My SFML project occasionally BSOD's me

[gws923]

Hi folks.

Unfortunately, this has to be a very general question because I have no idea where in my code this error might be from.  The project is pretty large, too, but if anyone can point me to the kind of code that might produce the error, I can post code, hopefully.

I have a program that I have made that is basically a level-editor for a game that I am making.  Every once in a while when I test the level (in other words, run my Game class and give it the level data, opening a new sf::RenderWindow) I get a blue screen of death with the error "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (dxgmms1.sys).  It also happens sometimes when I dereference the Game instance and close the second RenderWindow.

Apparently this kind of error results from:

This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.  This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.

(Taken from an example dump file, not mine).

Suggested fixes for this problem have been "uninstall and reinstall your graphics driver," which I have done and it does not solve the problem.  I imagine it is that my code is interacting with DirectX or openGL in some way and doing some sort of bad memory access, and I worry that when I release the game, this might happen to a user, which would be very bad.

When this first happened, I checked my code and discovered some memory leaks, which I have now mostly tracked down (still leaking 1mb or so every time I test the game), but my last crash happened with only 43% memory usage.

I have the bad feeling that it is my fault and not my driver... does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT:  Just thought I'd mention I'm running Windows 8.1

[Verra]

That's a freaky sounding error. Just reading about this error code doesn't look like it could really be your fault. Especially since you say:

Every once in a while when I test the level (in other words, run my Game class and give it the level data, opening a new sf::RenderWindow) I get a blue screen of death with the error "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (dxgmms1.sys).  It also happens sometimes when I dereference the Game instance and close the second RenderWindow.

If it's not happening consistently that's not your code. It seems to be an issue with weird drivers. Anyways I think the best thing you could do is to test your game/editor on a few different machines and see if they cause the same error.

Also do you mind posting machine specs, graphics card/driver info?

[gws923]

Well that's comforting to hear!  I have only encountered this problem on my laptop and only within the last... 2 weeks?  I have a desktop at home (I am currently abroad and don't have access to it) running Windows 7 and have never encountered this.

I actually uninstalled my NVidia graphics driver just after I posted this thread though and so far haven't seen a blue screen.  I even ran the test game like 50 times in a row to see if it would happen and it didn't so... I'm guessing/hoping it really is just the graphics driver.

My system specs, for what it's worth:
Windows 8.1 x64
Intel Core i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz
8.00GB RAM
NVidia GeForce GT 755M

Not sure what else to include, but there ya go.

Thanks for replying and the reassurance that I didn't screw something up!

[dabbertorres]

Sounds like the most recent Nvidia driver. I've heard of it giving issues to LOTS of people. You could try the previous version, and stick with that if you don't have issues with it.

[gws923]

Sounds like the most recent Nvidia driver. I've heard of it giving issues to LOTS of people. You could try the previous version, and stick with that if you don't have issues with it.

Yeah, that was my hunch too.  Although I tried reverting to a previous version and I still got BSOD.  But, now that I've uninstalled it entirely, I'm doing fine.

Of course, when I want to play Diablo later I'm not sure what I'm gonna do...

[gws923]

 

So I just blue screened again.  Although I had reinstalled my nvidia driver so perhaps it really is the driver's fault.

If I ever do determine the issue for sure, I will be sure to update this thread.  Still, if anyone has any thoughts, please share!