Game crashes on ATI 9600

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shue249

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Got this prob with FF7 on ATI 9600.

On hardware rendering mode, after around 5 - 10 mins of random battle, the game will hang during a battle, and the VPU message will appear in windowsindicating the graphic card is not responding and asking whether to send the error report. I will either be able to continue the battle or the game will just exit. Even if i continue the battle, chances are that the same prob will happen and eventually i will get kicked out of the game. If i disable the VPU message, the game will still get hanged during battles.

On software mode, there is no prob with battles, but after around 30 min of play, the game will just kick me out to windows without any prompting, and if i check under task manager, processes, ff7.exe is there, but under application it is not showing.

My game is patched to 1.02, with chocobo patch applied, Renuion patch applied, ATI drivers updated to latest version. Full install and the movies are on harddisk. Settings for hardware rendering is set to Nvidia, TNT. There are no probs with the movie running, menus, no grid lines, perfect fonts. I have tested with 95 compatibility but problem still persists.

I have yet to test out 98/ME compatibility and to revert back the renuion patch back to normal, so will try that out later.

In the meantime, like to see if there are any experts who can offer some other solutions to this prob.
 
Nope, my card is set to to normal settings. CPU is 2.4, no overclocking either.
 
What are your drivers?

If you are using the latest catalyst ones try the Omegadrivers. I recommend version 2.6.25a because thats what I use with my 9600 and it works with no problems :wink: [/url]
 
This sounds like an overheating issue.

I had the same kind of issues with my 9600 pro.

What I did to fix it is place a case fan betwenn two cars so it vents directly on my video card and that fixed it.  It's worth a try because my computer was doing the exact same thing.
 
I have installed Omega driver, same prob no change. As for the installation of a fan, i dun have a spare fan at the moment so cant try it out. However the card already comes with a fan blowing at the GPU and i dont experience any prob with normal PC daily usage and i on my PC for long periods. Also one more thing to note, this error appears straight after I start up my PC and running ff7 directly.

I also noticed that most of the time after i exit the game, either by Alt-Q or via menu exit, the ff7.exe process will still remains in the process list in task manager.

My ff7 is the old version, without the eidos logo at startup. After i done the 1.02 and chocobo patch, the chocobo square logo dun appear at startup anymore, but movies can still be view
 
I didn't have any issue with normal windows usage either.  And I did have a gpu fan as well but it seemed to be failing.

But I didn't know my GPU was overhetaing at first because windows itself was stable.  I only got crashes when I solicited my GPU with games which seemed to cause my gpu temperature to rise.

However a test I did pointed me toward the GPU overheating direction which you might want to try.

I got an overclocking utility of some kind for ATI boards that had a stability test (forgot which one) and I severely underclocked my GPU core clock speed and memory speed (by over a 100 mhz each).  Since they were underclocked they generated less heat and were more stable.  Test this for like half an hour.  If it doesn't reboot or crash, taht's good.

After that, test the same utility but with your normal settings (default clock and memory speeds) and see if your system reboots or hangs, and especially how long it takes for it to crash.  Also check out if the utility creates artifacts because that's a sign of overheating.

When my system was undercloked, my system was rock solid but at stock speed I crashed in less than 5 minutes and produced artifacts like crazy.  Drivers didn't change a thing.

I found out my memory chips were overheating using that test.  To fix it I simply used one of the case fans already in my box (I have two) and stuck it near the card.  It still cools the overall system but since it blows fresher air on the card, it doesn't overheat.  I ahven,t had a single crash since and it's been over 6 months.  I definately reccomend trying that.

It's all much simpler than it sounds.

edit : I did a little search.  I used ATI tools to test my card.  You can find it there http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

When you start seeing artifacts every frame, it means your card is overheating.  The utility even has an auto overclock feature.  Since my card was overheating on its own, it severely underclocked my card on its own!  This was the greatest tool in trying to fix my issue.

I'm also pretty sure that if you try other graphic intensive games, your system will hang.  Your problem is just exactly like mine and I was convinced it was a game compatibi.lity or driver issue myself until I tested it further.
 
Alright, thanx I will give it a try and see

Edit:
Marcis you are a great help. My card is really overheating. No hanging on D3D for 30 min on underclocking.

One thing to ask, is it ok if i run ff7 on underclocking? Cos i dun see any performance decrease and i dont want to buy another fan as i will be getting a new pc in 6 mths time

Again thanx for your invaluable help and advice
 
ff7 is an extremly low-rescource-requiring game, at least compared to lots of other games these days.  You should have no troubles with it at all, as the average polys on screen would be well under 100 at any given time, plus the characters and npcs are vertex-shaded, which means the part of your video card which handles textures has less work to do.

Also, do a virus/spyware sweep of your computer  I remember my ff7 would "hang on" in the process lsit back when i didn't know shit about protecting myself from viruses or spyware =/
 
As emperorsteele said, ff7 is a pretty low ressource game so you shouldn't really run into any issues while running it underclocked.  Reunion's patch might slow you down slightly when there are lots of people on screen but that depends on the rest of your rig.

However, I would reccomend getting a case fan.  It's ridiculously cheap (like 5 bucks) and you can use it once you get your new rig too.  You can never really get too many fans as heat only kills your pc in the long run.  It's also really easy to install, especially since you won't screw it inside your case but rather "aim it" directly at your memory chip on your video card.  I just stuck mine between the video card and another PCI card so the airflow is directed straight under my card.

However that's really your call.
 
I also noticed that most of the time after i exit the game, either by Alt-Q or via menu exit, the ff7.exe process will still remains in the process list in task manager.
Click to expand...

This sometimes occurs when compatibility mode is used.
 
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