CTD, freezes...possible solution

[Georgiegril]

I started getting CTDs in the world, at saves, stutters, low performance and freezes. Having a crappy graphics card, I spend hours trying to fix it based on the assumption I was out of VRAM. I didn't expect a RAM problem as I have 6GBs.

After no avail, I started examining my task manager and discovered that audiodg.exe was using over 2 GBs of RAM!

 

Apparently this is a recurrent problem with Creative X-Fi drivers using Windows 7. If you are having similar symptoms, you might check your task manager and see what autodg is taking up on your system. If it appears to have a memory leak, there is a hotfix you can get from Microsoft. This problem appeared before SP1, and there was an older fix for computers before the SP1. The problem recurred and requires a different hotfix.

 

Here are some links that might help:Creative Labs Forum on the subject, includes link to a couple of different hotfixes,this was the one that worked for my Windows 7 Build 6.1 . My understanding is that you would only want to apply the hotfix if you actually have the problem, it is not like a vaccination....I did apply it and have had much better performance since...no crashes, freezes, faster fps and no lagging. So far. :-)

 

Obviously this is not a cure all for anyone having performance issues, but it may be worth investigating if you have Creative X-fi (like Xtreme Gamer or Xtreme Audio).