Vice City freezes in my computer. What should I blame?

General Questions
#1

Intel Pentium III 850 Mhz.
256 Mb RAM
GeForce 2 AGP card.
First, I had 128 Mb RAM when I used to play GTA3. It worked a little bad, but it worked. I bought 128 Mb more.

Now it plays smooth, but both GTA 3 and Vice City (and FIFA 2003 and others, too) freezes and a sound stays repeating itself.

When I remove one memory dimm, it doesn’t freeze, but it doesn’t play smooth. Mmm… I’ve installed another instance of Windows 2000, clean, but it keeps freezing anyway.

What should I blame?

The memory dimms together?
The video card?
The slots?
The mixture of all?

I’ve tried FreeRamXP Pro (thinking when memory grows freezes the machine) but no results.

Forgive my english in describing technical problems, but please help me with some suggestions.

#2

You can buy a single 256 meg DIMM chip on sale for around $ 20.00 on sale. If your system is having DIMM compatibility problem it might be your best bet.

You might also try downloading the latest version of Windows DX drivers for your OS and also playing with the memory and shadowing option settings in the BIOS.

If none of that works, blame society.

#3

He he, thank you, astro. Another? I’m still making tests.

#4

Make sure you have the most current sound card driver. Check with the card or computer manufacturer.

#5

Have you downloaded the patch?

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/grandtheftautovicecity/downloads.html

Could also be your video card.

#6

Sturmhauke, the problem continues without the sound card.

Cmason32, all 3D games give the same freezing.

If it was the video card, would still be working fine with only 128 Mb of RAM?

Thanks for your patience.

#7

Interrested in hearing what comes of this, as I’ve had the same prob with pretty much any graphics-based games for as long as I’ve had my 'puter.

#8

What specific brand of video card do you have? Does your computer also have a video chip on the motherboard? If so, have you deactivated it in the BIOS?

#9

Your system is always going to struggle on this game, despite what the minimum requirements state.

You may be able to find the in-game console and change some of the more demanding graphics settings, but you would be losing much of the experience.

Your graphics card is the weakest part of your system as regards the game, but this is closely followed by the CPU, which is really struggling.

I have had some problems running another game, not related, and discovered that my graphics card heatsink was simply not up to the task, and eventually worked out that I needed to add one of those fans that are mounted on a PCI dummy module, and lined up this fan with the GPU.

It took some chopping and hacking before the PCI dummy would line up correctly but a box cutter knife is all you need.

Now the game does not lock up any more. the symptoms you describe are exactly what I got.

Meanwhile, you might take a look at the specs required to run this game.

http://gtaworld.nfscheats.com/requirements.php

This is linked from this page from a FAQ from someone in the same positon as yourself.

http://gtaworld.nfscheats.com/faq.php

#10

Doesn’t W2000 have AGP memory corruption issues?

#11

Casdave, I think you maybe closer to the core of the problem, but I found strange that with only 128 Mb ram, the game becomes choppy but doesn’t freeze.

I hardly understand what you say about the fans, can you clarify it, please?

No, W2000 is not the problem, this persists in Windows ME as well.

According to what astro said at first, I bought another dimm and now I have two identical 128Mb dimms (couldnt find a 256 alone). But I can’t put it to work both together, the only way to start is putting the old 128 dimm in slot 0. Is there some kind of issue to work with memory chips?

#12

I’m picking this thread again only to thank you and to tell you that the problem is solved (an advantage for those with the same).

The problem was temporarily solved by putting a big electric fan pointing at the motherboard. That is, the issue was overheating! casdave, you were in the right lane. ArrMatey!, you have to try it if you still have the same problem.

Thanks to all, folks!

#13

Hmm, overheating on the motherboard you say ?

I have to embarass myself here, in the hope it migh help you out.

Being an electronics tech type, I know how to put a PC together by reading the instructions a few hundred times.

However, one can still be caught out by the simplest things, and in my case, I had removed by CPU heatsink and fan to give it a good spring clean, but I failed to relocate it properly.

You might think the underside of the heatsink is perfectly flat, but in fact there is a step in it to clear the edge of the socket.
It is very easy to locate the heatsink so that the part supposed to be on the CPU is actually held off it by being slightly misplaced and resting on the edge of the socket.

If you reach into the depth of your PC and just give the heatsink a fairly gentle twist, it should remain rock solid, if it moves then there is a chance it is located wrongly and needs to be reinstalled.

It happened to me.