Radeon X700 256Mb Keeps crashing during prey

shakoor_h

Whenever I play the game Prey on my PC my graphics card crashes, screen goes blank like the graphics card has switched off, so i have to reboot. But it only happens during prey, I play Pariah, MGS2, G.R.A.W. (demo) and it works fine.

Does anyone know what the problem might be? I have tried putting the prey settings down to the absolute minimum, and it looks crap, and still crashes a few minutes into the game (not at the same point, cos I save it every 2 seconds). It will load from last save then I can play for a few minutes and then it crashes again.

I'm using Powercolor ATi Radeon 256Mb AGP 8x card. The power cable (for the fan) is attached, cos I forgot to once and my computer beeped like hell on startup.

Spaztic_Reaper

Well, I don't know too much about this kinda stuff, 'cept I do know Prey is a next-gen game isnt it? If that's the case the X700 doesnt work very well for things like that, my X700 Pro PCI-E died pretty quick after running it with Oblivion, and that was with med. settings. If I were you I'd step up to a new card, like an X1600XT or the X850XT from Sapphire.

shakoor_h

Yeh, but on prey official site it says that the X700 is supported. And it works with other games like BF2, btw, how much would those other two cards cost?

Spaztic_Reaper

Well, I'm doing my shopping at newegg.com cuz their prices are nice. The Sapphire X1600XT Is $130.99, but it's outta stock right now and the X850XT is only $15 at $145.99 and has 256-bit memory (double the X1600XT) and 16 pixel pipelines. Either one should run pretty much any game out there. But if you get the X850XT make sure you have good cooling, cuz it can get hot.

Robert McClelland

I have x700pro 256mb prey demo works fine for me what sound card are you using?

shakoor_h

I have no idea, whatever it is it came standard with my PC. I think it may be Realtek, but I don't think it is a card cos I can't remember if it is using ay of my PCI slots or not. Will have to open it up to check.

kn00tcn

prey is doom3 engine, it's not 'next gen' or some fancy words like that

plus running slow is a sign of gfx getting old to handle things, not crashing (at least for prey)

maybe it's drivers or the game itself needs a patch

& does it crash on load or in the middle of the game or what... also this reminds me of another thread i think..... prey crashing.....

shakoor_h

It crashes randomly, but never crashes on a load screen, always during gameplay

kn00tcn

oh wait, it uses SecuRom.... that can be a big issue

http://www.tweakguides.com/Prey_3.html

shakoor_h

How do I get around the SecuRom issue, cos it doesn't say anything there.

compuguy1088

Same here, when I ran the Prey demo I was using a x700pro, and it ran...ok....some slow downs there and there. Though now with my new x850 pro, it should run better. Note: my computer's AGP, and from what your describing, you had the PCIE x700, so I don't know if there is any differences in stablity with that version...

shakoor_h

I think it was a securom issue, even though I wasn't mounting an Image or anything. I think it may have been cause I have a virtual drive on my PC. So I had to get this program called CureRom and it plays fine now. But still it the game shouldn't be able to shut a graphics card down.

shakoor_h

It still crashed.

shakoor_h

Finally got it working. I don't know what I did that made it work, but here is a list :
*Got DirectX Runtime Update (08/08/06) from Microsoft site
*Installed OpenAl drivers, even though i don't have a creative soundcard
*Used Crap Cleaner to clean out my HD
*Used RegCleaner to clean up my registry
*Used Tweakguides 195 Page guide (specifically ATi Catalyst tweaking section)
*Disabled ATi Catalyst AI
*Played Prey in Windowed mode

After all this I was able to play Prey for a whole hour with no crashes. Pretty sure it was something to with the last two things.

Robert McClelland

You can try tune-up software that works well also or Advanced WindowsCare V2 that one free one http://www.iobit.com