I've had this problem that sometimes, LFS freezes. This occures say in 1 out of 10 races, mostly after 30 minutes, sometimes even later.

When it happens, the screen freezes, while the sound continues (sort of). I can sometimes hear the car crashing, but the sound is a bit laggy.
The screen freezes, and the picture isnt build completly. For example the track is shown, but not the cars or the sky.

All i can do is reset, alltough somethimes Ctrl-Alt-Delete brings up the taskmanager.

I've heard of other people having a similar poblem, but never seen a actual sollution. Is this a LFS-bug, or is it my pc?


LFS S2, 0.5Q (had it with P too)
Win XP SP2
Athlon XP - Abit NF7S
Asus Geforce Ti 4200


Btw. I only have problems with LFS, other games work fine.

Are you overclocking or anything? Or is your system overheating?

You need to make sure these things aren't happening, because those are symptoms of LFS freezing.

I thought of that too, processor is something like 47 deg celcius, not overclocked. The videocard feels a bit hot, but they always are (feels 50-60deg or so).

I would expect it to happen with other games too, if it were the temperature. But even new games like Far Cry work fine.

Do you have Verticle Sync enabled in LFS?

This gave me strange gfx problems over time when I had it switched on.

I have the same problem with the game freezing for about 10 seconds i hear just the engine sound repeated over and over again, it then unfreezes and i have crashed.

Quote from DratsaB :

Do you have Verticle Sync enabled in LFS?

This gave me strange gfx problems over time when I had it switched on.

I'll check that

Quote :

I have the same problem with the game freezing for about 10 seconds i hear just the engine sound repeated over and over again, it then unfreezes and i have crashed.

Sounds a bit the same, I've had those situations too, but mostly LFS just freezes and doesnt 'unfreeze' anymore.

Thanks for thinking with me people.

Looks A LOT like GPU overheating.
Enable the frame limiter and set it to 100 or lower.
You can also reduce the GPU core frequency, for example with ATI tool (works for nvidia cards too)

When another games and apps are OK, it most likely ISN'T CPU overheating. As far as I know, LFS is not too sensitive on overheated CPU. Once I tried ot OC my P4 Prescott cooled by stock cooler(what a fooish idea, lol and games like Doom3, NFSU were crashing on bluescreen, LFS everytimes survived.

By the temp you posted I presume you have an Athlon CPU. Check driver of motherboard chipset(if you have installed some, if you didn't, do it). Try to enable/disable Cool n' Quiet in BIOS. Athlons have special driver controlling Cn'Q, do you have them installed? Also test your RAM (http://www.goldmemory.cz/gm668.zip).

And some questions, occures that problem online, offline or it there is no difference by it? What CPU do you have? we need clock/XP rating, not just a brand name....

Quote from MadCatX :

As far as I know, LFS is not too sensitive on overheated CPU.

Hm Im wondering where you got that info because LFS is one of the most CPU intensive games I know...
Other ones are rFactor, FEAR, HalfLife2

Doom3 doesnt cause any heat to my CPU


And actually... I have not got a bluescreen after overheating of a CPU, only when the Ram has too tight timings or not enough voltage, or other access errors like demaged hard drives etc.

Quote from ORION :

Hm Im wondering where you got that info because LFS is one of the most CPU intensive games I know...

Where I got it? That's my own experience. Prescott core P4 OC'ed from 3.2 - 3.4 cooled by stock, I say again STOCK heatsink produces A LOT of heat that is not taken away. My CPU temp was around 85 deg, but LFS was still running.
If the game crashes when CPU is overheated is not determined by how much the game uses CPU, but what will happen to multi-tasking system cooperation. If game produces too much errors, OS kernel can't filter them and you got the system halt. If the game dosesn't produce "critical" amount of errors, you got only reduced performance and bigger possibility of crash when some another process will enter to this "multitasking dance"

And if you didn't got any err. with overheated CPU, you're lucky. You probably have an athlon 64 CPU.....

Quote from MadCatX :

When another games and apps are OK, it most likely ISN'T CPU overheating. As far as I know, LFS is not too sensitive on overheated CPU. Once I tried ot OC my P4 Prescott cooled by stock cooler(what a fooish idea, lol and games like Doom3, NFSU were crashing on bluescreen, LFS everytimes survived.

By the temp you posted I presume you have an Athlon CPU. Check driver of motherboard chipset(if you have installed some, if you didn't, do it). Try to enable/disable Cool n' Quiet in BIOS. Athlons have special driver controlling Cn'Q, do you have them installed? Also test your RAM (http://www.goldmemory.cz/gm668.zip).

And some questions, occures that problem online, offline or it there is no difference by it? What CPU do you have? we need clock/XP rating, not just a brand name....

To start with the CPU, its a Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton core), running at stock speed (1900MHz or so). Right now, while internetting, its 35 degree's. Yesterday night it was 45 or so, with the room temperature just over 20 degree's.

It doesnt have cool 'n quiet yet, so I can't try that. I'll try and clock it a bit lower. But I wonder how that could be it, 'cos it is at stock speed, with a very large cooler (Zalman thingy).

It happens both offline and online, after an hour or so. It doesnt happen every time, only like in 1 out of 10 long races. That it only happens after a long time could indicate it's a heat problem, but why does it not happen with other games then?

Another thing im looking into is the graphicscard-drivers. I've seen other people with this problem, I'll see it they got the same card. (Asus geforce 4 ti4200)

Quote :

Looks A LOT like GPU overheating.
Enable the frame limiter and set it to 100 or lower.
You can also reduce the GPU core frequency, for example with ATI tool (works for nvidia cards too)

I'll try that too. problem is that it doesn't always happen, and mostly after an hour.

Anyway, thanks again everybody for helping, it always good to hear other people's opinions.

I reckon it's definitely not your CPU overheating. I have a Barton core 2500+ oc'd, idling at 52C and well over 60 in heavy use and it doesn't complain one bit. In fact it used to go to almost 80C and still not complain (then I cleaned the fan/cooler ). Could be the GPU, not sure.. weird prob.

I would also check your disk for errors. This kind of thing (the small loop) can happen if the PC is struggling to read a particular sector on your HD. It may also explain why other games, that you'd expect to struggle on CPU and GPU in a similar or even greater extent than LFS, don't do so. It may be that those games don't depend on data which is resident on a problematic portion of your HD.

It may not be it, but I'd kick myself if it turned out to be the problem and I'd stayed silent

I get this too occasionally, its very annoying and seems only related to LFS. I know its not my CPU as it maxes out at about 60 degrees, and my 6800 can handle half life 2 without overheating, so i think it will handle LFS fine.

Just out of curiosity,is this only happening in Nvidia cards, or is it on ATi too? Could be a driver related problem.

Quote from MadCatX :

And if you didn't got any err. with overheated CPU, you're lucky. You probably have an athlon 64 CPU.....

So I guess it's quite different between Intel and AMD, because my AthlonXP Barton runs fine at 2500MHz, also at 2550MHz, but If I go a bit higher the system freezes directly. I can only get no errors or complete lockup.
Note that I didnt overclock with the FSB (which mostly causes errors because the RAM cant handle the higher frequency), but simply by increasing the Multiplier to 12.5

For anyone a small hint:
If you are not 100.0% sure that your hardware is not causing errors because it gets too hot, simply reduce the clocks and try again. Also open the case and open your window
Don't get a cold though

Quote from Stellios :

I get this too occasionally, its very annoying and seems only related to LFS. I know its not my CPU as it maxes out at about 60 degrees, and my 6800 can handle half life 2 without overheating, so i think it will handle LFS fine.

Just out of curiosity,is this only happening in Nvidia cards, or is it on ATi too? Could be a driver related problem.

That could very well be it. I informed at my team, and some racers there had had it too. Both had nvidia cards (geforce 4 iirc, like me). They also suggested useing different drivers. Anyway, I always used 78.01, and I've installed 66.93 now.

Its just that its hard to notice if it'll work, 'cos the problem happens rarely (Always seems to happen when I'm driving a great race :razz


Edit:
Found a few similar threads:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2059
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2420
Not always nvidia cards as I see.

I remember ASMO having those problems like a year ago or more, I think it was a problem with the T&L chip overheating,which is now equal with the shader units.
I had this bug too, once, on my old 5900ultra, and it wad indeed very hot.

Frame limiter will fix this, or of course reducing the clock...

Yup, that could be the problem. nVidia cards has something like thermal monitor. I don't know if it is on GF4 series but the newer ones(GF6 and higher) has it. Good way how to determine your GPU temp is to use RivaTuner (http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/). There is function called Hardware monitoring, which displays temp in a graph, so you can run a game and after a while look on the graphs.
Strange is that other games are OK, they should produce some artefacts like green polygons, bad applied textures and so on. I've never got this problem and my GF6600GT is nicely OC'ed....

Yeah, I've never had serious problems with this card. The only time it showed artifacts was while playing doom3, fairly overclocked.

Anyway, i've installed older drivers, I'll let you know if it makes any difference.

Thx MadCatX, for pointing me to that program. I've been looking for a program that could read the temperatures. (never knew rivatuner could do that, not used it since eh, well a riva TNT card.)

Edit: Seems that geforce4 cards don't have temperature gauges