CSS freezing up / crashing

[suicidal_monkey]

CSSource has been freezing up quite a lot on my PC recently. The game sort of stutters and often ends up playing a loop of 1/5 a seconds worth of audio. ctrl+alt+del doesn't seem to do anything, the computer stops responding, and I have to hit the reset or off button. It's been happening quite a bit more than "usual" recently. Any ideas or suggestions as to what might be causing this? Is it "normal" for CSS or should I potentially be backing up my files assuming a hdd or something is about to die...?:sideways:

[Whitey]

It's definately not normal. :blink:

You could try a reinstall of steam to see if that helps.

[Anonymous]

have you upgraded your audio or graphics drivers recently? If you have try rolling back - if you havent make sure you try latest official drivers for audio/graphics

other possible causes:

• heat
• dirty contacts on card - try removing/reinserting AGP/PCI/PCIe cards which will cleant the contacts of any residue which builds up over time.
• corrupt file - can be tricky to track down
• background process stealing CPU time
• slow hard disk causing delays in delivering audio files to processor

Can't think of any others off top of head but its not always clear cut as to the cause.

[delanvital]

Is it only CS, not any other games?

[suicidal_monkey]

have you upgraded your audio or graphics drivers recently? If you have try rolling back - if you havent make sure you try latest official drivers for audio/graphics

other possible causes:

• heat
• dirty contacts on card - try removing/reinserting AGP/PCI/PCIe cards which will cleant the contacts of any residue which builds up over time.
• corrupt file - can be tricky to track down
• background process stealing CPU time
• slow hard disk causing delays in delivering audio files to processor

Can't think of any others off top of head but its not always clear cut as to the cause.

I'm running Omega 3.8.330 with my 9800pro so I guess it could be that, but I tend to have problems changing graphics drivers (not least as there seem to be 2 or 3 options from ATI for my 9800pro AIW) Audio drivers haven't changed in ages.
1. could be heat, though I doubt it - will try to keep track of temps next time it happens.
2. I'm hesitant to try this as my case is a pain to get into - any idea what sheet material (e.g. baking paper) I could use to make sure the gfx card is isolated from the casing?
3. I guess reinstalling is the brute force check here
4. unlikely to be other processes unless it's something specific conflicting - any idea if Steam dumps log files on crashing?
5. The hdd should be pretty quick, though if it's getting old I guess that could be it (chkdsk came back happy the other day though)

Is it only CS, not any other games?

Only game other than CS I've played in the past month or two was GTA-SA for a few days and that coped fine. Other programs have been working fine, or at least better than CSS

[delanvital]

I am not too familiar with steam but by right-clicking on cs source, go properties, then local files you can check the integrity of the files and also redownload I think? Might be lucky to spare you the brute force option?

[suicidal_monkey]

according to ATI tray tools my gpu is artifacting at it's default gpu speed a bit (though it can manage almost 10% over it's default ram clocks) so I guess that could be it?

temps are about:
sys cpu
39 & 47 idle (fan mid-low)
42 & 56 load (fan mid-low)
42 & 50 load (fan high)

[Anonymous]

according to ATI tray tools my gpu is artifacting at it's default gpu speed a bit (though it can manage almost 10% over it's default ram clocks) so I guess that could be it?

temps are about:
sys cpu
39 & 47 idle (fan mid-low)
42 & 56 load (fan mid-low)
42 & 50 load (fan high)

Temps seem OK.

This may seem silly but sometimes Overclocking a GPU can stop artifacting. You don't have to overclock much, just get it away from default speeds - I know this cures probs with several nvidia cards, try adding 5 or 10MHz to both core and memory of GPU

[suicidal_monkey]

I messed about a bit and I think it might have been the audio settings. I've reduced it from high to medium and there've been some slight jitters but no serious freezing. Audigy2 is my sound card though.

GPU is running with slightly underclocked gpu but overclocked gpu-ram... made no appreciable difference as far as I can tell! overclocking the gpu seems to just create loads of graphical glitches

[Anonymous]

I messed about a bit and I think it might have been the audio settings. I've reduced it from high to medium and there've been some slight jitters but no serious freezing. Audigy2 is my sound card though.

GPU is running with slightly underclocked gpu but overclocked gpu-ram... made no appreciable difference as far as I can tell! overclocking the gpu seems to just create loads of graphical glitches

Might be worth going to:

http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/downloads/su.asp

and updating your drivers.

NB You HAVE to use IE for this site as the autoupdate feature only works with IE not FF (FF is ok if you have the IE tab plugin installed). This is the least painful way to update audio drivers for creative cards

[suicidal_monkey]

Might be worth going to:

http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/downloads/su.asp

and updating your drivers.

NB You HAVE to use IE for this site as the autoupdate feature only works with IE not FF (FF is ok if you have the IE tab plugin installed). This is the least painful way to update audio drivers for creative cards

much less painful so far, hopefully it will remain so!:flirty:

...edit: I think it worked. Several errors and stuff appeared during the install, but none that I had time to look as as they usually happened on auto during the install or during restart. I think they were more warnings that the installer was expecting to hit, so basically bad automation user-feedback on Creative's part

[suicidal_monkey]

hmmm ... something's still not right. I can recreate the jittery-ness by walking to the site of long A on dust2 and looking out from the corner. If I look at the ground the game resumes smoothness, look up, game starts to chug (sort of like 1fps) ...It's a sort of disconnection rather than slow gfx because I keep getting the "picked-up-a-gun sound"

I tried re-downloading CSS to no avail, I guess I could totally reinstall steam, but I have a feeling this is a graphics or mainboard issue. Of course the gfx issue could be due to a hard drive being rubbish at delivering textures or something... argh

[Jewelz^]

virus scan?

[Eternaluk]

...It's a sort of disconnection rather than slow gfx because I keep getting the "picked-up-a-gun sound"

I think I know what your going on about now.

 Are you running lots of other Programs, I.E MSN, Any open Windows or X-Fire. . .
 Whilst you are playing?

 If so, close them down when you are playing, and only keep ones that you REALLY need open.

 It might help, it might not.

 And a faster internet Connection or More RAM. or Processor or more Hard drive Space.

[suicidal_monkey]

And a faster internet Connection or More RAM. or Processor or more Hard drive Space.

This is the same pc that had no problems with this game 3 months ago, ...I will try shutting off all extra resource-hogging programs ... but I'm still afraid that it's some driver issue/conflict.