Hi there,

I recently upgraded the video card in a fairly (about a month, home built) new computer from a ATi 2600 XT to an nVidia 8800 GT. At first it seemed to be functioning perfectly and ran most of the games I play perfectly. Crysis performance was excellent, as it was with Supreme Commander and others.

After playing Crysis I went back a decided to play Far Cry, just so I could compare and see the advances made in the cryengine. Interestingly enough, after about 30 minutes of Far Cry gameplay the screen developed blotches of bright pixels and the computer locked up. After a reboot I tried it again, same deal.

Suspecting trouble, I ran nvidia's stability test for 10 minutes. However, it only got about 1 minute in then crashed (but the OS remained functional). So I decided to try newer drivers (going from version 167 to 169). Far Cry had the same issue and the stability test bummed out again, but took down the entire system this time. A quick test with Quake 4 rendered the same lock up.

All the while, other games such as Battlefield 2, Crysis, Supreme Commander and Halo have been running fine. I would be inclined to think it's just Far Cry that hasn't aged well, but the crashing stability test (claiming driver not-responding) and Quake 4 issue makes me think that it's a hardware issue of some sort.

Besides the drivers, I think the other cause of the trouble could be my power supply. It's a 430 watt Antec EarthWatt, and XfX recommends 500 watts for the 8800 GT. What's strange is, how come I can play Crysis for a good two hours at a time while Far Cry crashes within the first 20/30 minutes? I doubt Far Cry is making the card work (and therefore need more power) harder that Crysis.

Now I've googled the web a bit, and haven't found any mention of similar issues with other 8800 series cards and Far Cry. This adds to my suspision it's in some way the card itself.

Basically, what I'm wondering is, is it worth trying a new power supply or new card? I'm within the extended warrenty on the card, so I can always replace it for something else. Has anybody else had issues with 8800 series cards? I can live without Far Cry and Quake 4, I just don't want these issues to turn up anywhere else or get worse in the future.

Thanks for reading and for any insight you can offer...

EDIT: Just though I'd add this:

In the past, I've had issues with Far Cry on nvidia cards (namely a 6800 GS), but the patches at the time of Far Cry's release solved them.

Hi,

Did you check to see that your video card fan is spinning freely? It sounds to me like this is either heat realted or something to do with your PSU.

Then why didnt it Crash in Crysis.And It could be like you said an Nvidia problem.Far Cry wasnt made for 8800 cards.It was made for older series.But since Crysis is recent its made for the 8800's.