Black screen of frustration

[methuselah]

Hey dudes, first I wanna say that Avlis is awesome and much fun role playing

But after I play for a while my screen will shutdown like my pc goes into powersave on me. I cant figure it out, and it does it in single player mode as well.

When I log back on everything is fine for a little while and it will do the shutdown thing again. sometimes i can still hear the sound of the game in the background but i cant get the monitor back on.

Somone please help me!

It totally kills the role playing when my party has to wait in a dangerous area or in the middle of a conversation while I reboot my pc and log back on to keep playing.

could it be my video card? i have geforce fx 5200 256mg agp 8x graphix card with all the latest drivers and direct x 9

i cant figure this one out, any help would be much appreciated

thanx for your time, sorry if another thread alrady covered this i could not find one tho.

[KaiRal Windspar]

Did you update your vidcard drivers after installing DirectX? If so, reinstall DirectX.

That may help.

[Enverex]

Reinstalling DX after changing VC drivers hasn't had any effect since something like DirectX 3 so really doubt that is going to help.

Sounds like something may be overheating though. Sometimes when videocards overheat they basically just turn off, so the monitor will go into Powersave mode.

Play about with some of the graphics settings in NWN though to see if that helps (may be a fluke setup problem).

[Jonezie]

I've got the same video card, and get the same problem sometimes. Haven't been able to do anything about it...though I do have heat problems sometimes, so it could be that. It's not just NWN that causes problems though...so I'd guess that it's a VC issue rather than a setup one.

[methuselah]

I played some other games(call of duty and diablo2)and they didn't give me any trouble(only when i died )

so ive started playing with the video settings, strange cause when i run the compatability test it says that maximum settings are fine.

i think i just need some more case fans or a nice water cooling system.

[KenLie]

What you need is a new monitor... NWN warms up your monitor more than the other games you mentioned. I had similar problem with my previous monitor... when it warmed up, it always shut down...

[methuselah]

thats odd, because i havent had problems until recently, so maybe my monitor is starting to get a little old. could it be the refresh rates are low? why would the monitor heat yup more?
they are a little expensive you know

[Cymbolism]

Have you tried turning down the resolution?

I was having similar probs a while back trying to run 1280 x 960 but went down to 1152 x 864 and have no troubles.
it might well be completely unrelated to your prob, but worth a try.
different vid card though... just similar trouble... even to the extent of preventing me from being able to log in at times.

[Hell_Fire]

Don't take just anyones advice, unless its a specific known problem by more then just one other.

In regard for the monitor thing, heating up may be caused by the refresh rate being different on your desktop then to the in game settings (more likely it will be higher), not just refresh rate, but also higher resolutions (this wont be the cause of random reboots, at the least, if you go out of range of what a monitor is able to handle, it will just turn itself off into that powersave mode, at the most, (reaaaallll old monitors that don't support the protection) WILL go up in smoke, this is generally not a Good Thing (TM).

As for the vid card, get a thermometer and measure it, or see if your video has a temprature diode your video card software can read and see if its overheating, or just touch the fucker, if its warm, you won't scream, if its hot, you'll know it (watch your fingers in GPU fans ;P) (Anything under 50oC should be fine... if its above, perhaps clean out any fans and the heatsink with compressed air (don't use normal garage air compressors as they have a tendancy to spit oil and water from the compression out, if its filtered, it should be alright), most electronic shops will have cans of compressed air on sale for $10-$20 a pop).

*EDIT* Above is correct, Video cards will also have the same temprature/have to work harder symptoms as monitors do.

*takes a breath*

Next, Windows XP comes with the handy feature enabled by default to automatically reboot your machine instead of showing you the blue screen of death that tells you something is fucked up. This is one of the first things I disable and actually tells you when you have a problem (and the random reboots can be left to various hardware problems rather then software), this can be found in System Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery Settings -> Automatically Restart.

Next... your memory could be at fault, I don't mean your brain, I mean your RAM, grab a great open source program called Memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/), let this run overnight or whatever your sleep is and it will check for various RAM errors (cheap "bubblewrap" RAM sometimes has this kind of stuff).

Generally, check tempratures of the system overall, if your using an Asus Motherboard, the CD that came with it should have a program called Asus Probe and is quite capable of giving you readings on various tempratures throughout your machine (I'd start to be worried if anything was running hotter then 60oC).

Anyway... I think thats it... hope it helps

[makeshiftwings]

I have the same problem, but I'm using a Radeon 8500. Here's how I (sortof) fixed it:

In nwn.ini, find the line "AllowWindowedMode=0" and change it to "AllowWindowedMode=1". This will allow you to press Alt+Enter when you're playing to switch between fullscreen mode and windowed mode.

Play in fullscreen mode as usual, but when the monitor shuts off, press Alt+Enter... it will switch to windowed mode and the monitor should turn back on. Then press Alt+Enter again and it will go back to Fullscreen mode. For me, the gamma (brightness) is messed up when I go back to fullscreen mode, so this can be fixed by pressing Esc, clicking on "Video Options", and then cancelling out. It seems as soon as you click on Video Options, NWN resets the current video settings.

This whole process also works if sometimes you get corrupt graphics while playing.

It's pretty annoying but it only takes a minute and is better than having to reset the computer. As for an actual "cure", I've tried plenty of different drivers and settings and nothing has worked, and I've never had this problem with other games.

[methuselah]

its my video card. i have had it for a while now.
i tried the windowed trick and it did not work which means the video card is shut down from heat stress. indeed i checked after one session and it was HOT. i didnt have to touch it to tell.

the gpu fan is in working order and there is no dust on any part of the card or heatsink. i dust my box out once a month.

i think if i got a pci slot fan and stuck it right next to my graphix card it may provide enough airflow around the card to keep it cooler. tho an alternative would be a water cooling system which are not cheap. or even as far as a replacement card.

i hear nvidia has a new card out as well as ati. though there are always third parties such as parhelia.

[Hell_Fire]

Glad something in my post helped

[methuselah]

The ultimate solution that works! Here it goes *takes a deap breath* Go to your nearest best buy and get yourself a geforce fx 5700LE 256MB graphics card and throw the old dusty one in the trash or in the box.
Then get a 512MB stick of RAM prefferably DDR333 or better (that's PC2700+ people).
Wax your reg with a good reg waxin program, and install them biznatches.
Start playing NWN online for 24 hours straight with your friends without any overheating occuring.
P.S. I also got another case fan, PCI slot-fan to stick right next to the new graphix card.
The whole solution is available for just around 250 bucks at your nearest best buy location or even cheaper online.

*Gasping for breath*

Needless to say, I couldn't solve it so I replaced the video card which I knew was the problem.

Thanx for the help guys