Battlefield 2 Crash to Desktop Pos Solution

[Bluecube]

I've been reading many posts from people who are having problems with Battlefield 2 where they are playing the game and after so long of playing it (usually within 10mins) it crashes to the desktop with no error message. Having discovered I had the same problem I was mightily peeved as the actual game is excellent. So in order to play it I set about trying to fix this crashing to desktop nuisance.

I initially thought it was either my graphics card (an FX5900 modified to FX5950) or my CPU (AMD 2500+ oc'd to 3200+) which I thought were just finally packing in under the strain. I initially upped the voltage on everything to daft levels but no joy. Play game for 10mins and boom! back to desktop. Maybe the graphic/ mobo/ soundcard drivers? Two hours of fiddling about proved that this wasn't the case as no matter what drivers I used, boom! back to desktop. By this point I was getting mightily hacked off then a friend suggested it could be a memory problem as he had Half Life 2 bomb out on him until he replaced his RAM. So off came the case side and I levered out one of my memory sticks (I have 2 512Mb sticks in a dual channel config) and tried it out. Voila! Battlefield 2 works fab! Wishing to cross all the T's and dot all the I's I popped the case side back on in order to rule out overheating and tried the game again. Boom, etc.... So to (finally!) cut a long story short, BF2 was crashing out because something (I suspect the CPU) was getting a tad warm. This was confirmed when I popped the stick of RAM back in and left the case side off. BF2 ran fine.

So if you're having probs with BF2 crashing to the desktop for no apparent reason, take your case cover off and try it like that. Fingers crossed.

As an aside, Half Life 2 (a far more graphically intensive game in my opinion) ran fine with the case cover on. Computers! Almost as difficult to understand as women!

Bluecube

[oralpain]

90% of the time, from my experience, problems (esp CTD) with any of the games in the BF series are ram related.

Nothing finds memory errors faster than a memory hogging game. I've had BF crash on systems that had passed 15,000 (fifteen-thousand) loops of memtest86+ test 5 at 10Mhz faster than what I was running the game at. One small timing option later everything was smooth.

[Pirate Pete]

good for you bluecube, bf2 is still buggy

btw on a side note,

dont ever get computers and women mixed up...that could be a horrific mistake

Pete

[xanderd]

Hi all,

I am getting really agitated with this problem now - BF2 consistantly crashes after between 2 minutes, and one hour of gameplay (more often than not its nearer the 2 minute mark!).

One of the following happens:

*Graphics disappear (but monitor still has signal), and game play continues as normal (when i click i hear the gun shoot).
*Monitor loses signal and goes to standby - nothing happens and i must force a reboot
*Graphics go all weird with polygons everywhere but i can still play the game, sometimes leads to a completre garble of coloured lines and i cannot play and must re-boot

I have tried so mnay different options and have no idea where to go next!:

I have an AMD 2400+ CPU running at 1.76ghz, with an upgraded copper heatsink and boost fan, runs at about 50 degrees.

Hercules 3d prophet Ati radeon 9800 pro card in AGP 8x slot, with aftermarket arctic cooler.

2 sticks of 512MB PC3200 400mhz RAM

I am using the latest Omega catalyst drivers for the radeon, and the latest drivers for all other devices. After crashing, the event viewer shows no errors. The device manager shows no conflicts. The system runs perfectly under windows and only crashes in BF2!!

pleeeease help! I have read a couple of things on other sites about it being a radeon 9800 issue and after they changed the graphics card it worked! I hope that is not the case as i bought the card 2nd hand so i dont know if ati wiould give me a replacement.

thanks!
alex

[Dougal]

I know someone on a 9800XT, no probs.

If the card isn't under warranty a BIOS flash may help?

[xanderd]

AFter trawling the web today, i went home and tried out all of the recommendations - STILL CRASHING!

It crashes offline in singleplayer as well as online, I have changed the AGP aperture size to 128MB, made sure fastwrites were turned off in the BIOS, made sure EAX and VOIP were turned off in the game. I have a 350w power supply which should be enough. The game only crashes at intensive points i.e. when i'm about to crash a plane, or when loads of players run in shooting.

The only thing I can think of is that the graphics card is overheating - but it has an arctic cooler and a case fan! And I have no way of monitoring its temperature - is there some software that can do this?

Please please if you have this problem and know how to solve it post!

[Dougal]

ATi Control panel has the temp monitoring in the "Overdrive" section.

[beanbandit]

I am using the latest Omega catalyst drivers for the radeon, and the latest drivers for all other devices.

Try using the official ATI drivers, just to make sure.

[beanbandit]

ATi Control panel has the temp monitoring in the "Overdrive" section.

Isn't that only available on XT cards?

[Dougal]

Didn't think it was....

Never used the Omegas so it may just be an omega thing

[xanderd]

i have no temperature monitor in my display settings. There are reports of people with similar problems having tried various drivers from Ati to omega and still havign the problem -- but i spose it worth a try.

[xanderd]

i have no temperature monitor in my display settings. did a google and some people say that you cant check the temp of a 9800pro as it has no temp rpbe?!! doesnt sound right to me...

There are reports of people with similar problems having tried various drivers from Ati to omega and still having the problems -- but i spose it worth a try.

[schmunk]

i have no temperature monitor in my display settings. did a google and some people say that you cant check the temp of a 9800pro as it has no temp rpbe?!!

Correct - 9800XTs only (and possibly 256MB 9800Pros?)

[Dougal]

Works on my 9600XT

[xanderd]

ok so i have no temperature probe so no clue whats going on there. Just used the latest official Ati drivers and the game just crashed again! This time VPU recover caught it, bt I lost all graphics in the game but could still hear the sound etc and play the game (clicking made the gun fire), but with a black screen. (this is in single player offline mode as well!)

I really dont know what else to try!

[Jonny]

I am running a 9800 Pro and it sometimes crashes to desktop for me. However it has never shown me a blank screen with sound, or even faulty graphics in any way. I am running Beta x64 drivers by Omega. My card does not seem too hot, it was previously having graphical faults in games, but a quick fix in the form of a case fan blu-taked so it took all the hot away seemed to fix this.
Not even hot to touch after a BF2 crash, it gets hotter in 3DMark.