Frequent Catalyst Driver Crashes

[Amas]

Just curious if anyone has experienced similar problems.

At semi-regular, but unpredictable intervals, the game completely locks up (sound keeps playing, but video freezes on still frame).

Sometimes, the graphics driver crashes and recovers, sometimes it doesn't, necessitating a hard reboot.

This has happened despite many changes in graphics settings. It happened when I was playing windowed, and it happens when I play fullscreen using RadeonPro to force AFR CrossFire mode.

It doesn't seem to be tied to utilization or temperatures (both GPUs stay under ~60C and generally 30-60% utilization), and has happened across several Catalyst driver revisions (11.4, 11.5, 11.6).

I do not experience driver crashes in any other game, and except when playing FFXIV, my system is rock solid.

So, to repeat original question... anyone experience anything similar? If so, find any workarounds?

[Rhylee_Mau]

I have an OC'd 5850. I used to have crashes at anything beyond 73 deg. C. However, I realized it is not the GPU core that is overheating. It is the video memory. I reduced the clock on those to something more reasonable and my GPU can now reach temps of 80 deg. C and a little beyond without crashing the drivers. FFXIV does have huge textures so the stress is on the video memory. Most other games are ports from 360 and PS3 these days and those systems do have limited vram and the games reflect that. Perhaps dust out the card *can't hurt* or perform some diagnostic with software on the memory.

[Coldfire]

I have an OC'd 5850. I used to have crashes at anything beyond 73 deg. C. However, I realized it is not the GPU core that is overheating. It is the video memory. I reduced the clock on those to something more reasonable and my GPU can now reach temps of 80 deg. C and a little beyond without crashing the drivers. FFXIV does have huge textures so the stress is on the video memory. Most other games are ports from 360 and PS3 these days and those systems do have limited vram and the games reflect that. Perhaps dust out the card *can't hurt* or perform some diagnostic with software on the memory.

OMG I had exactly the same problem with my HD5850. Watercooling removed the problem. With HD5870 no problem either (well maybe 'cause my model is watercooled by default xD).

[Rhylee_Mau]

OMG I had exactly the same problem with my HD5850. Watercooling removed the problem. With HD5870 no problem either (well maybe 'cause my model is watercooled by default xD).

Yeah I got the Gigabyte version of the 5850 OC... and I pushed it some more XD The GPU cooler is pretty nice, but they didn't give the video memory any cooling at all -_-. Still I can't really justify spending $80 bucks for a + 25MHz core clock and + 25 MHz memory clock increase.

[Coldfire]

Better invest the 80 bucks in watercooling... it's not as nerdish and dangerous as some say (mostly people who have never even seen a watercooled pc) xD
The CPU is easy to cool since theres lots of space around it and a big variety of freezers. But GPU-freezers are so bad nowadays. Some even blow hot air into the case and have blank RAM and shader ALUs :/