Crashing to desktop while playing Thief: Deadly Shadows

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon' started by cyclinggimpe, Aug 11, 2004.

  1. cyclinggimpe

    cyclinggimpe Member

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    GPU:
    Asus 9600 XT (128)
    I just installed an Asus 9600 XT (128 mb) card on the weekend and also installed Thief Deadly Shadows with the latest patch. After about an hour of game play I get kicked out to the desktop or to a blue screen without any error messages. I am new to ATI drivers etc. as I used to have a geforce 2 Pro card.

    I installed the 4.7 Catalyst drivers (bundle) and did some tweaking that I got from some messages in this forum and others.

    Here are some of my settings in the Control Panel:

    Under Displays: The monitor is set to 1152X864 but the refresh rate states 60Hz whereas under Display Properties for my monitor I have it set to 75 Hz ( why is there a difference)?
    Monitor Attributes: Checked "Use DDC information".
    Refresh rate override = Disabled. (Should this be set to "Same as Desktop"?)

    Smartgart: Fastwrite is turned OFF.
    AGP Speed = 4X

    I unchecked VPU Recovery.

    Under Options: Checked "Disable quick resolution feature"
    Unchecked "Alternate DVI operational mode" I have a Viewsonic E70f 17 inch monitor with the latest .ICM file for it (WinXP).

    I noticed one thing mentioned in some thread (I can't remember which) about XT cards should also have a setting for an Overdrive? I can't seem to find this setting anywhere and I have an XT card.

    On a Thief forum it was suggested to drop down to 4.4 or 4.1 Catalyst drivers but then I won't be able to play Doom3 also (or will I be able to?). With the 4.7 drivers I have no problems with Doom 3 but I do with Thief 3.

    Is anyone here playing Thief Deadly Shadows without getting kicked out? If so, which drivers are you using. I really don't want to keep uninstalling/installing different drivers each time I play Doom and Thief.

    Thanks.

    Edit: I went to the Asus website and checked their downloads. They have some files for the 9600 series card called 8.03 VGA drivers. Should I be installing these or the ones from the ATI site?

    Edit 2: I installed the 4.8 beta drivers and now the monitors refresh rate in the control panel is 75 Hz just as it is in the Display Properties settings. I won't be trying thief 3 until tomorrow though.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2004
  2. UZ7

    UZ7 Ancient Guru

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    GPU:
    nVidia RTX 4080 FE
    Well if you just recently replaced the card, you would mostlikely try to uninstall/clean up every trace of the old driver from previous installations... or what most people do reinstall windows (dont have to)

    getting kicked out of games usually occurs from, bad driver installation/old, weak psu (power supply), vid card/cpu overheating etc..
     
  3. cyclinggimpe

    cyclinggimpe Member

    Messages:
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    GPU:
    Asus 9600 XT (128)
    I don't think anything is overheating. I went into the bios to see if there was a Fast Write option there (and there wasn't) and the temperatures were okay or I should say they were around what they have been in the past. Also, I added another fan in my case and I also turned on my floor fan and shot it towards my computer (and the case was cool to the touch). As I stated, I am able to play Doom 3 for hours throughout a day without getting kicked out to the desktop. If I can't get this resolved I may take the video card back to the store and get an nVidia card instead. I thought ATI was supposed to be a better card for gaming????
     
  4. Evil-Taco

    Evil-Taco Ancient Guru

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    GPU:
    Leadtec nVidia 6800 GT Pci-Express
    Driver inconsistencies should effect all games, so that rules out the driver question. If it only effects Thief 3 then it sounds like a game issue.
     

  5. cyclinggimpe

    cyclinggimpe Member

    Messages:
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    GPU:
    Asus 9600 XT (128)
    I think I was wrong; I may have an overheating of the card problem. I played Thief 3 for about 1/2 hour (without my floor fan cooling my computer) and I opened up the case and felt the card and it was quite hot (not warm). I had recently placed a fan in the back of the case but maybe I need more fans. I've been getting some feedback from the tech guy at the small computer store where I bought this card and he suggested cutting out the area where the back fan is and put a wire grill on so that more air blows out (they're doing this with all their new systems they're building now). He also suggeted cutting a hole in the top of the case and put a fan there to blow the hot air out the top since warm air rises.

    What is the best way to cool your system on these hot summer days (it's staying close to 30 C on a regular basis now) so that you can play games? I tried to do a search and I kept getting an error. I did read some threads about the VGA Silencer, so I'll have to do a google search for this. Anything else I can do?

    Edit: I keep getting this error while doing a search:

    "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 129 bytes) in /home/guru3d/public_html/forum/search.php on line 396

    Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 0 bytes) in Unknown on line 0" What does it mean?
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2004

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