OG buckshot jr
TD Admin
The Scenario
Game 'freezes', sound studder, game either crashes or you have to manual reboot.
Possible Causes
First thing's first, rule out the obvious possible causes:
- Over heating Video Card
- Bad/corrupt DirectX install
- Bad/corrupt Sound Driver
- Bad/corrupt Vid. Card Driver
=> Solutions are pretty easy, uninstall and reinstall new drivers (from proper vendors only, no 3rd party garbage, i.e. www.nvidia.com, for example).
=> You've already tried putting large fan on vid card tonight, we'll see how it holds up.
Do Note
"NVIDIA is aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues after installing 196.75 drivers from NVIDIA's website. These drivers have been removed from NVIDIA's website due to these customer reports..." - Nvidia Driver Download page. Might be your issue all along, we'll see.
Also Note Before Proceeding
Don't run css in anything below DirectX 8 (-dxlevel 80). Most newer cards, even your 9500GT will see a performance decrease, and could potentially wreak havoc (i.e. crashes etc).
Before Installing New Drivers
When uninstalling drivers to make way for newer ones, remnents can be left behind, and they could cause even newer drivers to yeild the same issues. To correct this, you can get a "Driver cleaner" to get rid of files we never even knew where there, and that could potentially lead to a fix.
http://tinyurl.com/yagugqx <- Driver Cleaner from Guru3D.com
Video Card Driver/Settings Issues
After running the driver cleaner, it's time to load new (different, not necessarily new) drivers and get the skinny on performance. Sometimes the newest drivers are full of shit, and cause more headaches then performance gains. Here's a link to older drivers for the Nvidia 9500GT, directly from Nvidia's website (the only place you should ever shop for drivers for Nvidia cards).
http://tinyurl.com/y93syoy <- Video Card Drivers.
Enter the information and away you go.
- GeForce 9 Series
- 9500 GT
- Windows XP / Windows XP 64-bit
- Recommended/Certified Drivers ONLY, no beta bullshit.
Once you fill out all feilds and hit search, find the most recent (right before the very newest driver) and download and install.
Quick Notes
Before you go diving into drivers, cleaners and the like, let's check and see if we can make due a solution with what you have. If you've already got Nvidia drivers installed as opposed to the generic Windows drivers (you'll know right away, as you right-click your desktop, one option will be "Nvidia Control Panel"
, go into it. Manually set up your graphics options best suited for your card and games you play. You'll be messing with the top 3 options (Adjust Image... Manage 3D ... and Set PhysX).
Under "Adjust Image Settings With Preview", select "Use the Advanced 3D Image Settings". Click "Take me there". Now choose settings I talked about 4-5 lines up. For example:
- Ambient Occlusion - OFF
- Force Off Anisotropic Filtering - not necessary until DX10+ games, IFF you've got the firepower to support it.
- Force Off Anti-Aliasing - for that card's power, I'd strongly recommend it, doesn't make big difference anyway in css.
- Set over-all card to "Performance" (leaves good graphics with higher fps)
- Turn OFF V'Sync and it's associated "
ptimization"
- Leave all the other shit, it should be good to go.
Now last setting, under "PhysX" - DISABLE the mofakka. This basically throws your graphic card under the bus because it makes it work all graphical/shader calculations and physics processing - something your processor should (by nature) do. Once you've got a really good card (that you can keep cold), or get a second card, you should enable this feature to take load off of your cpu. For now, disable it.
=> This is meant more as an indirect fix IFF heat is your culprit. It could be it's just striaght up too much load, and the card's RAM is tripping out (hence the loop, then crash). Just a thought, easy to try, and good settings to keep anyway.
Let's hope we have a solution before we have to continue, I can get deeper :) Good luck!
Game 'freezes', sound studder, game either crashes or you have to manual reboot.
Possible Causes
First thing's first, rule out the obvious possible causes:
- Over heating Video Card
- Bad/corrupt DirectX install
- Bad/corrupt Sound Driver
- Bad/corrupt Vid. Card Driver
=> Solutions are pretty easy, uninstall and reinstall new drivers (from proper vendors only, no 3rd party garbage, i.e. www.nvidia.com, for example).
=> You've already tried putting large fan on vid card tonight, we'll see how it holds up.
Do Note
"NVIDIA is aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues after installing 196.75 drivers from NVIDIA's website. These drivers have been removed from NVIDIA's website due to these customer reports..." - Nvidia Driver Download page. Might be your issue all along, we'll see.
Also Note Before Proceeding
Don't run css in anything below DirectX 8 (-dxlevel 80). Most newer cards, even your 9500GT will see a performance decrease, and could potentially wreak havoc (i.e. crashes etc).
Before Installing New Drivers
When uninstalling drivers to make way for newer ones, remnents can be left behind, and they could cause even newer drivers to yeild the same issues. To correct this, you can get a "Driver cleaner" to get rid of files we never even knew where there, and that could potentially lead to a fix.
http://tinyurl.com/yagugqx <- Driver Cleaner from Guru3D.com
Video Card Driver/Settings Issues
After running the driver cleaner, it's time to load new (different, not necessarily new) drivers and get the skinny on performance. Sometimes the newest drivers are full of shit, and cause more headaches then performance gains. Here's a link to older drivers for the Nvidia 9500GT, directly from Nvidia's website (the only place you should ever shop for drivers for Nvidia cards).
http://tinyurl.com/y93syoy <- Video Card Drivers.
Enter the information and away you go.
- GeForce 9 Series
- 9500 GT
- Windows XP / Windows XP 64-bit
- Recommended/Certified Drivers ONLY, no beta bullshit.
Once you fill out all feilds and hit search, find the most recent (right before the very newest driver) and download and install.
Quick Notes
Before you go diving into drivers, cleaners and the like, let's check and see if we can make due a solution with what you have. If you've already got Nvidia drivers installed as opposed to the generic Windows drivers (you'll know right away, as you right-click your desktop, one option will be "Nvidia Control Panel"
, go into it. Manually set up your graphics options best suited for your card and games you play. You'll be messing with the top 3 options (Adjust Image... Manage 3D ... and Set PhysX). Under "Adjust Image Settings With Preview", select "Use the Advanced 3D Image Settings". Click "Take me there". Now choose settings I talked about 4-5 lines up. For example:
- Ambient Occlusion - OFF
- Force Off Anisotropic Filtering - not necessary until DX10+ games, IFF you've got the firepower to support it.
- Force Off Anti-Aliasing - for that card's power, I'd strongly recommend it, doesn't make big difference anyway in css.
- Set over-all card to "Performance" (leaves good graphics with higher fps)
- Turn OFF V'Sync and it's associated "
ptimization"- Leave all the other shit, it should be good to go.
Now last setting, under "PhysX" - DISABLE the mofakka. This basically throws your graphic card under the bus because it makes it work all graphical/shader calculations and physics processing - something your processor should (by nature) do. Once you've got a really good card (that you can keep cold), or get a second card, you should enable this feature to take load off of your cpu. For now, disable it.
=> This is meant more as an indirect fix IFF heat is your culprit. It could be it's just striaght up too much load, and the card's RAM is tripping out (hence the loop, then crash). Just a thought, easy to try, and good settings to keep anyway.
Let's hope we have a solution before we have to continue, I can get deeper :) Good luck!
