Recent problems with Steam Games

[rogbrez]

I have noticed a new problem that I believe is just with games on Steam...not sure if its related to ATI card 5700 series or not..

Occasionally, the game will freeze, lockup...you can hear the sound and everything around you, AI characters, etc continue to move but your character/mouse just freezes, locks up, forcing a PV restart...alt/con/delete won't work.

Started with Mafia 2 and happened frequently with Saints Row 3..all drivers are updated and I turned off anti-aliasing too..recently, happened less frequently with SR 3 but it now happens with Call of Duty, Black ops...even left for dead 2, which ran fine a year ago, is starting to freeze/lockup...games will play fine lets say for 15-20-25 minutes then boom a lockup..

I believe I have only experienced this with games on Steam...

Would this be a Steam/ATI conflict, a Direct X issue, driver problem, graphics setting issue?

 

[solarmystic]

Greetings rogbrez,

May I direct you to this generalized, all inclusive tutorial that will help you in resolving your gaming issues?

http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/77293-tips-troubleshooting-game-issues.html

Hope that helps!

 

[rogbrez]

Since this seems to only happen with Steam games, could this be a ATI 5700/Steam conflict?

Someone on Steam Forums mentioned that the video card might be overheated, dusty, and needing to be cleaned..but non-steam games, like Dragon Age, have run fine with no lockups..

And at times on Steam, Saints Row 3, Call of Duty Black Ops will run fine for several hours...at other times, 5 minutes into a game, everything locks up and the computer freezes. everything in the game continues on, other characters, video and sound, but my character (my computer) freezes, forcing a hard restart of the computer..

Just can't figure out the cause, why it happens only occasionally and not all the time, and what the solution might be, outside of obviously getting a new and improved video card.

 

[solarmystic]

This is just a shot in the dark, but have you tried disabling your Steam Overlay and running those games again without it on?

 

[rogbrez]

I'll give that a shot!

 

[rogbrez]

by the way, how do you disable steam overlay? that's not the same as unchecking Steam Cloud synch, is it?

 

[solarmystic]

Nope it's not the same...

From the steam support website:-
(https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8882-bmxl-0801#overlay)

You may completely disable Game Overlay by going to Steam’s Steam > Settings menu and selecting the In-Game tab. Then uncheck the Enable Steam Community In-Game checkbox.

The Game Overlay will work with third-party non-Steam games which you have added to Steam. The basic requirement is that the game uses Direct3D 7, Direct3D 8, Direct3D 9, Direct3D 10, or OpenGL for rendering. Some 2D games which use DDraw or software based rendering methods are not supported (ex/ Diablo).