Hay Guys

I am having crashing problems with TF2 and wondered if anyone had any ideas why, heres the symptoms, the game runs fine for 30+ mins then the frame rate drops to <25 fps, then starts to freeze up, finally the graphics go nuts and look like a 1970's arcade game, i can still hear the sound and talk via in-game comms.

I have tried re-installing the latest nivida drivers, but no joy it still happens.

heres a quick ms paint knockup of the screen after a crash

http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=16508555ow4.jpg

(sorry about my poor arse drawing skills )

gfx card getting too hot?

my 7900 did that then died 2 weeks later.

Card still under warranty? I also had this problem, albeit a long time ago with a crappy little graphics card. The heatsink had fallen off!

Does sound like it could be overheating. More cooling, perhaps?

I thorght about overheating but cod4/ crysis/ GoW/ DoW all play fine for hours at a time, its just TF2, I'll have a look at the fan/heat sink later tonight see if it looks ok.

check the steam forums too. Some people might be having the same problems.

I know the real reason, it's because God hates you.

Reo , go back to standard clocks & see if it happens again & you are on standard clocks use Rivatuner to under clock the card & then turn up the clocks on GPU & RAM individually till one craps out & you then you have your culprit.

The corruption you drew up looks like a game crash to me mate & that could be due to a driver issue ( Rivatuner 2.06 does not support the latest nVidia drivers )

look out for the following when playing games :

1) Image bleeding i.e. spike's on the models = memory going beyond limit
2) Lock-up = GPU crash
3) lines across screen = GPU crash or about to crash
4) Minor flecks across screen = memory O/C beyond limit

Bottom line is this , GPU error usually lead to lock-up where as memory tends to give graphical warning before it crashes .