Help me Escapist, you're my only hope...

[Wyes]

I couldn't really think of anywhere to put this, but given people here actually reply and tend be useful, I figured I'd ask for some computer help here.

Recently, I bought Bad Company 2. I started playing it, it crashed my computer. Odd says I, so I do some google-ing and attempt a fix (forcing the audio to 2 speakers and updating my drivers), and it appears to work. Then a couple hours later, it crashes my computer again. I try lowering the settings. I played on again for maybe an hour, and then alas, another crash. Knowing this can't be healthy for my computer at all, I again hit google and even tried posting on the BC2 support forum, to no avail. I try a few things I found on google (namely enabling triple buffering), but no dice, it still crashes randomly (I've had it run for 2 minutes and crash, I've had it run for around 2 hours and crash). The only time it doesn't crash is when the game is paused, leading me to believe that maybe my video card is overheating or there could be some kind of issue with the way the game handles sound, causing it to crash. However, when I run monitoring software, under strain the card seems to run at a comfortable temperature (between 60 and 80). Therefore, I am at a loss.

What could be causing these crashes? My last ditch effort was going to be buying a new video card and sound card, but I'd rather not spend the money yet if I don't have to.

All help appreciated, thanks.


EDIT: I should note, I also had Fallout 3 crash my computer (after BC2 started crashing it). There are no warnings before the crash (i.e. framerate drop or sound stuttering etc.), my computer just shuts down. I've also been told my power supply might not be up to par, but I can't think of why this would only become a problem now.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

You need to post your system specs for us. What kind of graphics and sound card are you using, and what is your processor?

 

[Wolf-AUS]

but no dice

Nice one.

Have you tried looking over at the bad company 2 forums? I'm fairly sure there is an entirely forum dedicated to PC troubleshooting, you're fairly likely to find someone who has encountered the same thing.

Here we go:

Feedback and help:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/109.page;jsessionid=074EC9D3466FCC0E8090C3F470E6A038

PC:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/3827.page;jsessionid=074EC9D3466FCC0E8090C3F470E6A038

I'm not sure how much help some of them will be there though, not sure about the help/pc forum but General Discussion isn't really filled with the best of types usually.

Hope you get to enjoy the game eventually, I love it to pieces.

Goodluck!

 

[Wyes]

Oops, that would be important info.

My specs to the best of my knowledge;

Quad core @ 2.4ghz (don't know the model)
8600GT 512mb
2GB RAM
I'm running XP (SP3).
I can't remember what my soundcard is, all I remember is something about Realtek HD.

For some reason System Info is giving me zero useful info about my specs (or the info is there and I can't find it, which is far more likely).

but no dice

le snip

I had actually tried there, but I didn't get any useful responses.

 

[Wolf-AUS]

Oops, that would be important info.

My specs to the best of my knowledge;

Quad core @ 2.4ghz (don't know the model)
8600GT 512mb
2GB RAM
I'm running XP (SP3).
I can't remember what my soundcard is, all I remember is something about Realtek HD.

For some reason System Info is giving me zero useful info about my specs (or the info is there and I can't find it, which is far more likely).

but no dice

le snip

I had actually tried there, but I didn't get any useful responses.

Eh, not all that surprising seeing what goes on in the general discussion. Besides that I can't help much, but hopefully some other on here can, not much of a PC technical man myself.

 

[WestMountain]

Battlefield games have usually crash problems, wait for patches is my 2 cents :]

 

[Lord Krunk]

snip

My computer does the same when I try to install any CS4 program. If you find something that works, please give me a buzz.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Oops, that would be important info.

My specs to the best of my knowledge;

Quad core @ 2.4ghz (don't know the model)
8600GT 512mb
2GB RAM
I'm running XP (SP3).
I can't remember what my soundcard is, all I remember is something about Realtek HD.

For some reason System Info is giving me zero useful info about my specs (or the info is there and I can't find it, which is far more likely).

but no dice

le snip

I had actually tried there, but I didn't get any useful responses.

First off, the 8000 series nVidia cards tend to run hot. So 60-80 degrees C is fine. If you have any safety trips set to shut the card down upon getting that hot rack it up to about 100C (those will be in your Bios settings, DON'T TOUCH THE BIOS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING).

Secondly, have you done a complete virus and malware sweep and have you checked to see what other processes are hogging your hardware prior to you starting up the game?

 

[Wyes]

First off, the 8000 series nVidia cards tend to run hot. So 60-80 degrees C is fine. If you have any safety trips set to shut the card down upon getting that hot rack it up to about 100C (those will be in your Bios settings, DON'T TOUCH THE BIOS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING).

Secondly, have you done a complete virus and malware sweep and have you checked to see what other processes are hogging your hardware prior to you starting up the game?

I'm relatively sure that by default the safety trips are above 100 C, but I don't know what I'm doing so I won't touch any BIOS settings. And yeah, I've done a virus and malware sweep, came up empty, and I've tried shutting down any resource hogging processes before running the game, and even whilst running the game, no luck there either.

 

[SturmDolch]

Your specs should run it, at the very least on low. I have similar specs on my laptop and run it on medium.

Try this:

Go to "My Documents", find the BFBC2 folder, open the Settings.txt and change "DxVersion" from "AUTO" to "9".
Also, set "Bloom" to "False"

If that doesn't do it, try running at a lower resolution. Make sure to lower your shadows to lowest. Note, you'll have to change the bloom and directX settings again if you change any options in game.

 

[Tharwen]

If you think that the sound is causing the problem, try playing with the sound disabled in-game.

Then update every driver you can.

 

[Wyes]

Your specs should run it, at the very least on low. I have similar specs on my laptop and run it on medium.

Try this:

Go to "My Documents", find the BFBC2 folder, open the Settings.txt and change "DxVersion" from "AUTO" to "9".
Also, set "Bloom" to "False"

If that doesn't do it, try running at a lower resolution. Make sure to lower your shadows to lowest. Note, you'll have to change the bloom and directX settings again if you change any options in game.

Again, no luck. Game certainly ran better, but it still crashed randomly.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

All about the sound card and graphics card, or else I'm no help lol.

 

[SturmDolch]

Again, no luck. Game certainly ran better, but it still crashed randomly.

Hm... Update your graphic card drivers [http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us]. Try playing some other newer, resource-heavy games. If they also don't run right, it might be time to replace your vid card.

 

[Wyes]

Again, no luck. Game certainly ran better, but it still crashed randomly.

Hm... Update your graphic card drivers [http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us]. Try playing some other newer, resource-heavy games. If they also don't run right, it might be time to replace your vid card.

Updating my drivers was the first thing I tried, but thanks anyway. Later games don't seem to be running particularly well either, though I haven't had any crash my computer yet, but yeah, I'm thinking I might just have to bite the bullet and spend money.

 

[sunami88]

When you say your computer just shuts down, do you mean reboots or completely shuts off? If it's shutting down, that would most likely be a power supply issue, like you said above (I'd be 99% sure of it).

If it's rebooting, then could be damn near anything...

 

[Brad Shepard]

sounds like its just the game to me, they will more then likley patch that soon.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I had a similar experience a while back, but for me it ended up being the power supply as you mentioned previously. I couldn't figure out why my comp would randomly and suddenly crash, everything seemed to be updated and working fine - until I found a tiny little burn in one of the wires connecting to the motherboard. I tried to live with it for a while but it got to the point where a little heat increase or even a jostle would shut it down completely.

I'm not saying this is definitely your problem, but it sounds similar to something I dealt with. I ended up scrapping the whole thing and selling off the parts. Hopefully you'll have better luck.

EDIT:

When you say your computer just shuts down, do you mean reboots or completely shuts off? If it's shutting down, that would most likely be a power supply issue, like you said above (I'd be 99% sure of it).

If it's rebooting, then could be damn near anything...

See? What he said.

 

[Jackal_Legacy]

My XP is having a similar problem (although it doesn't crash quite as much as what you described) and im beginning to suspect that windows XP may just be past its prime for stuff like this. sure the specs may say the game runs on XP but lets be honest, most XP computers out there are several years old now and they are barely supported by microsoft now. could be that their programing is just too old now and its time to move on. Although i could be acting like a complete idiot because im certainly not basing this on technical knowledge. also i would say that switching to a completely new computer should be your very last ditch sulution.