Strange A/V problem...

[Rookie]

Hey.

I've just experienced a rather odd problem. Whilst playing Half-Life 2 (this was almost directly after a level change) the ingame sound suddenly became horribly corrupted - static, fluctuation, the works. I figured it might be a problem with my audio drivers or something, so I closed HL2 and quit back to the desktop. Now I start to get worried - the desktop is flickering in a very odd manner. Not artifacting, just flickering, kind of like a bad signal on a TV. At this point I did a hard reboot and it seems to be back to normal. The only hardware change I've made recently is the installation of a new X1950GT, and it hasn't done this on any game before. I took some GPU readings after I quit, and they read at around 40 degrees C, which doesn't seem too bad. I don't overclock (CPU or GPU), and I have plenty of case cooling. Any ideas what might be up?

Specs:

• AMD Athlon64 3700+ @2.2GHz
• 1gb OCZ Gold
• ASUS A8S-X
• Sapphire Radeon X1950GT 256mb
• SoundMax AC'97 Audio
• 2x 160gb HDDs (One Maxtor, one Seagate)
• 1x 36gb WD Raptor
• Samsung LightScribe DVD+/-RW
• Enermax NoiseTaker 480w PSU
• 19" Daewoo WS TFT @ 1440x900
• CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Case

Cheers.

[ex_reven]

I doubt that you would experience a audio and visual problem at the same time. It seems unlikely. My first guess would be ram, and are you using enough?

If your running HL2 on max settings, chances are your ram is maxing out. Ive had HL2 run into heaps of memory problems on 1GB, but nothing like yours.
It would definately explain the audio though...

[Zalmann]

Also do a general check for malware (virus/spyware) just in case. Doesn't hurt.

[ex_reven]

Originally Posted by Zalmann

Also do a general check for malware (virus/spyware) just in case. Doesn't hurt.

aka run spybot, adaware, hijackthis, ccleaner, antivirus scan and whatever other tools you got . OR check for a heap of background tasks that might have been running while you were gaming. Games hang when something else starts using too much of the systems resources.

[Rookie]

Originally Posted by ex_reven

I doubt that you would experience a audio and visual problem at the same time. It seems unlikely. My first guess would be ram, and are you using enough?

If your running HL2 on max settings, chances are your ram is maxing out. Ive had HL2 run into heaps of memory problems on 1GB, but nothing like yours.
It would definately explain the audio though...

Yeah, I run it maxed out. That said, I've been playing Source engine games with 1gb of RAM for the last year or so with zero problems - I've never seen this happen before today.

I just completed a two-hour run of the game (from the beginning up to Black Mesa East) and so far so good. I might run a MemTest+ later on just to be on the safe side though.

As regard system processes, I only have the essentials - Steam, avast!, MSN and my Apache test server running at any one time. Depending on how demanding the game I'm playing is, though, I sometimes disable the lot. Ran a virus scan a few days ago which turned up zilch, but as you say it can't hurt to check.

Cheers for the suggestions.

[ex_reven]

Originally Posted by Rookie

Yeah, I run it maxed out. That said, I've been playing Source engine games with 1gb of RAM for the last year or so with zero problems - I've never seen this happen before today.

I just completed a two-hour run of the game (from the beginning up to Black Mesa East) and so far so good. I might run a MemTest+ later on just to be on the safe side though.

As regard system processes, I only have the essentials - Steam, avast!, MSN and my Apache test server running at any one time. Depending on how demanding the game I'm playing is, though, I sometimes disable the lot. Ran a virus scan a few days ago which turned up zilch, but as you say it can't hurt to check.

Cheers for the suggestions.

your welcome, with the counter strike source games - they are less demanding than HL2.
Think about it, when your playing online, your CPU doesnt need to work as hard as it doesnt have to generate Non Player Controlled Entities (eg bots, combine characters etc). Counterstrike source was also designed with just the basics, as they didnt want online play to suffer from too much lag. HL2 is alot more demanding, with more bots, more graphics rendering occurs as well as more sound, more triggerable events, more physics objects etc.

[Rookie]

Originally Posted by ex_reven

your welcome, with the counter strike source games - they are less demanding than HL2.
Think about it, when your playing online, your CPU doesnt need to work as hard as it doesnt have to generate Non Player Controlled Entities (eg bots, combine characters etc). Counterstrike source was also designed with just the basics, as they didnt want online play to suffer from too much lag. HL2 is alot more demanding, with more bots, more graphics rendering occurs as well as more sound, more triggerable events, more physics objects etc.

I also play a lot of Garry's Mod. That's a tad more demanding than even HL2 itself, what with the innumerable idiots spawning massive physics props every 10 seconds on online servers.

[Agility]

Dying psu.....?

[Rookie]

Unlikely. I replaced it not 2 months ago.

I've since formatted (the drive needed a good spring cleaning anyway...) and I've not had the problem since. Very odd. I'll post again if it does show up.