Complete freeze

Tim Ling · Jul 24, 2011

GTL is driving me mad! There I am driving around a circuit when BLAM! Complete freeze- the monitor turns itself through lack of signal and I have to power down the pc completely as using the reset button doesn't work

I have a NVidia GTX295 card, 4 GB of RAM and an Intel X9700 processor on an ASUS mobo. CAn't remember the model, but I doubt that it's the cause of the problem tbh, as I had similar issue with a Gigabyte mobo that failed.

I have tried older drivers with the card, but it actually makes the crashes worse. I've tried not running any anti-aliasing, but that only makes a small difference unless I set it to level 3 or above.

The problem does seem worse with addon tracks and cars, but the issue doesn't go away when using default cars & tracks.

I'm currently re-installing GTL to see if it makes a difference, but any help will be appreciated. Has anyone else had this problem? Does using the Race-Room version make it better? I'm hoping to re-build my pc, are ATI/AMD cards better for GTL and racing in general?

Amir Margalit · Jul 24, 2011

try cleaning your nvdia card. take it out of the pc clean it with an air spray and instll it again.
i had the same problem too in the past. i think it has nothing to do with the game it's just your pc geeting too hot. if cleaning the card dosen't work then maybe it's time to buy a new one.

Brian Duddy · Jul 25, 2011

Sounds like an overheating problem to me too. Does it happen with any other games/programs?

Tim Ling · Jul 25, 2011

Thanks for the comments guys. I took the gfx card out, and there was some fluff & dust in the cooling system, so I gave it a good vacuum, them tried blowing any dust out. I haven't been able to test yet, as I also removed (what I thought was) an unused HDD from the system, and then Win7 refused to boot. Repairing it failed (quell surprise!), so a re-install was performed. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

I did have a temperature recording software running (WebTemp + Speedfan), and the gfx card temps didn't rise too high...unless the temp is being incorrectly reported? I've also bought the GTL from RaceRoom, as I'm fed up with having to uninstall Starforce or use a torrent file.

Tim Ling · Jul 26, 2011

UPDATE

No joy.

I bought the digital download, but nothing has worked. I tried running rFactor to see if that would crash...nope, that works fine, as does Left 4 Dead 2, Dawn of War 2 and a few other games.

GTL hates me :frown:

Warren Dawes · Jul 27, 2011

Tim, have you tried running Race 07 (or one of the Race series) ?
They have an almost identical software engine behind them to GTL.

It's hard to imagine anything in GTL that would be causing this problem if Race 07 works ok.

Do you have V-Synch turned on?

Tim Ling · Jul 27, 2011

I haven't tried the Race series recently Warren, I'll try it later today. As for V-synch I normally leave it turned off for greater FPS, but I'll try turning it on to see what happens. I'm also going to try disabling the multi-gpu mode on the card.

Tim Ling · Jul 27, 2011

Well, I may have a winner..but you'll never guess what it is!

I use the OSD gear display, and it seems that is the culprit- go figure. I found out when I created a new plr file to use the unlocker, and using that didn't crash. Got some more testing to do, but fingers crossed!

Stuart Thomson · Jul 27, 2011

You are right.

I'd never have guessed that in a million years.

Sounds promising

Tim Ling · Jul 27, 2011

Aaaaaand, I was wrong. It seems the real culprit is (drum roll please)

The Crystal Palace track.

I've been trying everything on there, 'cos that was this weeks track:rose-dead: A 10 lap thrash round Hockenheim Nat., no problem with 15 cars. Tried CP again, crashed, even with low track details. It's especially prone to crashing coming round the last corner onto the pit straight, but the whole pit straight is problematic.

Let's hope next weeks track is ok! At least I can have my gear OSD back lol