The Big RACE Freeze Thread

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I saw a lot of guys which have big issues with freezing pc's during a race, please let me do some investigation and check this poll.

 

[Michael Ketterer]

so i think its not the problem of the card or the overheating because i have sometimes the same problem and i use 8800 gts in sli with another 8800 and i have a watercooled system.
but i still have the problem some times only also
so sorry i cant give you the answer what you should do because im not really good in technical

 

[Jose Ferreira]

Thank you for helping

Thanks everyone for helping, thanks a lot:wink:

Thank you

Jojo

 

[Jose Ferreira]

I have a big problem I can't join the race cos it won't let me in.

It say you can only join in practice or qualify, but actually is only 2:30am in macau

 

[Jack Whorton]

Freezes

Hi all,

first post, apologies that it is one asking for help!

I am having an ongoing issue where my pc freezes during particular games. When it does this the only way to continue is a hard reset. The sound also sticks. Reason I am asking here is that it has been very difficult to pin down but now it seems to be cropping up in GTR evo but only when I play online. I have played a fair few single player races over the last few days with no freezes but when I play multiplayer it has frozen anywhere from a few minutes down to 5seconds after starting in the pits.

Spec is ok, Opteron 144, 2 gigs ram, 7800GT. I have lots of fans and cooling doesnt seem to be an issue, especially as it does not seem to vary in accordance with how long I have been playing or even had the pc switched on. I have updated to the latest nvidia drivers and many others in between with no luck..

It has happened in a number of other games... Very annoying.. Any help or ideas would be much appreciated.:good:

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

:woot: first post :welcome: porph !!

Help is underway for sure, but not from me, i dont understand pc's

 

[Dave Stephenson]

Hi porph, Welcome. You don't need to apologise for asking for help!

It could be any number of things hat could contribute to your problem. To hep with narrowing it down could you provide some extra info.

Have you made any software changes recently? Installed new drivers for printers scanners etc..

Do the freezes happen during other programs? not nessicarily just games but other progs that are cpu or ram, intensive.

Do you encounter the same problems at lower graphical settings?

Is it just a certain tracks or with certain cars?

Do you have any overclocking in place on your system?

 

[Damian Henderson]

On top of what's been posted above you could try testing your memory and PSU (Power Suppy) as they can be a often cause of freezing, especially when gaming when they are using most of their capabilities.

Memtest:
http://www.memtest.org/

PSU Tester:
http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=44221&source=froogle

If none of the above helps it's worth trying another video card in your system and see if you have the same problem or not.

 

[Jack Whorton]

thanks guys, I'll give all that a try when I get home tonight. It's happened with several games. Would having not very much space on my C drive affect things?

 

[Damian Henderson]

thanks guys, I'll give all that a try when I get home tonight. It's happened with several games. Would having not very much space on my C drive affect things?

It could do yes, how much space have you got on the C drive? I advise to have at a minimum of 1.5gb space free, the more the better.

Try defragging your hardrive and running ccleaner also.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/download/56920e3a160229f826f209c166c36f69/

Running ccleaner can remove 1gb + from the C drive alone, it's possible your XP install needs cleaning up a bit so a fresh defrag and running ccleaner should help your PC run quicker, but don't know about fixing the freezes or not, have to try it and see if it helps.

 

[Omer Said]

One or two years ago my pc had the same kind of problem. That's reason was a Virus, i learned it when i bring my pc to a pc repairing shop. They formatted my pc, and it worked well after it. But i can't say your problem is virus exactly, many things may cause that....

 

[Jack Whorton]

Cheers, I have 3 hard drives, 80gig, 250gig and 500gig and the windows install is on the 80gig one but the partition is quite small. Cleared 1.5gig tho using that tool so doing a defrag now. Memory seems to be ok.

If I can't sort it all Ill start over with a fresh windows install and install things bit by bit as it's a bit of a botch pc with bits and pieces added over the years.

 

[Jack Whorton]

I have avast as my antivirus program and it is always running and updated so I'd hope I don't have a virus...

Oh I checked the C drive and space was down to less than 200mb!!

 

[Bob Miley]

Hi Porph,

As well as mentioned previously, if you use XP it could be something a simple as page file size needs increasing or a fragmented page file causing write problems.

The easiest way to check this sort of problem is to clear your C: drive of all unneeded files/programs, defragment the drive then My Computer properties- advanced - Performance Options - Advanced - bottom option Change, select No Page File and reboot.

When it reboots go to the same point and set a Page file with min = amount of RAM and max = 2x amount of Ram.

If you have defragmented first this will give you ample clean page file.

This should help all operations not just games.

 

[Bob Miley]

I have avast as my antivirus program and it is always running and updated so I'd hope I don't have a virus...

Oh I checked the C drive and space was down to less than 200mb!!

Sorry, just read this and that could be the problem, you will not be able to do my steps above with such little space, you need to clean it down.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

That must be the problem indeed. You can try move some programs to another partition or harddrive if you don't want to loose them.

Download CCleaner and run ccleaner every time you run Windows, this really works.

I would advise you too to clean a special folder which you can't see.
Go to control panel, folder options, view.
Select "show hidden files and folders"

Then go to:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive
Delete all files here, you will see it can be gigabytes big.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue
Delete all files here, you will see it can be gigabytes big.

This are error reporting files, and i think you will have a lot of them as you had many problems. You don't want these files eating your hardisk out.

I hope i helped you to get some extra space on an easy way.

 

[Jack Whorton]

Thanks guys, loads of helpful stuff - seems like I've stumbled upon a top forum.

The games I am running are actually on my G drive which is the 500gig drive. When I checked the page file settings, it was set to no page file. I have now set it to 2000-4000mb. Could that have possibly been a problem or is it only relevant to my C drive where windows is installed?

 

[Jack Whorton]

Marcel - I searched for those files but it could not find them. I've played GTR2 for 2 hours tonight with no problems (it hasnt crashed before) so I thought I'd try GTR evo. I fired it up and went straight into multiplayer and within about 10 seconds of leaving the pits it froze again.

I ran it in windowed mode with task manager visible so I could check out the processor and memory usage if/when it froze..

CPU usage was at 100%, PF usage 1.23GB (2/8 bars)

Totals - Handles 12496
Threads 613
Processes 51

Commit charge (k) - Total 1296100
Limit 5457504
Peak 1831668

Physical memory (k) - Total 2096368
Available 752904
System cache 1027464

Kernel memory (k) - Total 153516
Paged 124440
Non paged 29076

Next up I'll try it with the graphics turned right down to minimum as they are about medium settings and runs fine bar the freezes.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Thanks guys, loads of helpful stuff - seems like I've stumbled upon a top forum.

The games I am running are actually on my G drive which is the 500gig drive. When I checked the page file settings, it was set to no page file. I have now set it to 2000-4000mb. Could that have possibly been a problem or is it only relevant to my C drive where windows is installed?

One hard drive:
If you only have one hard drive or your other drives are significantly slower than your OS drive.
1 - Leave it alone. (recommended)
2 - Make it static. Vista has the ability to resize the page file on the fly if need be (usually it isn't). If the page file is resized and then later returned to normal your disk may become fragmented. (please note I said "disk" not "page file" and "may" not "will") If you have the disk space and you're anal about such things you can adjust the minimum and max to the same setting. The size (min and max) should be whatever the Recommended: size is in the Virtual Memory window.

Two hard drives:
The second drive should be near as fast or faster than the OS drive or there is no reason to do this.
Make 2 page files, one on the OS drive, one on the first partition of the second drive. The sizes should be at least the size of the amount of memory you have. For example, if you have 2 GB of RAM then 2 page files of 2048 MB. This allows for plenty of space and Vista can choose the drive that is least busy when it needs to access the page file.

If you have one hard drive DO NOT MOVE OR MAKE A SECOND PAGE FILE. If you have 2 drives and you make a second page file you should leave at least a small page file on the OS partition. The second page file should be on the FIRST PARTITION of the second drive.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Marcel - I searched for those files but it could not find them.

Do you own Vista or XP?

 

[Jack Whorton]

XP. I think the page files are set up ok. I tried running the game in 640x480 in 16bit, no AA etc so minimal stress I would have though and it froze before I even got my car fully out of the pit garage... Yet it is fine playing with 20-30 AI cars in single player...?