![](/i/fill.gif) |
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
For the last 4 years approximately 90% of games crash sooner or later in
my WinXP system. A game never crashing for the entire time I play it is a
very rare exception. The rule is that most games crash, period.
Only games crash. No other software crashes basically ever. Many games
seem to crash in the same way, usually when saving (for this reason I usually
try to use two saves and save alternatively to each one so that when the
thing crashes I have a relatively recent "backup"), but not always. Lately
this hasn't been happening, which might coincide with me buying a new
graphics card.
I think this is so ridiculous that I'm strongly suspecting that in most
cases it's not a problem with the game itself, but with my system. But if
this is so, it's, quite naturally, completely impossible to say what could
be the problem.
Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
Do PC games just suck, or is there something wrong with my system?
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
> Do PC games just suck, or is there something wrong with my system?
In the last year or two, I've played HalfLife, Opposing Force,
Blueshift, HalfLife 2, HalfLife 2: Episode 1, HalfLife 2: Episode 2,
HalfLife 2: Deathmatch, CounterStrike: Source, Portal, Team Fortress 2,
Audiosurf, FarCry and Abe's Oddessy. Of these, only the ancient ones
have crashed or misbehaved in any way.
(Abe's Offessy occasionally crashes. It's originally a PlayStation game.
[That's PS1, mind you!] Also the HalfLife-derived games experience weird
glitches and things with the game menu. That never happened back in the
Windows 98 days, but it does now. I'm guessing it's just too old to work
properly on an OS that didn't even exist when it was written.)
In a typical week, I play TF2 or CSS for many, many hours on end, often
having to quit the game only because my legs have gone numb from so many
hours of inactivity. And yet, I never see crashes of any kind. Ever.
(What I *have* recently started seeing is strange video glitches -
particularly polygon edges at infinity. This occurs consistently in all
3D games, including FarCry which isn't Source-powered, so I'm fairly
sure my graphics card is dying. Indeed, removing it and dusting it made
the problem go away temporarily.)
On the other hand, other people in my gaming clan seem to have problems
with games constantly and repeatedly crashing. As in, they join me for a
game, and after 10 minutes they suddenly stop responding, and then after
a while they rejoin the game because their PC just rebooted. For me, the
Source engine is rock-solid, so I am mystified as to why they have such
issues...
[I can't help noticing that whenever I visit these guys in person,
everybody has the latest extreme-modded cases with the ridiculously OTT
styling and the transparent panels and the case lighting and the
watercooling and the RAID arrays and overclocked CPUs and GPUs... and my
humble machine just looks like an ordinary PC.]
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
> Do PC games just suck, or is there something wrong with my system?
I usually don't get crashes on games. I get stuck in the geometry more often
than I get actually a game that exits or hangs.
About the only time I get crashes is when I alt-tab out of the game, and I
get some sort of message when I either unfocus or refocus the game.
Basically, starting and stopping the game sometimes hangs or crashes, but I
can't remember the last time it choked in the middle of playing.
This is with both the new and the old machine, playing games everywhere from
UnDying to all three Thief games to video demos, etc. I don't play online
games enough to have useful info there.
Maybe you're overheating or something?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
> Do PC games just suck, or is there something wrong with my system?
On my old system, which was running XP Pro on a 2Ghz P4 with 1GB of
memory and an ATI9800 video card, I had problems with only one game. If
I played Oblivion for a long period of time, it would crash. I had one
or two crashes with Half Life 2, but that's nothing, considering the
amount of time I spent playing all series of that game. No problems
with any other games that I recall.
On my new system, which is running Vista x64 Ultimate on a Core 2 Quad
Q9550 with 4GB of memory and an ASUS Geforce 9800 GT video card, I
haven't had a single game crash. I've played Oblivion some, Half Life 2
moderately, and have played the heck out of Far Cry 2 (which is a far
cry from good) and Call of Duty 4.
I'm not sure if this info is of much help, but there you go. :)
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:41:45 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
Not with the vast majority of games I run. :-)
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
BTW, I assume you know about the dxdiag program. For anyone else, run dxdiag
from the command line to have it check out a bunch of direct-X related stuff
and give you a report on what works and what doesn't.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
> BTW, I assume you know about the dxdiag program. For anyone else, run dxdiag
> from the command line to have it check out a bunch of direct-X related stuff
> and give you a report on what works and what doesn't.
I know dxdiag, but I don't understand what it has to do with games
crashing randomly.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Warp wrote:
> I know dxdiag, but I don't understand what it has to do with games
> crashing randomly.
Maybe your hardware has been damaged, or (more likely) one of the DX files
has gotten corrupted. Does dxdiag check the signatures on the executable
files making up direct X? I thought it did.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
And lo On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:41:45 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tag povray org> did
spake thusly:
> Is anyone else experiencing crashes with the vast majority of games?
> Do PC games just suck, or is there something wrong with my system?
Just to add to the fun since Fallout3 on the Playstation 3 was patched
I've been having system lock-ups just with that one game, so it's not just
PCs. Perhaps any game that tries to push the hardware to the limit of its
capabilities gains a higher percentage chance of locking up? If you
downgrade the display settings etc. do they lock up as frequently?
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> Perhaps any game that tries to push the hardware to the limit
> of its capabilities gains a higher percentage chance of locking up? If
> you downgrade the display settings etc. do they lock up as frequently?
Perhaps any product released on a tight schedule more frequently
experience problems?
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
| ![](/i/fill.gif) |