Some PC games won't start on my Computer

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iNathanLite

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Nov 19, 2012
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10,510
Hello,

Lately, some of my games have not been working and I'm not quite sure why, it's all just happened all of a sudden. I have somewhat an idea of what possibly could be the problem but I'm no expert on computer.

At first, let me just say, my computer isn't the best for gaming but it does (or has) run games that I like to play.

I bought a game called War Z recently but it did not work very well on my computer. I had very low frames and a lot of lag spikes. My friend told me to overclock my video card but I wasn't too sure on what that meant but he talked me through it. I have an ATI Radeon graphics card so I used the catalyst control centre to overclock. He told me to unlock the overclock section and press this "auto" button at the top. So I let it do it's thing until it finished. When it finished, my computer did not detect my video card at all. During the overclock process, my computer did make a lot of noise (I'm guessing it was the video card) and was wondering what actually was happening.

I decided to restart my computer for the hope that my graphics card hadn't died. It was alive. So I went to try War Z again and noticed a little difference which made it a lot more playable.

Days went past and I came across something about overclocking on a forum and read it which said that overclocking can reduce the lifetime of the component. As soon as I saw this, I went back onto the catalyst control centre and slid both the overlock sliders back to the bottom were they where before (although I can't relock the overclock section so I'm not sure if my video card is still classed as overclocked). Even though I have moved the sliders back, I was expecting war z not to work as good anymore but surprisingly it still was.

More days went past and decided to play some war z, that is until I came to this error saying that my video card is out of memory. I tried opening another game, left 4 dead 2 and that also gave me an error (something to do with D3D, not sure what that means). I tried opening another game, Gotham city importers which again, gave me an error. San Andreas, that didn't give me an error, it just wouldn't open.

The funny thing is, some of my other games run fine. World of Warcraft and minecraft I am playing without any problems. Guild Wars 2 is also fine (however when I play this, I can hear squeaky noises in my computer).

I'm not sure if something is wrong with my computer, I have a virus (which norton hasn't detected) or I am just having a bad day.

Here are my computer specs (written this down myself, I may copy and paste from the command prompt some other time as I'm not on my computer right now).

OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3 (32-bit)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 4600 2.4 ghz
RAM: 2GB
GPU: ATI Radeon X1950 Series 256mb

(That's all I know from my head).

Hope someone can help me with my problem.

Thanks :)
 
I would reset your OC in CCC and reinstall your drivers.

You might actually be running out of VRAM as your video card is pretty old. Most games will need more than 256mb. Check you are meeting the minimum specs
 
Have you upped the settings in your games/CCC? Most games nowadays want atleast 512MB of VRAM, and your card has 256MB.

Did you increase the resolution of your game(s) recently? Try lowerin' them back down.

Are you watching videos whilst your gaming? Try shutting off any other active programs.

With your computer off, and having grounded yourself, try taking out your graphics card and putting it back in; could be a contacts issue?
 
The games I am having problems with are mostly on the lowest possible graphics and on the CCC, I have set 3D to performance. Some games however, I can't even get into now to even lower the graphics, but the graphics my games are set too now used to play perfectly.

Games that still work:

WoW - Fair Graphics
Minecraft - Fast Graphics
Guild Wars 2 - Lowest Graphics


Games that don't work:

War Z - Lowest Graphics
L4D2 - Medium Graphics (Can't get on to lower them)
San Andreas - High Graphics (Can't get on to lower them)
Gotham City - Lowest Graphics


May try some more games out later but I will check for driver updates (already checked my GPU) and see if anything changes.
 
Your processor and GPU are really low end. You CANNOT overclock a 256MB GPU and expect things to work fine. You need a new set up. If it's a PC and not a laptop, then change the processor and GPU. Actually, you'll probably need to change the motherboard too. Your best solution is UPGRADES. :)
 

Very hard for me to do this at the moment due to money issues, this is the last thing I want to resort too really. This computer setup has ran all my games fine, I just want to know if there is another fix I can do without having to buy a new computer or computer parts.
 


To be honest not really. I'm surprised you can play that many games at all with this setup. Maybe the card has fried or something else is going but on a system this old it's better to start fresh rather than patch the leaks in a sieve. :bounce:
 


None that I can think of with that set up. Sorry 🙁
 
Alright, guess I will have to put up with the games my computer can still run.

Just to let you guys know though, my specs do meet the minimum requirements for these games (apart from war z and gotham city but they have both ran perfectly in the past).
 


Inquiring minds want to know. I would have suggested removing your drivers and installing the latest ones. What did you do?
 
I just left my computer off for a while then when I turned it on, everything worked fine but not as good as it used too. My computer has been making weirder noises lately. Soon as it stops working, going to either replace parts or go console.
 
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