Intermittent crashes playing GTA: San Andreas

[hacker_cracker]

Wassup guys? I'm having a problem with one of my favorite games, GTA: San Andreas. Every once in a while, while I'm playing, the screen will suddenly go black, and an error message will pop up saying that gtasa.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. Sometimes, I can play all day with no problem, but other times, it will happen after 10 minutes or so. After the error occours, I can start the game again, and continue playing from my last save. Thank God this has never happened after completing a hard mission before I have a chance to save (yet)! My system specs are listed in my sig. I am playing the game at 800x600x32, with visual fx set to "high". There is some occasional lag in the game, but not enough to want to lower the visual fx. Is there any patches out there that can fix the problem? Any help would be appreciated.

[usil]

Thats a fine system you got there, and a great game, only the graphics card lags behind a bit. Have you tried turning down the in-game graphics and see if that makes a difference? Have you also tried reinstalling the game?

[hacker_cracker]

I was using an 128MB GeForce MX4000 before, and was playing with the visual fx set to "low". The main reason I got the fx5500 was to play the game with the "high" visual fx settings (It looks a lot better, there's a lot of detail I didn't even know existed before the upgrade). So I don't want to turn down the fx again, 'cause that would be disappointing. I'll try a re-install, tho. I will post back with the results.

[hacker_cracker]

Still does it. Final Fantasy VII is starting to do the same thing, too. I know its an old game, but I have the latest XP Patch installed. Same exact error condition.

[ProfessorU]

The basics are:

Latest video card drivers
Latest motherboard drivers
Latest soundcard drivers
Latest directX version
Check your case temps

It looks like the support page you need is here:
http://techsupport.rockstargames.com/rockstarsupport/req_support_detail.php?product=191%2C3%2CGrand+Theft+Auto%3A+San+Andreas%2CPC%2CRockstar_Games%2Cgtasa&submit=Submit

but the only patch they offer is unrelated. And dude, the 3rd party patches for that game look so fun I'd consider buying it even though I played the PS2 version.

[hacker_cracker]

Case temps are a little on the warm side, but nothing to be concerned about. I don't think its an overheating issue, 'cause after the crash, I can start playing the game again like nothing ever happened. The event viewer just lists an application failure. Dr. Watson reports an exception error for both games. Strange, that games like GTA: Vice City, GTA III, and Diablo II don't seem to give any problems.
One possible issue is that my Graphics Card came overclocked from the factory by about 20 Mhz. The cooling fan on the card is working fine, tho. Could overclocking cause instability?

[usil]

It could if the video card is overheating.
Next time you play, open the case and use a regular house fan to blow directly on the video card. See if that stops the crashes.
Strange though, that your card would come overclocked from the factory. Overclocking usually voids warranty, so why would they send it overclocked?

[ProfessorU]

It definitely could, although in an ideal world when a manufacturer overclocks, it would always be stable. You could try to clock it back down.

It is really funny that GTA3 still runs fine, since those games are on the same engine. Check the settings you're using for that game. Maybe it's running on OpenGL or something....

Also, try to get the game to crash with the sound disabled in the game or the card disabled in device manager. Then you can rule out that as a possible problem.

[liam858]

Strange though, that your card would come overclocked from the factory. Overclocking usually voids warranty, so why would they send it overclocked?

....because BFG are nuts:

BFG knows that gamers like to push their hardware to the max. That’s why we’ve taken a powerful graphics processor from NVIDIA,® built a killer card around it that features top of the line components, and runs faster than a standard card. Safely, and at no extra cost to you. What that means is a competitively priced product that performs better than similar cards costing the same. Oh, and the lifetime warranty stays in full effect too.

>> GPU NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5500

>> Bus Type AGP
>> Memory 256MB DDR or 128MB DDR
>> Core Clock 290MHz (vs. 270MHz standard)
>> RAMDAC Dual 350MHz
>> API Support Microsoft® DirectX®, Open GL ICD® L for Microsoft® Windows®
>> Connectors VGA, S-Video-Out
>> 72.5 million vertices/sec setup


Liam

[usil]

Wow, I didn't know they did these kind of things. Thanks for pointing that out Liam, and a good find. You would think though that if they send a card over clocked that they would provide proper cooling and that the card would not overheat. In any case, hacker cracker, you should still try to do what I said, and that is to blow a regular house fan directly on the video card.

[ProfessorU]

It's actually rather common practice to overclock stock components. This voids the manufacturer's warranty, so usually the system builder/reseller offers their own warranty. The truth is that if stability is an issue, you shouldn't be overclocking. There are a few companies who overclock effectively and whom I would trust, since they do burn-ins for days and test the heck out of their OC'd systems. Alienware and Falcon Northwest are some examples.

[hacker_cracker]

Atcually, I don't seem to have a house fan to blow into the case, I just came to Texas from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, so I don't have too many things right now, besides basic furniture, and my computers (which I saved, thank God). I even lost all of my tools that I used to work on PC's. Strange, that if it were an overheating problem, I don't think it would let me re-open the game and play for hours as if nothing had happened. Another thing that comes to mind is DR. Watson's reports of execption errors. Could faulty memory be the cause of this? If so, are there any good (free) diagnostic tools that I can try to test my memory?

[hacker_cracker]

BTW, GTA III and Vice City seem to also use Direct 3D as their rendering engine.

[liam858]

are there any good (free) diagnostic tools that I can try to test my memory?

Yep there are, the 2 in my sig, memtest and Windows memory diagnostic.

But does the crashing occur when you do any other memory heavy tasks? video editing stuff/photoshop? if not then i would doubt it would be RAM....but you never know.


Liam

[hacker_cracker]

Nope, only the games crash. Normal applications such as photo editing work perfectly. I've also never had windows itself crash for any reason. I'll go ahead and test the memory anyway and post back.

[hacker_cracker]

Memory checks out ok. I've been playing Final Fantasy VII and GTA: Vice City all day with no problems. I guess it's more than likely the overclocking of the GPU is causing some instability when it's put under a load, since overheating and bad memory dosen't seem to be my issue.