Donut4000
Newbie
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2006
- Messages
- 65
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This is a solution to a problem I had, that may well help others with the same problem. I kept getting a total lock-up at certain and repeatable parts of the game - the audio would start looping, and the screen would freeze. I could sometimes return to the desktop by <alt-tab> ing, or hitting the <start> key; but often I could only get anywhere by jabbing the <reset> button on the front of the case.
It turns out it is the graphics card being overwhelmed, and overheating. As my card is already running hot (Ati 9800XT, at 50-60 C), Episode 1 seemed to push it over the edge at settings that HL2 would not.
The simple solution was to lower the screen resolution - from 1600x1200 to 1248x1024; and to drop a few other settings, like Vsync to off, AA to 2x from 4x...but the point is I lowered the load on my GPU by reducing (in order of low to high preference) the screen jollies.
I know this solution seems quite obvious - but to have a game wipe out like this can be due to so many things...driver problems being at the front of my mind.
It was such a pain to have my much waited game poop out after so much patient waiting - I am now having a lot of fun playing it; I couldn't find any threads that helped and for those unfortunate few who have these symptoms- i hope this helps...
It turns out it is the graphics card being overwhelmed, and overheating. As my card is already running hot (Ati 9800XT, at 50-60 C), Episode 1 seemed to push it over the edge at settings that HL2 would not.
The simple solution was to lower the screen resolution - from 1600x1200 to 1248x1024; and to drop a few other settings, like Vsync to off, AA to 2x from 4x...but the point is I lowered the load on my GPU by reducing (in order of low to high preference) the screen jollies.
I know this solution seems quite obvious - but to have a game wipe out like this can be due to so many things...driver problems being at the front of my mind.
It was such a pain to have my much waited game poop out after so much patient waiting - I am now having a lot of fun playing it; I couldn't find any threads that helped and for those unfortunate few who have these symptoms- i hope this helps...
