Borderlands Glitch Watch 2009: Radeon-powered PC crashes
by David Hinkle 
{ Nov 3rd 2009 at 8:00PM } 
Reader Bryan tipped us off to three different forums on Steam, AMD and Gearbox, where numerous users haven't even been able to get past the game's first mission. We've reached out to Gearbox for comment and will be sure to update the post when we hear back.
[Thanks, Bryan!]
Source - Steam forums
Source - AMD forums
Source - Gearbox forums
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pantsparty @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:06PM
Ah the pro's of playing games on a console.
Special Agent Steve @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:10PM
Ah, the pros of not having to listen to 12 year old kids screaming in my ear as I play TF2.
TheBrainninja @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:12PM
Because Borderlands on the consoles was a perfect, glitch-free experience.
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/27/gearbox-details-known-borderlands-glitches-workarounds/
RKN @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:14PM
Funny how consoles now are dealing with required installs (esp. on PS3), updates, patches, etc. Their becoming more like PCs every day. Let's see in the next generation if they become even more like PCs.
Hex @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:40PM
Yeah, thank god there are never any issues with console games, especially Borderlands.
knightsray @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:50PM
well i have an xbox an i chose not to get borderlands on it cause of all the kids. i thought they would just jump from game to game powerleveling an taking weapons then quitting.
oh yea i have an ATI 4870 an NO crashes ever an i've already played for 60 hours since release day..not one single glitch or crash. this is just a small portion of the players complaining cause they configure their systems like crap.
Nvidia..the way it's meant to be played for nearly 200 more an comparable performance!
Autopsy15 @ Nov 3rd 2009 9:25PM
Ah, the pros of a troll...wait, never mind there are none.
holyice7 @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:06PM
Nvidia, the way it's mean to be played...
...or else.
Vectorious @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:12PM
That was awesome, especially because that is one of the opening cutscenes in the game.
RKN @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:13PM
Nvidia does have some very strong-handed tactics, such as with Arkham Asylum working best on Nvidia cards.
Whereas ATI is already out with DX11 cards with Nvidia nowhere in sight and constantly rebranding their cards as new products, come on guys! I like you but come on!
Shignami @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:14PM
So THAT'S why that intro video is unskippable!
Special Agent Steve @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:20PM
@ RKN
DX11 Nvidia cards are due out in December. Not that far away.
Einhanderkiller @ Nov 3rd 2009 9:50PM
Actually, it's more like early 2010. NVIDIA is currently pushing their graphics card partners (like EVGA, XFX, BFG, etc.) to organize at CES in January for a new announcement. The GF100 rumor by Fud is just that, a rumor.
eldee @ Nov 4th 2009 3:57AM
you can edit your config to skip the videos, fyi. among other things.. lots of nifty config fixes
LegendaryRedass @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:22PM
Damn this games been out 2 weeks and they haven't fixed that yet? At least the siren works now though.
And the mod on xbox.coms borderland forum is a dick. Trashed my gamertag. The same as my screen name. I wonder if you can use the word assume or assassin?
aristokrat @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:26PM
I really like this game, but the bugs are very annoying. Following the first 360 patch, now weapons will sometimes get stuck not auto-initiating reload when you pull the trigger on an empty magazine. This is especially aggravating if you get downed, as the X button does both reload and respawn and the game appears to get confused, as you'll be trapped down without the ability to reload your weapon. Why they were messing around with the weapon reloading code to fix phasewalk etc. is beyond me, but a glitch-fixing patch that causes more glitches makes me a sad panda.
jackal @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:29PM
This doesn't come as a total shock. As much as I like ATI's hardware, there's a relatively consistent trend of people having problems playing a new release on their hardware because ATI A) lacks the same kind of close developer relationships NVIDIA has (ATI's attempts at garnering support are relatively meek while NVIDIA pays millions each year) and B) their driver team isn't particularly well known for proper testing. Case in point: Resident Evil 5 has a documented HDR bug and terrible performance during the cinematics using the DX10 render path that effects only ATI cards. ATI has publicly admitted to reproducing both issues but their recently released Catalyst 9.10 drivers did not correct them. An even better example of so-so drivers would be to take a good look at the HD5800 series' current level of performance; when an HD 4870 X2 outperforms an HD5870 in some games despite having slower clock speeds, fewer ROPs, fewer TMUs, and even factoring in the scalability issues inherent to multi-GPU technology, you know there's a driver support problem. I digress. If the Borderlands crashing is as much of an issue as some of the forums are making it out to be (and I'm positive it is) and it is, in fact, an ATI specific problem, I'd imagine a hotfix or this month's Catalyst 9.11 driver will rectify the problem (which, IMHO, shouldn't have been a problem to begin with) when they're released .
RKN @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:33PM
jackal, you are one of the most intelligent posters I've had the pleasure of reading posts here on Joystiq and have by far the most technical information, especially about the PC. May I ask how you obtained all this knowledge? You truly are a great asset to PC gaming, thank you!
Biggie @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:12PM
I think you're overly hard on ATI, their drivers have come a long way in the last 3 years. I've been quite happy with ATI since I made the jump from nvidia, I just could not say no to the performance of they HD 4870 and they seem to have another winner in the 5870.
I feel that nvidia has become a company driving by marketing and not product innovation, which is why ATI has been able to steal the performance crown from them for so long.
As for these problems with Borderlands, I have a Windows 7 64bit with a HD4870 running Catalyst 9.10 with no problems what so ever in the 20 hours I've put into the game so far. This is not to say other people problems aren't real, it just that IMHO the PC is such a complex platform that it is often hard to pinpoint the exact cause of a fault.
kojo87 @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:18PM
the "ATI drivers suck" argument was legitimate in 2004. they are fine now. i have Crossfired ASUS HD 4870 1GB cards and have no problems with Borderlands or any other game for that matter.
jackal @ Nov 3rd 2009 11:10PM
Biggie, kojo87,
You two seem to be mistaking an honest criticism towards the state of ATI's drivers as ATI bashing. ATI makes some fantastic hardware and they pushed incredibly hard to innovate the market in a way that would benefit gamers; while NVIDIA has been screaming, "CUDA!" with every opportunity while the feature set of their products stagnated, ATI gave us the seldom used DX10.1 API (it's a crying shame it didn't take off, since it offered substantial performance improvements over DX10) and has been pushing for an open GPGPU initiative (Apple and the Kronos group might've actually come up with OpenCL, but ATI is by far it's biggest backer at this point in time). While NVIDIA's locked down hardware accelerated Physx solely to Geforce owners, ATI's pushing for industry to come up with and accept an open accelerated physics standard. Most of the innovations ATI came up with over the course of the last 3 generations of hardware have been finally accepted as a standard with DX11. Let's not forget that they also have a working DX11 you can buy (if you can actually find one due to availability issues) today while, at best, a GT300 equipped card will most likely be hitting store shelves in late December or even January at the latest.
I am also one of the few people to own a working HD 4870 XOC (800/1100 clocks instead of 750/900 yet most XOC's had stability problems or outright died at those speeds because those samples weren't able to run that high on stock voltage) and I have yet to encounter a problem with their Vista X64 drivers or software; while updating drivers in XP was a consistently aggravating and annoying affair, it's extremely easy in Vista. Having said all of that, I am not willing to give ATI a free pass when they've been doing a relatively poor job as of late offering proper support for recently released games and hardware. Bugs happen and will always happen; no piece of software is perfect. Having said that, a stock GTX 260 shouldn't outperform an HD 4870 in Dawn of War II by more than a fair margin when the performance delta between the two is almost nonexistent.
There's no reason a game like Resident Evil 5, which is now 45 days old on our platform, should still have a distracting HDR bug, why the framerate takes a nosedive in DX10, or why the framerate can drop below 10 FPS on even an HD 5870 during cutscenes. There's no reason an HD 5870, in all of its glory, should be outperformed by an HD 4870 X2 in ANY game. Do some TWIMTBP titles have NVIDIA specific optimizations that cripple the experience on Radeon cards? Absolutely (with the best example being Cryostasis) but the vast majority of those TWIMTBP games do not and the logo simply boils down to an advertisement instead of being something more nefarious. I am not a fan of NVIDIA for several reasons (locking Physx down to their hardware only, the hardware stagnation we experience for the 16 months the Geforce 8 series reigned supreme, and the insanely high prices they charge for high end products when they feel like they have a lead), but I do believe their driver team does a much better job ensuring new releases work properly on their hardware and that they are far less lethargic wiping out problems when they do crop up.
Bryan @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:30PM
Awesome, my tip got an article made out of it. Hopefully AMD will now pay more attention to this crippling issue.
Premature ejaculation man @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:38PM
Yeah mine has crashed a few times. Its still awesome.
Hex @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:38PM
Been playing on an HD4890 and 7 Ultimate x64 with absolutely no issues. I'm in New Haven at level 25 right now and haven't had a single issue.
brian @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:41PM
using a 4870, i have noticed one or two crashes, only when i open up weapons chest...
i usually just press the button to open it, then turn away so i dont crash.
Syl @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:50PM
I've played over 50 hours of borderlands since launch on my HD4870, it's never crashed on me despite having glitches in other areas. (Not videocard related)
jackal @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:58PM
Special Agent Steve,
I sincerely doubt NVIDIA will be able to launch their upcoming GT300 architecture during December for a few reasons. TSMC's 40 nm node has just recently taken an unforeseeable, massive hit and the yields for all 40 nm products have gone completely down the toilet. This is why it's next to impossible finding an HD5800 product at the suggested retail price and why the HD5850's price has even risen; the demand is there and it's growing, but the supply is dwindling because of piss poor yield rates for everyone. Fermi (GT300) was already having relatively poor yields on even test silicon (because the chip is huge compared to ATI's) and the decline of TSMC's 40 nm process (which Fermi will be using) will only hurt those yields further.
Another thing that will most likely prevent NVIDIA from launching their new architecture is their stepping. Fermi is a bit farther behind than anticipated; most thought NVIDIA was on an A3 stepping or better when, in fact, their A2 stepping has only recently taped out. IF they have to respin the chip in order to correct any issues, that would automatically add an 8 week delay to full production (which then takes another 4 weeks, at least, for enough chips to have been manufactured for a hard launch). To my knowledge, there isn't a single GT300 sample that's ready ready for prime time and the fact NVIDIA could only come up with a mockup of what a GT300 equipped videocard *might* look like at their own nVISION seems to cement that it will be not be found on store shelves in December.
This might sound like I'm pissing on NVIDIA, but I'm not. Fermi is a much larger, much more complex chip than Cyprus (which, really, is a DX11 capable version of RV770 on steroids) and, as such, NVIDIA is facing developmental problems ATI didn't encounter with their own DX11 part. It's expected to either offer cuthroat competition with or outperform the HD5800 series and, from what few details have been released about the architecture, it's a parallel processing monster unlike any other. I'm just hoping it's either released next month or that, if there is a delay, it won't be an incredibly long one; ATI's made it clear they plan on releasing their next generation of DX11 cards sometime during Q3 2010.
jackal @ Nov 3rd 2009 8:59PM
Ya know...joystiq...there's no point in having a reply button if a comment doesn't actually...you know...REPLY when you click it.
3rdspaced @ Nov 3rd 2009 9:23PM
So lets rag on Windows? You should photoshop in an ATI or AMD logo as you are posting from you Macbook.
fffunfarm06 @ Nov 3rd 2009 9:30PM
They should have used that extra year they had to fix the bugs from the game rather than changing the graphics all Wind Waker like.
brian @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:24PM
cell shading is awesome, go fuck your face!
HaloisOverhyped @ Nov 3rd 2009 9:40PM
Has anyone else noticed how awful the PC online version is implemented? It's horrible. And why can't we exit from those stupid introductions?!
GlassAgate @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:47PM
Wouldn't it have been funnier to have, in place
of the "Games for Windows" icon, have the
"Blue Screen of Death" icon?
silverwolf761 @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:41PM
I've got a Radeon 4870 (1GB) and I haven't seen a single crash in Borderlands yet
silverwolf761 @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:43PM
Also running on Windows 7 if that matters at all
Daemon @ Nov 3rd 2009 10:55PM
I haven't even been able to get the game to install. I'm using Win 7 and have a Radeon HD 4850
tellarhk @ Nov 4th 2009 12:42AM
What's been frustrating for me, is that starting with Borderlands my otherwise-stable system decided to occasionally crash and shut down in the middle of a game. Nothing in the event logs, nothing in the game logs, just a sudden momentary freeze, the lights on my USB peripherals go out, and then the monitor loses signal and my machine goes silent.
This is an Intel X38 chipset system running a Q9400 with 4850's in Crossfire mode.
Strangely, the problem also started kicking up with Dragon Age: Origins. So I'm not going to say this is a Borderlands issue, rather than some kind of Win7 / x64 / Heat issue that's popping up.
silverwolf761 @ Nov 6th 2009 4:36PM
I was going to say it might be a heat issue. You might also look to see if there are BIOS updates for your motherboard
CaramelZappa @ Nov 4th 2009 1:41AM
Is it just me or is borderlands getting a new glitch or problem every other day?
ImSteevin @ Nov 4th 2009 2:18AM
Windows 7 x64 HD4890, I've had a few of these crashes but not enough to keep me away.
sergeles @ Nov 4th 2009 6:23AM
I have a 4850, running on vista... the game ran fine for me until i got a little past new haven. I got to rust commons east and kept crashing repeatedly. I found a temporary fix by locking my fan speed, and i squeezed a few more hours into the game, but now it freezes consistantly on krom's kanyon.
A number of users have been trying to brute force their way through this issue on the gearbox forums, and while there hasnt been a single response from gearbox about the issue, it will probably be half-solved by the time they even get around to it.
The common theory users are running into is that ati's powerplay seems to switch fan speed/core clock speed depending on whether it is loading something in 2d or 3d, for power/efficiency. The problem with this on borderlands is that since its a console port, some textures are rendered in 2d, and some in 3d... and it has to switch between radical modes of fan speed/clock speed vary rapidly (in certain areas my fan would alternate between 70% and 90%, within seconds). These variations have seemed to be what causes the drivers to lock up and crash the game. (Temporary fixes that seem to work for a lot, but not all members include locking your fan speed to a reasonable level, so that it doesnt fluctuate, and manually underclocking and locking the memory clock with rivatuner).
These aren't fixes that work 100% though, and gearbox needs to at the very least recognize that there is a problem... and maybe test their future video games on a single computer with an ATI card.
nocturnefoxx @ Nov 5th 2009 9:08AM
@Sergeles
Wow. That's the boat I'm in, to a "t". Game has run fine since launch, then I get past New Haven and start having problems, and now I can't go five minutes in Krom's Canyon without a lock up. I'm running a 4850 on Vista as well.
Glad I found this post. At least now I know it's not (likely) my rig, and I have a place to start troubleshooting.
Dark Virus @ Nov 4th 2009 8:21AM
I don't know whats wrong with my system,
but Borderlnds won't even start. I keep getting this error "this game is currently unavailable" I believe this has to do something with DRM.....and why I believe DRM should NOT EXIST...
I contact steam and they say it's a 3rd party issue.....
oh well, there goes my money, up in flames
Shagittarius @ Nov 4th 2009 1:16PM
This has everything to do with steam. I think its something to do with your firewall. At work I have a T1 line and a DSL line. If the game needs to be updated and I'm hooked up to the T1 line I get that message about the game being unavailable. If I hook it up to the DSL which bypasses all of our firewalls then the game updates and plays. After its updated it will even launch while being hooked up to the T1 line.
Try disabling all of your firewalls and launching steam.
capt_carl @ Nov 4th 2009 9:04AM
Win7 Pro x64 with a GTX260 Core216, no issues here. I honestly think that Gearbox did a pretty poor job with the PC version. It feels more like a console port than anything to me. That saddens me.
Abi @ Nov 4th 2009 4:20PM
Agreed. UI, overall feel of the controls feels "consoley" to me... so I play with a controller. The game also crashes on me with dual nVidia cards, unplayable @1200 res.
monkeyroach @ Nov 4th 2009 9:02PM
4870 here and never got a crash
80scartoon @ Nov 4th 2009 11:28PM
Radeon 4870, Windows 7, up-to-date drivers.
Not a single problem.
(I'm not dismissing the claims, just weighing in on the "it works" side of the coin)
gonzo @ Nov 5th 2009 10:54AM
AMD Phenom II 940 (oc'ed to 3.6Ghz)
8Gb OCZ ram
MSI DKA790GX
twin Visiontek HD4850's crossfired (tried catalyst 9.8, 9.9, 9.10)
Windows XP 64
Stock fans on 4850's are gone, DuOrbs have been installed in their place.
Play varies from 5 minutes to 30 minutes before crash to desktop and a random General Protection Fault.
Switching off crossfire -- same problem.
Setting affinity to only one core -- same problem.
A_kodak_moment @ Nov 6th 2009 7:05PM
AMD Quad-Core 2.6GHZ
4GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066MHz
MSI K9A2 CF-F V2
MSI R4870 512MB
Windows 7 Ulimate 64-Bit
I have an MSI Radeon 4870 512MB and I was having trouble with Borderlands randomly freezing. I went into CCC and didn't overclock it, but I turned the fan up near max. Sure it was loud, but I was able to play Borderlands for about an hour with no freezing. I don't know if the problem is fixed though.