FFXIV Crashing because of driver errors

[Kuraran]

Just going to explains what's been happening to me since some days ago:

So I got my new PC 2 Days ago, installed everything like Drivers, Updates for Windows and other Programms just fine and then I attempted to play some FFXIV on max settings with no frame limit.
After 5 or so minutes the game didn't respond anymore and I had to Force close it. After that I change the frame limit to 60 FPS and the game seemed to work just fine but after 2 hours the same issue happened with the game not responding and me having to Force close it again.

This happened several times so I decided to install Windows and all the other stuff again. After everything was said and done I started FFXIV just to test if the same issue would occur again... and it certainly did but this time I didn't have to Force close it since the game itself responded after 30-60 seconds and I was a bit surprised by that.

I also decided to check the Event Viewer for more information whenever the game crashed and there were several Error Messages being generated by nvlddmkm just before FFXIV didn't respond anymore with the following "general message":

The description for Event ID 13 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Some of the Error Messages that are generated with the general text above are as follows:

This error appears in several combinations where GPC is either 0,1,2 or 3 and TPC is either 0,1,2 or 3.
\Device\Video7
NVRM: Graphics TEX Exception on (GPC 0, TPC 1): TEX NACK / Page Fault

\Device\Video7
Graphics Exception: ESR 0x505a24=0x80000000 0x505a28=0x0 0x505a2c=0x0 0x505a34=0x0

\Device\Video7
Variable String to Large

\Device\Video7
Graphics Exception: ESR 0x405840=0xa0061a4e

\Device\Video7
Graphics Exception: MISSING_MACRO_DATA

\Device\Video7
Graphics Exception: EXTRA_MACRO_DATA

Other Numbers for this error include 1,2,3,6,9,11,12,17,22
\Device\Video7
Graphics Exception: Shader Program Header 18 Error

I’m not really sure if this issue is caused by the game or by the driver that is installed, but it certainly is annoying not knowing what I have to do to play the game normally on any settings I want.

My new PC Setup is as follows:

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz
16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3
ASRock H81M-VG4
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (NVIDIA)
238GB TOSHIBA THNSNH256GCST SCSI Disk Device (SSD)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD2003FYPS-27W9B SCSI Disk Device (SATA)

I hope someone know what's causing this issue or has more information about this since it's only the game that's crashing and nothing else.

[Vanity]

I too have been suffering from this since the most recent update/hotfix about a week ago. Same type of errors you've described Kuraran. Exactlly the same. My setup is as follows:

Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit
Intel i7 5960X @ 4.5 GHz
EVGA X-99 Classified MOBO
32GB DDR4 Quad Channel RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Black x 2 (SLI) [Reference/Stock model. Has not been overclocked]
512GB Samsung 850 PRO SSD (OS and applications)
512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD (Games including FFXIV ARR)
512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD (Workflow applications)
4TB WD Caviar Black 7200rpm 64MB Cache

I currently game on a ASUS ROG SWIFT Monitor and even went so far as to lower the graphics settings in game and turn off G-SYNC. Basically run the game as the lowest possible settings. The issue still arose. I rolled back my NVIDIA drivers as well a few times. The issue still persists. I find it odd that only FFXIV exhibits this behavior. All other applications and games I've ran do not. Mayhap someone can look into this and present a solution.

[Judge_Xero]

Lots of those same errors appearing with the 900 Series NVidia Cards and the newest drivers.

Combination of Windows 7, Google Chrome and/or Firefox and possibly the GPU Turbo function.

nvidia recommends going back all the way to 347.88

[Judge_Xero]

Just wanted to add, that after doing some research it seems in some cases that parts of the Driver Install are blocked by Windows.

You can try this as well.

Download Drivers -> Right Click -> Run as Administrator -> Custom -> Clean Install

That should allow it to fully install without any parts of the Driver being blocked.

The description for Event ID 13 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

[Kuraran]

Just wanted to add, that after doing some research it seems in some cases that parts of the Driver Install are blocked by Windows.

You can try this as well.

Download Drivers -> Right Click -> Run as Administrator -> Custom -> Clean Install

That should allow it to fully install without any parts of the Driver being blocked.

I've installed several older drivers this way now, after uninstalling them with DDU but I'm still getting the same errors over and over again.
I've never had these kinds of errors on my old PC.
From what I've heard from my friend (who has the said old PC now) is, that after he installed everything completely new, he also got the same errors generated.

So I'm not sure if the fault is with the drivers themselves or if there is a driver conflict somewhere between drivers, or if the HW may be faulty (I sure as hell hope it's not the last) but it's really getting frustrating.

Been in contact with Nvidia Support for the past weeks because of this but still haven't got a solution on this @.@

[Xoriam]

it's the new drivers, you need to roll back to atleast 350
they are crashing in everything, and it's a known problem.

[Kuraran]

I already rolled back to the 350.12 driver but the issue still persisted.

Also, from what I've been reading, most peoples drivers crash completely for several seconds before recovering again.
For me it's just the driver creating a huge amount of errors in the event viewer before just the game that I played crashes

[Xoriam]

Do you have a secondary audio card?

if so unplug it. also disable nvidia hd audio and any onboard audio devices (in device manager)
conflicting audio devices can cause this as well.

[MiniTofu]

37x.xx or 350.12 driver is recommended. Don't install 352.86, 353.06 and 353.12.