Big guide to lockups, crashes, and grapical errors
Drfuzzy
FEW... MORE.... INCHES... Join Date: 2003-09-21 Member: 21094Members
FEW... MORE.... INCHES... Join Date: 2003-09-21 Member: 21094Members
<div class="IPBDescription">General issues for most games.</div><!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>======
Software
======</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro--><b>Steam Community</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Steam community seems to be causing a large amount of the crashing, disabling it can prevent random crashing. You can do this by going to your steam settings, and go to your in-game tab. Uncheck the box that says 'Enable Steam Community In-Game'. Not everyone is affected by the steam community crashing bug.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Video and Sound drivers<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Drivers (video) can corrupt if your computer is incorrectly shut down and cause your video card to work incorrectly, causing crashes, lockups and graphical artifacts. Reinstalling or updating your drivers can fix these issues.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->3rd party mods<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Even though rare, some times a custom model, sprite, or script can cause a crash. Back up your custom content and try a fresh install.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Direct X<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Rarely direct x can cause issues, you can reinstall to try to fix it for hl1. In source, you can go into your game settings and add -heapsize 524288 (for 512mb ram, this might also work for hl1) or -dxlevel 8 to turn your direct x down. I know for a fact that fortress forever has a problem with Direct X 9.0c, by using dxlevel 8 you can eliminate crashes.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Background Programs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Programs like anti-virus and firewall software can try to mess with your game, closing them out before playing can fix some crashing and lockups. Also if you experience lots of lag, lockups, and crashes, try to close out unneeded background programs like chat programs, development tools (like photoshop, 3ds max, video editors), and other games. They can take up huge amounts of ram and leave none for your game, and if your using older hardware like a soundblaster card it can make it crash because the hardware wont share processes.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Virus's, Spyware, and Adware<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - For the love of god, i hope you do scans for this stuff. If not, do a search on google and download AVG Anti-Virus, Ad-Aware, and Spybot and destroy all the little terrorists that run in your background stealing your information and destroying your computer.
<b>
<!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->======
Hardware
======<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Video Card and Ram<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - This is one that killed me when i was building a pc once. Some times the memory on your video card or ram can corrupt in one little sector. Just enough to start and do things, but when you least expect it, your graphics go crazy or your computer restarts. If your graphics start to get a patterned corruption on textures or across your screen its a good sign that its the video card or your ram. If your computer reboots, often times it will blue screen faster than you can see and restart. Try restarting your computer by hitting f8 while it reboots, a menu should come up. Go to 'disable system restart on system failure' and hit enter, and your computer will start as usual. Go play your game and see what happens. The only way i can think of to test your hardware other than swapping parts is to use a burn-in tool such as Hirens and test your ram and video separately until errors show in the diag or your computer restarts.
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Power Supply<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - If your running a high end card, a cheap power supply, or a low wattage power supply, you should look into a bigger power supply. Playing games can draw more power to your card and cause your system to reboot or act strange. Cheap power supplies can cut out and put out more than they should and damage hardware, its a good idea to get a better one as soon as possible, remember that you usually get what you pay for when it comes to power supplies.
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Sound Card<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Biggest issue with sound cards are just sound issues, but some times they can cause crashing. Usually this is caused by a old card, some cant support microphone support for more than one program at once (like ventrillo and half-life) as with sound.
Feel free to add more, i'll add it to this post.
Software
======</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro--><b>Steam Community</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Steam community seems to be causing a large amount of the crashing, disabling it can prevent random crashing. You can do this by going to your steam settings, and go to your in-game tab. Uncheck the box that says 'Enable Steam Community In-Game'. Not everyone is affected by the steam community crashing bug.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Video and Sound drivers<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Drivers (video) can corrupt if your computer is incorrectly shut down and cause your video card to work incorrectly, causing crashes, lockups and graphical artifacts. Reinstalling or updating your drivers can fix these issues.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->3rd party mods<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Even though rare, some times a custom model, sprite, or script can cause a crash. Back up your custom content and try a fresh install.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Direct X<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Rarely direct x can cause issues, you can reinstall to try to fix it for hl1. In source, you can go into your game settings and add -heapsize 524288 (for 512mb ram, this might also work for hl1) or -dxlevel 8 to turn your direct x down. I know for a fact that fortress forever has a problem with Direct X 9.0c, by using dxlevel 8 you can eliminate crashes.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Background Programs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Programs like anti-virus and firewall software can try to mess with your game, closing them out before playing can fix some crashing and lockups. Also if you experience lots of lag, lockups, and crashes, try to close out unneeded background programs like chat programs, development tools (like photoshop, 3ds max, video editors), and other games. They can take up huge amounts of ram and leave none for your game, and if your using older hardware like a soundblaster card it can make it crash because the hardware wont share processes.
-<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Virus's, Spyware, and Adware<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - For the love of god, i hope you do scans for this stuff. If not, do a search on google and download AVG Anti-Virus, Ad-Aware, and Spybot and destroy all the little terrorists that run in your background stealing your information and destroying your computer.
<b>
<!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->======
Hardware
======<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Video Card and Ram<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - This is one that killed me when i was building a pc once. Some times the memory on your video card or ram can corrupt in one little sector. Just enough to start and do things, but when you least expect it, your graphics go crazy or your computer restarts. If your graphics start to get a patterned corruption on textures or across your screen its a good sign that its the video card or your ram. If your computer reboots, often times it will blue screen faster than you can see and restart. Try restarting your computer by hitting f8 while it reboots, a menu should come up. Go to 'disable system restart on system failure' and hit enter, and your computer will start as usual. Go play your game and see what happens. The only way i can think of to test your hardware other than swapping parts is to use a burn-in tool such as Hirens and test your ram and video separately until errors show in the diag or your computer restarts.
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Power Supply<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - If your running a high end card, a cheap power supply, or a low wattage power supply, you should look into a bigger power supply. Playing games can draw more power to your card and cause your system to reboot or act strange. Cheap power supplies can cut out and put out more than they should and damage hardware, its a good idea to get a better one as soon as possible, remember that you usually get what you pay for when it comes to power supplies.
<!--fonto:Arial Black--><span style="font-family:Arial Black"><!--/fonto--><b><!--coloro:#2F4F4F--><span style="color:#2F4F4F"><!--/coloro-->Sound Card<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--> - Biggest issue with sound cards are just sound issues, but some times they can cause crashing. Usually this is caused by a old card, some cant support microphone support for more than one program at once (like ventrillo and half-life) as with sound.
Feel free to add more, i'll add it to this post.
Comments
Go to your settings, click the in-game tab and disable friends community in game.