Trine Nuked My PC - Are Cheap Games Dangerous?

[Danube]

I recently bought Trine for $5 on Steam. Three times it shut my PC off at the same point in the game. On the last shut down I couldn't boot back into Windows - then getting an error message that said I needed to use Windows CD to try a repair - and that I might have an I/O drive controller problem.

Well the restore CD didn't work but I was able to boot up again after I disconnected my second drive (and the one I keep Steam on). The second drive worked again after I re-connected it latter.

I never encountered anything like this before but I am a light gamer (did all of the Half Life stuff, Oblivion, Stalker and a few other things but not much else). Looking online I saw some other people also had their PC's buggered by Trine. Are the cheaper, less popular games more of an issue?

I was using an ATI 4850 with latest drivers on a Vista PC

 

[veri745]

I hadn't heard of that before. I doubt it was the game itself, but my initial install of Trine on my laptop was corrupted and resulted in glitchy graphics, so I guess it's possible that a corrupted install could have other effects as well.

My suggestion would be to use the "Verify game cache" feature of steam to make sure your new game installs are correct before running them.

 

[mindcycle]

Are the cheaper, less popular games more of an issue?

I've had this same thing happen to me. It's not related to the game itself, but to windows not being shut down properly. Most likely one of the required system files on your windows install was corrupted after the system crashed and later fixed when you were able to boot into windows again.

 

[Danube]

My suggestion would be to use the "Verify game cache" feature of steam to make sure your new game installs are correct before running them.

Thanks I didn't know I could do that.

 

[Danube]

I've had this same thing happen to me. It's not related to the game itself, but to windows not being shut down properly. Most likely one of the required system files on your windows install was corrupted after the system crashed and later fixed when you were able to boot into windows again.

Sounds logical

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Games don't do that, either a driver or hardware problem. WC3 used to give me BSOD until I updated sound drivers, for example.

 

[CurseTheSky]

FWIW, it plays fine on my system. I think I may have had one crash to desktop while playing, but no other problems. Great game, too.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Not trying to flame, but really, you need to upgrade to Win7 or downgrade to XP - Vista is a bug-ridden POS, both in my experience and what I hear online/from others. I'm surprised that you immediately didn't suspect of Vista botching up, to be honest!

 

[brandonb]

Geez, the Vista bashing is so 2007.

 

[zerogear]

Geez, the Vista bashing is so 2007.

+1

 

[Danube]

I didn't move to Vista until Oct 08 and I can't say I have had an issue with it (On Vista I played Half Life 2 plus Episodes 1 and 2; Crysis Warhead; Oblivion; Stalker SoC and some smaller stuff like Braid and Goo - haven't had an issue with any of them) I tried Windows 7 beta and liked it but I didn't like the new media center files which caused me to have to do an extra step in converting files of recorded items.

All my drivers (including mobo chips) are up to date since I did a fresh install in Dec. In some other Trine crash threads on Trine site I saw staff telling people to update their Nvidia physX drivers but I don't have an Nvidia card. Here's one thread about crashing:


http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=911106

 

[AlgaeEater]

I never encountered anything like this before but I am a light gamer (did all of the Half Life stuff, Oblivion, Stalker and a few other things but not much else). Looking online I saw some other people also had their PC's buggered by Trine. Are the cheaper, less popular games more of an issue?

I was using an ATI 4850 with latest drivers on a Vista PC

I'm a believer, because I had it happen to me too. I bought Gyromancer (SquareEnix) on Steam and my ATI 4870X2 card nearly melted. According to the forum posts in support, the game was running at an uncontrolled FPS, and vertical sync could not kick in.

Proof is in the pudding:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1037323

So yeah, as funny as it sounds, things can get dangerous. I find small indie games usually do this, or games from another country (like Japan for example). I remember Ys: The Ark of Napishtim burned out my 7800GT and I had to get it RMA.

 

[crownjules]

Not trying to flame, but really, you need to upgrade to Win7 or downgrade to XP - Vista is a bug-ridden POS, both in my experience and what I hear online/from others. I'm surprised that you immediately didn't suspect of Vista botching up, to be honest!

With so many posts on a tech forum, you should know better than this.

 

[Maximilian]

Not trying to flame, but really, you need to upgrade to Win7 or downgrade to XP - Vista is a bug-ridden POS, both in my experience and what I hear online/from others. I'm surprised that you immediately didn't suspect of Vista botching up, to be honest!

+1

Windows 7 is the way forward OP!

 

[JoshGuru7]

+1

Windows 7 is the way forward OP!

-2. There's a big difference between what you would optimally pick when starting from a blank slate, and what your decision should be when you already have an OS that does everything you need it to. If people decide not to pay a premium just to have the latest version they are making a perfectly rational decision.

 

[Acanthus]

Not trying to flame, but really, you need to upgrade to Vista with an interface update or downgrade to 8 year old operating system technology - Vista is a bug-ridden POS, both in my experience and what I hear online/from others. I'm surprised that you immediately didn't suspect of Vista botching up, to be honest!

fixed. ROFL.

"project mojave"

 

[Oakenfold]

Games don't do that, either a driver or hardware problem. WC3 used to give me BSOD until I updated sound drivers, for example.

+1.

Not trying to flame, but really, you need to upgrade to Win7 or downgrade to XP - Vista is a bug-ridden POS, both in my experience and what I hear online/from others. I'm surprised that you immediately didn't suspect of Vista botching up, to be honest!

Vista is solid, don't spread fud.

fixed. ROFL.

"project mojave"

+100

 

[Raduque]

Vista is a bug-ridden POS,

Let's see some proof. And I don't mean articles from 2006, either!

 

[borisvodofsky]

I recently bought Trine for $5 on Steam. Three times it shut my PC off at the same point in the game. On the last shut down I couldn't boot back into Windows - then getting an error message that said I needed to use Windows CD to try a repair - and that I might have an I/O drive controller problem.

Well the restore CD didn't work but I was able to boot up again after I disconnected my second drive (and the one I keep Steam on). The second drive worked again after I re-connected it latter.

I never encountered anything like this before but I am a light gamer (did all of the Half Life stuff, Oblivion, Stalker and a few other things but not much else). Looking online I saw some other people also had their PC's buggered by Trine. Are the cheaper, less popular games more of an issue?

I was using an ATI 4850 with latest drivers on a Vista PC

There's your problem....

Also Windows 7 = Vista, JUST AS SLOW

XP foreve:awe::awe::awe:

 

[gorcorps]

There's your problem....

Also Windows 7 = Vista, JUST AS SLOW

XP foreve:awe::awe::awe:

People who claim 7 sucks haven't used it yet. It's by far the most stable OS release I've seen Windows have. I haven't had a single problem and have had it since release.

 

[Danube]

I hadn't heard of that before. I doubt it was the game itself, but my initial install of Trine on my laptop was corrupted and resulted in glitchy graphics, so I guess it's possible that a corrupted install could have other effects as well.

My suggestion would be to use the "Verify game cache" feature of steam to make sure your new game installs are correct before running them.

I had already deleted Trine when I posted but I ran cache verifications on my other steam games and found files missing in 2 of them (Medieval Wars and Doom3 - haven't played either yet)

 

[Ben90]

I'm a believer, because I had it happen to me too. I bought Gyromancer (SquareEnix) on Steam and my ATI 4870X2 card nearly melted. According to the forum posts in support, the game was running at an uncontrolled FPS, and vertical sync could not kick in.

Proof is in the pudding:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1037323

So yeah, as funny as it sounds, things can get dangerous. I find small indie games usually do this, or games from another country (like Japan for example). I remember Ys: The Ark of Napishtim burned out my 7800GT and I had to get it RMA.

The root problem lies not with the Indie games but with the card manufacturers (or the system builders) cooling/power throttling. ATi fixed a lot of their power issues with the 5xxx cards and I cannot comment on Nvidia, but these situations should not be happening in the first place. The cooling systems on these cards should be able to handle full load. Imagine if Intel/AMD said you were not allowed to run such and such on their processors because they would melt themselves. Or a HDD saying "if you try to copy too many files at once, ill spin too fast and explode"

Yes it sucks that Indie games are not optimized, but its the card manufacturers fault for allowing the card to destroy itself.

 

[AndroidVageta]

-2. There's a big difference between what you would optimally pick when starting from a blank slate, and what your decision should be when you already have an OS that does everything you need it to. If people decide not to pay a premium just to have the latest version they are making a perfectly rational decision.

I agree here...I LOVED Vista! Only reason, and I mean ONLY REASON I upgraded was because Windows 7 has been Crossfire/Multi-GPU support. I have to say that Crysis went from 30fps average to 40fps and other games run flawlessly that didnt quite run so well on Vista...besides that, Vista seems a lot less headache inducing as Ive had slightly more instability and crashes on 7 that I ever did with Vista.

In my opinion only reason Vista has a bad rep is because of the lack of proper drivers when it was released which caused problems/instability...since there have been good drivers for just about everything now (and for a while) its a bad ass OS.

 

[AlgaeEater]

The root problem lies not with the Indie games but with the card manufacturers (or the system builders) cooling/power throttling. ATi fixed a lot of their power issues with the 5xxx cards and I cannot comment on Nvidia, but these situations should not be happening in the first place. The cooling systems on these cards should be able to handle full load. Imagine if Intel/AMD said you were not allowed to run such and such on their processors because they would melt themselves. Or a HDD saying "if you try to copy too many files at once, ill spin too fast and explode"

Yes it sucks that Indie games are not optimized, but its the card manufacturers fault for allowing the card to destroy itself.

I will agree with you, but it scares the living daylights out of me that things like this still happen in 2010. Look at the latest Nvidia drivers for the proof. The very fact that a legitimate DRIVER can fry your card by TURNING OFF YOUR FAN scares me to no end.

As for the Gyromancer issue, the 4870X2 was probably the worst card I could have possibly had to run into that problem, since that card runs so hot and draws so much power even in normal load (~80%) it still feels like it's going to melt or catch on fire. You could imagine how freaked out I was when the computer was sounding like a leaf blower AND these crazy beeps starting going off in my case and on my motherboard. It was like a bomb was about to go off or something. When you mentioned how manufacturers could let these things slide, I couldn't agree with you more. The first time I put the 4870X2 under load, I had thought the card's cooling was completely defective, not knowing that it was completely normal to run that hot and loud.

 

[acheron]

LOL at people actually defending Vista. Keep pushing the rock up the hill, guys! Even Microsoft dropped Vista like a sack of flaming poo. (Or like Windows ME. Do you guys defend that one, too?)

Anyway, I agree with the comments about the video cards. Even a comparatively lower-power card (I have a 4850) can heat up quite a bit. I haven't had that problem with Trine (haven't tried Gyromancer yet), but I will be sure to watch out.