Splash and crash... | Forums

[YTtheMighty]

Right, so I have been poking around the forums here for some time trying to see if the answer to my problem was held within and, while many people have had this issue, none of the answers have helped me, so i am going to put it forth to ye mighty gurus of the forum...
Firstly, System specs:
AMD Athlon 64 +3200
ASUS K8V MoBo (VIA K8T800 Chipset)
1GB PC 3200 RAM
eVGA nVidia GeForce 6800GT 256MB (Far Cry came with it)
220GB of HD space in 3 physical Drives (2-IDE, 1-SATA)
*no overclocking on anything and temps read fine

Drivers:
nVidia 77.72 drivers (keep reading I tried that)
FarCry version 1.33

Issue:
Same old story, try to play the game, the splash screen pops up for about 25seconds, then disapears and i get the "FarCry has to terminate , please send Microsft and error message". SOMETIMES, the game will start, run for about 5 minutes and crash.

What I have tried:
-First I uninstalled and reinstalled the game: No help.
-Second Rolled back drivers to 71.89 (even used a drive cleaner): No help.
-Rolled back patches all the way to 1.0 and every step along the way (1.1, 1.3, etc...):No help.
-set all settings to minimum: No help
-Unpluged one of my monitors (i have 2 in the system) restarted: No help.
-Disabled my IEEE1394 controller because it was using the same IRQ as my video card: No help
-Cried alot cause this game is so cool and i can't play it: No Help (surprisingly)

What is wierd:
The game worked when i got it back about a year ago... Perfectly even. I have gone through a few nVidia driver upgrades since then but it worked through all of them. THEN, after a few months (3 or 4 i think) of not playing it i get this urge to play FarCry, SOOO i download the newst patch, at that time 1.32 and put my CD in the drive. BOOM no far cry for Kyle today. Like i said this is perplexing and I have tried lots of stuff to fix the issue, some things even twice or three times. This is the only game that I have any issues with at all. If I have left out some important information let me know, though I think I have been possibly too descriptive. And I feel really dumb if I somehow missed the answer to this problem in another post.

thanks for the time, and any help would be, well... helpfull...

[YTtheMighty]

Right, so I have been poking around the forums here for some time trying to see if the answer to my problem was held within and, while many people have had this issue, none of the answers have helped me, so i am going to put it forth to ye mighty gurus of the forum...
Firstly, System specs:
AMD Athlon 64 +3200
ASUS K8V MoBo (VIA K8T800 Chipset)
1GB PC 3200 RAM
eVGA nVidia GeForce 6800GT 256MB (Far Cry came with it)
220GB of HD space in 3 physical Drives (2-IDE, 1-SATA)
*no overclocking on anything and temps read fine

Drivers:
nVidia 77.72 drivers (keep reading I tried that)
FarCry version 1.33

Issue:
Same old story, try to play the game, the splash screen pops up for about 25seconds, then disapears and i get the "FarCry has to terminate , please send Microsft and error message". SOMETIMES, the game will start, run for about 5 minutes and crash.

What I have tried:
-First I uninstalled and reinstalled the game: No help.
-Second Rolled back drivers to 71.89 (even used a drive cleaner): No help.
-Rolled back patches all the way to 1.0 and every step along the way (1.1, 1.3, etc...):No help.
-set all settings to minimum: No help
-Unpluged one of my monitors (i have 2 in the system) restarted: No help.
-Disabled my IEEE1394 controller because it was using the same IRQ as my video card: No help
-Cried alot cause this game is so cool and i can't play it: No Help (surprisingly)

What is wierd:
The game worked when i got it back about a year ago... Perfectly even. I have gone through a few nVidia driver upgrades since then but it worked through all of them. THEN, after a few months (3 or 4 i think) of not playing it i get this urge to play FarCry, SOOO i download the newst patch, at that time 1.32 and put my CD in the drive. BOOM no far cry for Kyle today. Like i said this is perplexing and I have tried lots of stuff to fix the issue, some things even twice or three times. This is the only game that I have any issues with at all. If I have left out some important information let me know, though I think I have been possibly too descriptive. And I feel really dumb if I somehow missed the answer to this problem in another post.

thanks for the time, and any help would be, well... helpfull...

[H8Ball (PC Engineer)]

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

I'll go through my usual litany of possible faults and fixes, I think...

Malicious software:-

- Scan for and remove viruses, adware/spyware, etc.

Software conflicts:-

- Close ALL other programs before running Far Cry, except for your Antivirus and Firewall. if you suspect it IS your Antivirus and/or Firewall, disconnect from the Internet and close them as well before running Far Cry.

- Stop and Disable XP Services you don't need. XP Setup installs MANY services that are unnecessary for most users, but are Enabled anyway! Some of these are known security holes which hackers can exploit as "back doors" into your system!

Power problems:-

- Have you connected power to the 6800GT's extra Molex connector? If not, it'll be unstable when it's running in 3D mode, which requires more power than 2D mode.

- Does your Power Supply Unit (PSU) supply sufficient +12V current to meet your systems power requirements when it's running Far Cry? Far Cry pushes your system components HARD, forcing them to draw MORE power than usual, which can show up an inadequate PSU.

- Your PSU may be unevenly loaded. Try re-jigging your PSU's Molex connectors (the 4-pin power connectors) to distribute power more evenly. Usually, PSU's have TWO or more "lines" of Molex connectors. I'd suggest connecting ALL drives on one line and your 6800GT and any low power devices (case fans, etc) on the other. This means that your video card is FAR less likely to overrun its "line" when it switches to 3D mode and draws MORE power!

Disk Cache growing too large and eating up too much RAM:-

- Download and install CachemanXP from here. This utility allows you to force Windows to use less RAM for Disk Caching, which frees up more RAM for running large programs (like Far Cry), which in turn means the Page File is accessed LESS frequently.

Page File problems:-

- Change your Page File from Windows-Managed to Custom and set it to a FIXED size (Initial and Maximum sizes the same), making sure it's at least the size of your RAM (1Gb). This STOPS Windows resizing the Page File on-the-fly, which causes Page File fragmentation and delays during resizing that manifest as in-game "stuttering".

- Since you have a fast SATA drive, have you considered relocating the Page File onto it?

- The best Page File configuration is a FIXED size Page File on a "dedicated" Page File drive, i.e. a drive containing ONLY the Page File. If this isn't possible, make sure that the ONLY files that exist on the drive in addition to the Page File are INfrequently accessed files, i.e. backup files, patches, installers, etc.

Note: When set up this way, the Page File has a drive read/write head ALL to itself, which moves (seeks) independently to ALL other drive's RW heads. The head then tends to STAY inside the Page File between Page File accesses, so it NEVER has to seek very far to retrieve the last data written, vastly improving Page File read/write performance!

FYI, I have a 2Gb FIXED size Page File on an old 10Gb drive, which I reinstalled specifically as a Page File drive. I use the remaining free 8Gb for backup files ONLY. The Page File was created immediately after the drive was formatted, placing it at the START of the drive. As a result, the Page File NEVER becomes fragmented, even when other files on that drive DO!

- Try the Far Cry tweaking guide (link to TweakGuides in the Tweaking sticky). You'll also find articles at TweakGuides which detail how to tweak Windows XP for best performance and stability.

- Run Disk Cleanup to remove Temp files and Temp Internet Files, etc. While you're in there, click the More Options tab and remove all but the most recent Restore Point.

- Finally, check ALL hard drives for errors then defragment them!

That's all I can think of right now. I can't think straight when I'm hungry, so I'll leave the floor open for other forum veterans to help you while I binge myself stupid on Cheese on Toast with Garlic and Worcestershire Sauce. MMMMM! My favourite!

Hope this helps.

[YTtheMighty]

Thanks for the extensive list of help hints, some things i have tried others i didn't even think of. Ill start down the list ASAP and let you know what coes out of it. Whether it works or not i really appreciate your time, I'm no engineer but i do work on computers at work fixing all sorts of stuff and I know these things are a pain in the **** when they don't work right.

Thanks again.