIT -_-

Found a (possible) fix for people who have NVIDIA cards:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWeqiE2z-KI

This worked for me. Put my graphics clock from the 700s to 400 MHz. Processor clock auto-tuned to 800 MHz.

BSoD no longer occurs.

had hard freezes(only option to power off) and reboots on win 8.1 x64 with audigy 2 zs just a few minutes ingame. On the same pc but win 7 x86 played for a couple of hours and had no problems at all.

tried the -swa option on steam (and set generic software on audio options) on and so far so good, tried like half hour and no problems