Are pauses in games a sign of an overheating vid card? or CPU? or something else?

[nippyjun]

When i play painkiller the game pauses randomly for about 7 seconds and then just continues on as if nothing happens. Is this a sign of a heat problem? a software problem, or something else?

Would the game just crash or the OS just crash if the CPU or GPU overheat? My 6800U seems to run around 70c max during gaming. My Athlon 64 runs at around 59c during gaming. These are both with spec.

I read on the painkiller forums that other people had similar problems but there is no definitive answer as to weather it's hardware or software.

 

[CRXican]

I'll bump this cause I was thinking of asking the same thing. Installed a BFG 6800GT this weekend and played some NFS Undergound. My pauses certainly werent 7 seconds but more like a fraction of a second but I noticed a slight stutter. Far Cry also go wacky for a min and seemed to be moving in slow motion but then went back to normal and was just fine.

 

[nippyjun]

I haven't been playing other games to see if the problem occurs just in Painkiller or others. This is a new system for me.

My main question is if pauses like this can be heat. Or if heat is a problem would the game or OS crash without a pause.

I would think that if heat was a problem it would happen a lot more often as the temperature should stay high throughout the game play process.

 

[TStep]

I am thirding the question as this has puzzled me for a long time, just never asked.

 

[Lonyo]

If it was a heat problem, the game woudl most liekyl freeze and then stay frozen, and you would have to reboot.
Or you would have artifacts on the screen (white dots/odd shapes).
I had an overheating card and the computer just stopped doing anything when it overheated (in games), and I had to reboot.

Your problem seems more likely to be related to something else suck as a system task in the backgroudn, or a game related error.
That said, Painkiller sucks, get yourself a good game

 

[nippyjun]

I guess i'll try some different forceware drivers and see if that helps. Then if not, i'll turn off some background processes.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Funny you should ask this.... I'm having virtually the same problem, only also with Far Cry and, occasionaly with 3dmark. I have a BFG 6800 gt and I've started to drop my overclock values since it seems to help some but not completely (running at 426/1100, which were great for the first few days but then, after experimenting with different beta drivers , I started getting artifacts, freezing and the stop/stutter thing. It's now clocked at 401/1060). It will be running smooth as silk and then freeze, then it will do this stuttering thing. I'm going to download Rivatuner to monitor my card temps while in a game. My card idles at 54C, which is very good, but you can't tell how hot it gets in gaming because temps will drop almost immediately when you exit a game. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a problem with the drivers and the video card fan. It will do that in 3dmark and then give me a drastically reduced score - if it doesn't start artifacting. Coolbits 2 still gives my card a detected value of 426/1100 for overclocking but it will not function at all at those speeds anymore without locking up at the start of a game.
I'm running a Epox 8kda3j with a 64 3200+ that is running at 2100 with no temp problems. I have dx9c installed on Winxp home sp1. It didn't start doing this until I tried the beta drivers 62.01 and 62.11. I'm currently running the 61.80s. always check the "fan always on" tab in coolbits when I overclock.
Are you overclocking at all?

 

[nippyjun]

I'm not overclocking but it is a BFG 6800 U Overclocked, so it's overclocked by the company. Where do you check "fan always on"?

I'm using the 61.34 drivers. My CPU is overclocked: it's athlon 64 3200 running at 3400 speeds.

When i first put the system together painkiller and UT2004 crashed the system and gave me blue screens. This was occasional. I haven't been plaing UT2004, but there haven't been any bluescreens in painkiller just these pauses.

 

[CRXican]

Mine was doing the slight pauses without any overclocking. I think the Far Cry issue I mentioned happend after OCing. I have the BFG card and I really hope they get their driver issues sorted out. I have another thread that I started relating to putting my system on standby. The fan on the card shut off but aparently the rest of the card was still active because the temps were exceeding 90C when I woke up the computer from standby. Interesting stuf these new cards.

I'm using coolbits as well and didn't notice that option. Maybe that will solve the standby card roasting problem I'm experiencing.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Where do you check "fan always on"?

It's right above (I think) the "use these settings at startup" option. The reason I'm wondering about this is because when it would start artifacting really bad and I check the temps, the card is never that hot, but it obvioulsy got hot at some point and that would be if the the fan had stopped - I don't know, that's conjecture at this point. I guess I could take the cover off and stick my face up to it while 3dmark is running and see what it does.
This card ran flawlessly with PainKiller, Far Cry, and UT2004 up until this weekend after messing with different drivers. Yesterday it got very bad and wouldn't let me finish 3dmark without going wild with artifacts that carried over to the desktop - this was after reducing the clock rate down to 400/1060. It also did this weird thing of giving me lower 3dmark scores (going from 11940 to 9020 to 8094 on 3 separate runs overclocked to 421/1100). It runs fine now at 400/1060 but the freezing/starting happens still.

Maybe that will solve the standby card roasting problem I'm experiencing.

I beginning to wonder if I can trust that option. I remember reading your thread, and then realized that my computer goes into standby mode also.... hmmmm.

 

[CRXican]

The fan issue really upset me. I don't want to kill my brand new card on the second day I own it. As I'm sure you know under the Nvidia control panel the default speed reduction temp on the card is 120C so I don't think I did any permanent damage. Shuttle has a wacky standby mode so it might just be a problem for me.

 

[filmore crashcart]

As I'm sure you know under the Nvidia control panel the default speed reduction temp on the card is 120C so I don't think I did any permanent damage

Yeah, that's what I think was happening with the reduced 3dmark values. I hear ya about not wanting to have a damaged card after just getting it. I didn't think I was pushing it that hard in overclocking considering what others are running at and what coolbits reported to me as it's optimal speed. I plan to get a flashlight and stick my face in the case tonight and see what the fan is doing in 3dmark. I read that Rivatunner will record temps while in a game so you can find out what exactly your highest temps are.

 

[crsgardner]

Hard drive, hard drive, hard drive. Sounds like your system is hitting the drive too often. I'd double-check that before going into anything else.

 

[nippyjun]

I have a 74 gig raptor that hasnt' been a problem before. In this new system the raptor drive is my main drive and is attached to the nvidia sata port. On my system tray is the icon to safely remove hardware and the raptor drive is listed there. There are some options there as far as write caching. Should i turn that off? Could that be the problem. How can I check to see if the problem is the hard drive.

 

[high]

cpu and/or ram

 

[nippyjun]

Originally posted by: high
cpu and/or ram

Do you mean to increase the CPU or ram voltages?

 

[Marsumane]

Ive noticed small ones also. Mainly in farcry. None in halo. I suspect its due to the coding of the game and not a heat issue. My pauses are like 1/5 of a second. Barely able to notice them unless u really watch.

 

[filmore crashcart]

I've put my card back to stock speeds and I've loosened up my ram timings to see if that had anything to do with it. It doesn't. I still get the hang and start again in Far Cry and 3dmark, so I'm going to try different drivers and try re-installing the chipset drivers. Seems weird that this would just start happening after having the card for almost a week.

Sounds like your system is hitting the drive too often

I don't know about the others, but I have a gig of ram and I haven't seen any hard drive activity when it hangs like this.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
That said, Painkiller sucks, get yourself a good game

Ban or die!!! :| I like Painkiller a lot. It's good mindless frag fun.

 

[filmore crashcart]

I don't know if this has anything to do with the price of eggs in China but, I re-installed the chipset drivers on my system and have beein playing Far cry for the last hour with no stop/start problems - knock on wood. I think I'll forget the overclocking for now as I don't seem to miss it. Kind of a trap when you start getting obsessed with numbers and forget to enjoy what the card was meant to do in the first place. This card is damn fast without stressing it.

 

[Shinei]

I get those in Halo, the game just stops for a few seconds and then continues on as if nothing was wrong (after moving you around, if you were moving). Of course, I only get three or so of those pauses before my system reboots due to overheating (70C thermal cutoff in the BIOS)... So I'd imagine you're either overheating your CPU (not a video card problem) or you're bottlenecked somewhere else.

Edit: I've also found that I can't play Halo if my CPU temperature is over 60C; I get an exception error caused by vorbis.dll and sent back to the desktop. So, yes, the game will crash if you get too hot.

 

[BFG10K]

Is the HD light on when the game pauses? If so you need more RAM.

If not then the probem is likely to be texture swapping. Either reduce your game's graphic details and level or buy a faster card with more VRAM.

When i first put the system together painkiller and UT2004 crashed the system and gave me blue screens.

Don't overlock anything and make sure your PSU is good enough to handle the card. Remember you'll need at least a good quality 350W one.

 

[lopri]

I have the same problem while playing WarCraft 3. My system has 9800Pro - upgraded from TI 4400 - and although WarCraf 3 is heavily CPU-bounded, I could notice the difference. In other words, 9800Pro gave me better resolution (16x12) and better FPS. It runs much smoother on 9800Pro. However, sometimes the game start pausing. It's like a blink of eyes but once it starts, it keeps pausing every other second. I do not overclock anything, and I don't think WarCraft 3 gives 9800Pro a hard time.. Then what's causing this??

Edit: As you can see from my sig, my machine has 1G of PC1066 RDRAM. I don't think it's from a lack/short of memory.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Not speaking for the others posting here with the same problem but: I have a 6800 gt with 256 megs of ram, I have 1 gig of system memory, my cpu temps have never climbed over 51C on checking after gaming, my video card reported the highest temp of 78C after 10 minutes of running the rthdribl program with an opened video temp window also on the desk top.
I have overclocked and that makes the problem worse. But others here have not overclocked.
For myself, it could be temp spikes I'm not catching - it's been in the upper 90's where I live on a daily basis, but I also have airconditioning and a well ventilated case. In my case, it has happened in BF 1942 at startup, Far cry at startup and during the game, and 3dMark during it's run.

 

[CRXican]

I realized why mine was stuttering. It would stutter during NFS Underground but was just fine in Far Cry. I should have known the issue right away. I play MP3s through Winamp while I play NFS and the pauses occured when it was switching songs, DUH.