Mass Effect 2 (possible texture crashing?)

[arges86]

When i play Mass Effect 2 i generally get good frame rates (low 50s - high 40s).
During cut scenes however, the frame rates plummet to 20 fps, or sometimes 0.
Then, it seems like the texture crashes, the screen turns purple and sometimes the game recovers. the sound never lags, but the video seems to stop.
If the game doesn't properly recover, i have so many random polygons covering everything that i have to restart the game.
Twice i've had to restart the PC (once i ended up having to do a system repair after, because windows wouldn't start).
Any Ideas?
Thanx for taking your time reading.

My computer is:
AMD: Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2991 MHz
Mobo: Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 v.2
RAM: 4GB Mushkin DDR2 PC2-6400
OS: Win 7 64bit
VC: EVGA 8800 GTS 320MB

 

[Muhad]

Stop any system overclocking first.
I would re-seat the video card and also make sure the fan system is working and clear of dust.
Leave case open and play game. If the problem happens again (could still be heat problem) then I would try a different video card driver release, and after that run the ME2 Configure program selecting Video, and then in the Menu go to System and press Rescan, and then review those video settings, then save and exit, and say a quick prayer, and then try ME2.

By the way I would also update DirectX ... new release ... http://downloads.guru3d.com/DirectX-End-User-Runtimes-(February-2010)-download-2470.html

 

[Homeless]

Assuming you're talking about a video driver recover, I only get that when I overclock too far

 

[arges86]

my computer is clean of dust (one the few things i'm good at remembering to clean)
the settings of ME2 are what it chose from scanning (average fps is about 50)
tried older GeForce drivers to no avail

 

[Bo$$]

When i play Mass Effect 2 i generally get good frame rates (low 50s - high 40s).
During cut scenes however, the frame rates plummet to 20 fps, or sometimes 0.
Then, it seems like the texture crashes, the screen turns purple and sometimes the game recovers. the sound never lags, but the video seems to stop.
If the game doesn't properly recover, i have so many random polygons covering everything that i have to restart the game.
Twice i've had to restart the PC (once i ended up having to do a system repair after, because windows wouldn't start).
Any Ideas?
Thanx for taking your time reading.

My computer is:
AMD: Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2991 MHz
Mobo: Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 v.2
RAM: 4GB Mushkin DDR2 PC2-6400
OS: Win 7 64bit
VC: EVGA 8800 GTS 320MB

your 8800gts might be on the way out, might try increasing fan speed to compensate, or try underclocking it to test stability

 

[arges86]

i've tested w/ Furmark got no artifacts or anything...
other games based off of the U3 engine seem to work fine.
I just finished Borderlands & Batman: Arkham Asylum recently that used the same graphics engine

i was really hoping it wasn't my card...
i put this system together in the fall of 07 and was hoping everything would last longer than this

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Your setup is fine it's how the game is optimized that is causing those poor frame rates during cut scenes. Trust me, you are not the only one experiencing that issue. Heck I've even remove vsync and get over 90 FPS but notice the dips during cut scenes. It's also happening on the console as well.

 

[arges86]

thanx EastCoasthandle
refreshing to know its not my system or something stupid that i did
just hope there's a patch or driver update
thanx all for trying to help

 

[KainXS]

(once i ended up having to do a system repair after, because windows wouldn't start).

?

why did you have to do a system repair

 

[arges86]

i hard restarted the PC after the game crashed.
the BIOS would POST, then the load screen for Win7 would appear, and then freeze.

After several restarts, and a few other attempts to start windows (including various safe-modes) i couldn't get windows to start up.

Vista on another HD in my computer started just fine so i knew it wasn't hardware.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Try this and see if it aleavate some of the slow downs. Also check to see if the load times improve by adding this to the Gamersetting.ini file:

[ALAudio.ALAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=32
UseEffectsProcessing=True
TimeBetweenHWUpdates=15
MinOggVorbisDurationGame=20
MinOggVorbisDurationEditor=4
DeviceName=Generic Audio
bSurroundMode=True

Just leave one space between this and the last entry in the file. You will also need ALCapsViewer to know the exact name of your sound card. That is what you put into:
DeviceName=
for example:
DeviceName=SB X-Fi Audio [AC00]
What ever the ALCapsViewer tells you that's what you put in "devicename". You may need to expand OpenAL Devices in order to read the name of your audio card. You want to type it exactly as it's shown. Save the settings for your Gamersetting.ini and restart the game.

 

[arges86]

Try this and see if it aleavate some of the slow downs. Also check to see if the load times improve by adding this to the Gamersetting.ini file:

[ALAudio.ALAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=32
UseEffectsProcessing=True
TimeBetweenHWUpdates=15
MinOggVorbisDurationGame=20
MinOggVorbisDurationEditor=4
DeviceName=Generic Audio
bSurroundMode=True

Just leave one space between this and the last entry in the file. You will also need ALCapsViewer to know the exact name of your sound card. That is what you put into:
DeviceName=
for example:
DeviceName=SB X-Fi Audio [AC00]
What ever the ALCapsViewer tells you that's what you put in "devicename". You may need to expand OpenAL Devices in order to read the name of your audio card. You want to type it exactly as it's shown. Save the settings for your Gamersetting.ini and restart the game.

what exactly will this do differently than default settings?

*edit*
under 'OpenAL Devices' it just says 'Generic Software'