Graphics Card overheating during Far Cry 3

[Altissimus]

Hi,

Had some problems running Far Cry 3 and pinned it down to my graphics card, which appears to be overheating. I run catalyst control center on second monitor, and FC3 crashes when the graphics card hits 81 degrees (graphics card is 52 degrees as I am writing this).

I've taken a can of compressed air to my case, although having done this recently there wasn't a lot of dust.

My spec:

Case
ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO - UK, The Ultimate Gaming Case, Evolved
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5770 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU

I've already dropped the settings on FC3. I don't have any FPS issues, even with the original settings, just can't play for long before it blackscreens me, and the "display driver stopped responding and has recovered". At that poing the game's dead, though.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
A.

 

[Commandermadi]

FC3 is a very demanding game. Do you have good cooling in your case?

 

[Altissimus]

Yeah, pretty good. 3 x 120mm fans and 1 x 200mm fan.

 

[Commandermadi]

You play that game on steam?

 

[Altissimus]

Yes, although it launches through some "uplay" feature.

 

[Commandermadi]

Try verifying the integrity of game cache in the game properties on steam.

 

[bystander]

81C isn't normally too hot. However, those 5770, as well as most of the 5000 line up, had lots of issues with this. I believe most the issues came from the VRM's overheating, due to poor cooling.

 

[Altissimus]

Try verifying the integrity of game cache in the game properties on steam.

How do I do this?

ETA: Nevermind. Figured it out.

 

[Altissimus]

81C isn't normally too hot. However, those 5770, as well as most of the 5000 line up, had lots of issues with this. I believe most the issues came from the VRM's overheating, due to poor cooling.

What's a VRM?

I was thinking it might be time to replace the 5770, which has been a faithful friend but is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Can I put a 7970 or a GTX660Ti in my rig and not have any compatibility issues - motherboard, enough PSU, etc?

 

[Commandermadi]

Go to Steam Library >> Select Far Cry 3 and right click on it >> Choose Properties >> Click on Local Files Tab >> Verify Integrity of game cache.

 

[Commandermadi]

What's a VRM?

I was thinking it might be time to replace the 5770, which has been a faithful friend but is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Can I put a 7970 or a GTX660Ti in my rig and not have any compatibility issues - motherboard, enough PSU, etc?

Yes you can definitely put any of those, but if choosing between either the 7970 and GTX 660ti. 7970 should surely be the option, it should honestly be compared to the 670 one. Also put into considerations the HD 7950 one, its amazing

 

[bigkid]

Make sure that your graphics card fan is at 100% when 60 degrees is reached. I use evga precision and set up a fan curve so that it goes from 40% speed at 35 degrees to 100% speed at 60

 

[Altissimus]

Well, I validated the integrity of the game cache and it said "1 file failed to validate and will be reacquired." Doesn't seem to be reacquiring with any great enthusiasm though.

How do I make it reacquire?

 

[kitsunestarwind]

Farcry3 is a very very stressful game on a computer when set to highest settings. Perhaps you might have to turn it down a little

 

[Commandermadi]

Well, I validated the integrity of the game cache and it said "1 file failed to validate and will be reacquired." Doesn't seem to be reacquiring with any great enthusiasm though.

How do I make it reacquire?

what files fail to download? And what is its size?

 

[Altissimus]

It appears the file validation appears to have worked. It also appears to have solved the problem - so thank you all for your help and input.

 

[Commandermadi]

It appears the file validation appears to have worked. It also appears to have solved the problem - so thank you all for your help and input.

Glad that worked out for you. Should you need any further help, don't hesitate to ask me

 

[Altissimus]

Glad that worked out for you. Should you need any further help, don't hesitate to ask me

It appears I spoke too soon...the game played for about 45 minutes before the graphics card got warm, which is about 35 minutes more than it had been managing.

So an improvement, but still a problem.

 

[Commandermadi]

At what settings do you play?

 

[Altissimus]

Medium across the board. Also known as "optimal", according to the game.

 

[Commandermadi]

Trying lowering to the lowest and see what happens.

 

[mouse24]

Check if it crashes in furmark. You can also check the temps with GPU-Z. (includes core temp and an option that you have to enable for VRM temps)

Edit: reading the OP it says " display driver has stopped responding" is that the message all the time? If so it could be just a driver error. Uninstall your drivers, install driver sweeper, reboot into safe mode, open driver sweeper, tick the entry that says AMD - DISPLAY, Hit Analyze, hit clean, reboot out of safe mode, install newest drivers and test.

 

[maxalge]

Medium across the board. Also known as "optimal", according to the game.

under the windows start button do a file search for the file GamerProfile.xml


On the same line as <RenderProfile add MaxFPS="90", so your card isn't overheating pulling 1000000 fps while in loading/menu screen.




under <GamerProfile> after </CustomQuality>




add:

<Post>
<quality GameDepthOfField="0" CinematicDepthOfField="0" MotionBlur="0" PostFXLevel="2" SSAO="0" FXAALevel="2" CloudShadows="1" DepthDownsample="0" SSAOMaxDistance="200" id="low" />
</Post>


afterwards look for PostFxQuality, and set it to "low"


save it, then make the file read only.


Should give a fps boost and make things look a lot better. Then you can just come back and edit things till you find a good balance of the effects you like.

 

[Altissimus]

Brilliant, thanks guys.

Off for Christmas so won't be able to do this until I get back - will let you know.

Your help greatly appreciated.

 

[Altissimus]

Ok, so the above changes made the game run...but the graphics were awful. Tweaking them back up to a bearable level means I get an hour or two before my graphics card starts wheezing and the game shuts down (usually just as I'm finishing clearing an enemy base out!)

Resolution: buy a new graphics card. Have put up separate post on this. You can close this one, and thanks all for your help.