Tzachitx
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Posted - 2009.07.24 20:37:00 -
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I realise some may be facepalming as there seems to be many discussions about this issue already (I have searched quite a lot to no avail before posting), but even if it IS the same problem, some other factors may help toward identifying the issue.
Setup:
I run Windows XP SP2, nVidia 7600GT 512mb graphics card, AMD Athlon 3000+ 2.2GHz, 1gb RAM. I have a 19" TFT as my main display and a 19" widescreen as my secondary (just displaying its desktop while i'm playing EVE on the main). It's kind of old, but well-maintained, and I have no problems with any other game, or with EVE until I recently picked up my account after a few months away.
Preferring performance and reliability, though I do use the Premium client, I have all settings but "Texture Quality" (which I leave "high") turned off/low, and I have sound disabled as I have Winamp running in the background (but nothing else). The game runs great and without a hitch, as ever, except for this issue.
Issue:
Occasionally (sometimes a couple of times in an hour, sometimes not at all in a few-hour session), regardless of what i'm doing (i've experienced it both while sitting in station doing nothing and in the middle of a fight in deadspace), the client will simply freeze, I will be unable to move the mouse, and my background music (again, Winamp, not EVE) will also stop, for about 10 seconds before everything gets going again. Though to me this implies the CPU being under stress, the HDD light doesn't make any action at all (which normally implies processing), and there's absolutely no reason for it. Though the client freezing for 10 seconds every now and again wouldn't normally bother me, usually if it does it a second time (and if it hasn't already done this on the first instance in the session), the game will freeze as I described, but my music will continue playing, and my right monitor will go black for a second and come back a couple of times, before stabilizing, but the icons on that desktop will begin to flicker rapidly until I reboot or CTRL+ALT+DEL and end the EVE client. Even when I do end the process, though my computer immediately returns to normal, the frozen image of EVE persists on my main display until there is literally no power going to it, even superceding the usual "Logging Off" screen (this would normally imply to me that it's directly a GPU issue, but again, no cause).
Attempted fixes:
After reading around there were a few theories that it was related to the ingame chat, so I closed all but local and corp, switched it to "text only", and removed the user image and name section completely. I've tried altering a few of the graphics settings, particularly memory-based ones (caching for example). I tried emptying the cache, and even uninstalling, re-downloading and re-installing the client, obviously all to no avail.
I expect it will be one of the first answers and YES; I have considered updating my graphics drivers (I am purposely using an older version, but I have never had issues with EVE before), but not only are nVidia's latest drivers needlessly bloated considering they're made for newer cards, the reason I downgraded in the first place was because of issues I was having with some games, and the change to an older version improved performance GREATLY across the board, including EVE, so I have a feeling getting the latest drivers would make things worse in terms of EVE and every other game I play... I'm not disregarding it, but i'm leaving it as a last resort, and appealing for any OTHER ideas in the meantime.
Sorry for the verbose description but being vague won't exactly help... if anyone has any idea what I could do to try and solve the issue (or if anyone has any other theories based on their own experiences) i'd GREATLY appreciate any ideas because it takes a lot of the fun out of EVE when you're on edge waiting for it to crash any second.
Thanks for reading,
Tz
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