Graphics card crashing from games

[murry]

I've got a fairly old Radeon 8500 and its having a few problems. When i try and play any decent game (in terms of graphics) such as Soldner, Far Cry, Battlefield. It is guarenteed that as soon as the game starts to load the menu or within a minute of play starting it will crash out to the desktop with a message saying that ATI control panel has restarted the graphics card. Then the game exits and im back at the desktop with 16 colours and a restart needed to fix.
The card has been overclocked but has an old 386 HSF on it which moves plenty of air and also there are some ram sinks. But i've tried taking the card back to the original speeds but still the same problem.
Any suggestions?

[mike_w]

What Catalysts/Omegas are you using?

[CrapshoT]

try turning the graphic settings down.My 8500 le wouldnt play far cry very well on any settings,but it plays battlefield and ut2k3 ok at 800x600 and low settings.

[murry]

im using the latest cat 4.5's. I cant even get to the stage where i can change the graphics settings on Soldner. In Far Cry i have managed to get about 3/4 of the way through before it just gets to this one point where it will always fall over. i have tried reducing everything to the lowest setting but to no avail

[Noxis]

Try the Omega 4.5 Drivers, fixed LOADS of bugs for me on my Rad9700 Pro.

[Steve]

Turn off VPU recover in the ATI advanced settings - if you can. It's known to cause problems, ironically.