Vice City Freezes After 1 Hour Gameplay

[Seanb2uk]

What Can I do!? This is a brand New Computer aswell.

Dell Dimension 2400
P4 2660mhz
512mb PC2700
64MB Intel Extreme Graphics
Windows XP Home Edition

Patch 1.1 Doesn't help.

Help ASAP!

[ComPooTer]

go in order and for each one that doesnt work go onto the next one

1. Reinstall your game
2. Make sure your all your drivers are up to date.
3. Make sure no un needed programs are running, they might be causing your game to crash.
4. Try other games to see if they will crash too
5. Call your local dell and ask for help and also post in the thread that nothing i said worked

:)

[Seanb2uk]

I have all the latest Drivers straight from Dell.com
I have No unneeded Software. I have TweakNow!'s Ram Idle...Do u think that would effect it?
I play Halo Regularly and its perfect.

I just installed Vice City Today and it freezes after about an hour of gameplay totally does nothing but the music keeps going?

So to test if it does it again i have to play the game for an hour!! it doesn't do it at a certain location it is random.

The onli way to get out of it is to press control + alt + Delete and take CD out aswell.
And then it takes 2 mins to come out even from that asking for CD to be put back in.

Its frozen 3 times now in a row.

I will try a reinstall if that doesn't fix it i will be :mad:

[BadBadNeil]

What video card is intel extreme graphics? I wonder if that may be the culprit if its onboard video?

[Seanb2uk]

Yeh its Onboard. I want to get a ATI Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro FireBlade Edition though but i don't have the Cash at the moment. Im onli 15 :( Its £130, but its my birthday in 6 days so i should get close to £130 from that. And then theres Christmas soon after that!!

two questions aswell. I heard wen u get a Graphics Card it automatically Disable the onboard is that true?

And do Graphics Cards fit PCI Slots nowadays. Not bought a recent graphics card for a while. My Old Compaq about 4 years old has a seperate Brown Slot next to the PCIs which my new Dell doesn't have. so i assume Modern Graphics cards fit PCI now?? can u tell me if thats true??

Also i have Halo and that works perfect wiv my onboard graphics. Halo is more demanding that Vice City!! And before the game freezes its smooth as Butter.

[ComPooTer]

just try reinstalling see what happens

your dell doesnt have the "Brown Slot" (AGP) and the 9600 PRO uses AGP

the best bet for you is the FX5200 PCI 128mb thats the best thing for PCI. cuz you cant use AGP :(

[Seanb2uk]

Ok. i'll look into that one. Thanx mate.

[Seanb2uk]

What Manufacturer Do u recommend for the FX5200 PCI 128mb. Theres PNY, Creative and DabsValue, Obviously im looking on Dabs.com its the best UK Site for PC Parts. i think anyway.

PNY GeForce FX5200 128MB DDR PCI RP 2xVGA VO = £80.49
Creative GF FX5200 128MB DDR PCI RP VO = £68.50
Dabsvalue GF FX5200 128MB DDR PCI DVI TV = £63.00

Yer u seem to be right it is a pretty good Card. 350Mhz RAMDAC. My Onboard is 133Mhz. And my Old Geforce 2 is 75Mhz lol its a big jump to 350.

I will check sum more sites now. So laters

[Seanb2uk]

Isn't the Radeon 9000 better than FX5200 it has a RAMDAC of 400Mhz for about the same price. 50Mhz more. Which is alot.

Help please!

[$1500-P4 gamer]

No- RAMDAC isnt anything about game speed. ITs to do with how high a refresh rate the card can support. It also effects how crisp the image looks ultimatly I think. And if its Duel ramdac it can run two mons simulatniously but independently like having two video cards used to do. Anything higher than or at 350mhz is good. 400mhz is why ATI's look so dang crisp and clear. I cant tell the diff between my 9800 and my Geforce 3 like night and day clearity wise.

What you want to go by are the mhz of mem and the bit its running the mem at. Thats VERY important.
300mhz mem at 64bit is tons slower then persay 250mhz mem at 128bit. (just an example). Its like pipes to GPU-bits to mem. Same kinda diff. And go by the GPU mhz aswell.

"GeForce FX5200 128MB DDR PCI RP 2xVGA VO "

128mb BUT what bit? Two versions I know of and that will change the speed some. But again its pci so I mean its already WAY limited on how fast it can do video regardless of the card you buy. PCI just isnt fast enuff for new games at high res and new video cards of any sort. So I guess the bit increase might not help so much. nothing like it does on AGP that is. 2x vga means DUEL ramdac. VO means Video out-in the form of s-video. ATI or Nvidia when it comes to pci-I dont know. Honestly pci video isnt my area of experties (if you wanna call it that-lol)Its a dying platform. If not severly limited mobo's like yours-they wouldnt even be made yet. Thank dell compaq and others name brand manufacturers for this;)

[ComPooTer]

i heard the PNY FX5200 PCI's are the bad ones, they are underclocked and they SUCK BADLY!!!! so avoid that brand and........i dont know about those other ones but i heard the
Mad Dog FX5200 PCI was supposed to be really good.

(i researched PCI cards for my friend who needed a vid card and he didnt have AGP either!!!)

GOOD luck! :)

[Seanb2uk]

I cannot find the Mad Dog Version anywhere on UK Sites. :mad:
But ive Checked sum graphics cards out again and found this:

Radeon9200SE 128MB DDR PCI DVI - £49.50 Which seems to be very cheap :S cheaper than the Radeon 9000 version?! Explain this please!

Radeon 9000 Manufacturers On Dabs.com -
Sapphire Technology Limited. - £62.51
and thats it.

GF FX5200 128MB DDR PCI DVI TV - DabsValue - £63.00
Creative version of that - £68.50
And since Compooter said PNY is ****. then Im thinking of the Creative.

CREATIVE GF FX5200 128MB
256-Bit, 400Mhz Memory Clock Speed. 128MB, 350 RAMDAC.
Which i assume is pretty good. and onli at £68.50 i think is a bargain!! about $100 for u Americans.

Sapphire Radeon 9000 128MB
Doesn't Say the Bit. Or the Memory Clock Speed. 128MB, 400 RAMDAC. I'll do my best to find the bit and Memory Clock speed as they are the important thing! as one of u said.
Unless u guys are willing to help :t

[ComPooTer]

im a ATI fanboy but i cant recommend the radeon 9000

best PCI video card on the market HAS to be the 5200/5600 but the 5600 would just be a plain waste of money, so try the Creative or Dabs PCI video card.

[Magua]

Still havent said that you tried reinstalling the game. Probably won't fix, but it may. Disable your RAM tweak, you really shouldn't be needing that. If that dosen't work its probably the onboard video. The best PCI is the Nvidia 5200, however I don't know which brand is best, or which you can get in the UK.