# Dirt 3 - can't play at all - continual crashes, freezing and BSODs (is it just me?)



## Black Panther (May 31, 2011)

I am assuming this is not a hardware problem since I never had a game crash, freeze or BSOD on me apart from the Sims 3 - and I had solved the Sims problem by going for an older graphics driver then (because come 11.4 and 11.5 the game just worked fine).

I play Dirt 2, Metro 2033, Crysis and Crysis 2, Portal 1 & 2, Fallout New Vegas, Amnesia, Oblivion... all without any issues at all.

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I have a hard copy of Dirt 3 on dvd (because for some reason Steam doesn't sell it in my region).

I installed it on the 250GB external drive connected by e-sata (just like the rest of my non-Steam games, to save ssd space). It's on the desktop you can see in my system specs (not the laptop).

The game installed fine. It started up fine, Games For Windows Live logged me in perfectly like it does with Dirt 2 and Fallout....

Then I was inputting my name and nationality etc, when the game froze.
Ctrl-Alt-Del worked. I got a window saying that Dirt 3 had stopped working.

On the second try, exactly the same thing above happened.

Turning to google before the 3rd try, I removed all 'startup' items from msconfig - it allowed me to choose my car and start a race in Norway (which ran perfectly smooth and fantastic!) only to get a big freeze after a minute. 
Not only didn't Ctrl-Alt-Del work this time but while I was trying it I got the Blue Screen of Death requiring a re-boot of my pc. 

____________________________

I'm nonplussed as to where to start trouble-shooting now.

I'm using the latest drivers 11.5b hotfix and 11.5 cap1 for application profiles.
And as I already said, the rest of my games run fine... 
My 5970 isn't overclocked (apart from slight factory oc).
Temperatures of both GPU and CPU are fine and well within limits.


So, what gives?


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

i heard the mailman delivered your copy, sure he hasn't messed with it? 

tried getting on older drivers?


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2011)

Lower CPU/MEM, and GPU overclocks. These are the three things I found to cause this problem on my gaming rig.

I'm using the same drivers, so it's not a driver issue, unless it's specific to the 5970's.


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## douglatins (May 31, 2011)

In here http://www.techspot.com/review/403-dirt-3-performance/page2.html

They are using CAT 11.5, they use a 5870, but not the 5970. I dont have a ATI card, so cant comment, the 6990, seems to be fine, and it works similar to yours


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## erocker (May 31, 2011)

Try without the CAP profile installed.


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

i had a simler problem on dirt 2, i fixed it by going into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\hardwaresettings and deleting the config files, if dirt 3 works in a similer way (same engine isn't it?) then go into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT3\hardwaresettings and delete whatever config files dirt 3 sets up


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## EastCoasthandle (May 31, 2011)

Try Process Lasso


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## erocker (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> i had a simler problem on dirt 2, i fixed it by going into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\hardwaresettings and deleting the config files, if dirt 3 works in a similer way (same engine isn't it?) then go into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT3\hardwaresettings and delete whatever config files dirt 3 sets up



Yes, I had this problem with a Nvidia card and I did the same thing to fix it. I still have one issue with Dirt 2 and Dirt 3 where I have to sign into GFWL before I run either game or it just won't start.


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## Black Panther (May 31, 2011)

Now, without not having changed a thing, I managed to do a track. Then I watched the entire replay. Then it "stopped responding" upon clicking the "continue" button (gah and I was 1st place!) .

I noticed that just upon stopping responding the picture on the monitor turns like 8 bit, not really artifacts but it goes with the same picture in red and blue... like games of 20 years ago, there's no chance to get a screenshot, it's just a split second.

I'll try your suggestions now.
But I'll leave Cadaveca's for last  (my gpu's not overclocked and the oc on my cpu never caused any stability problems so far..)

*Edit:* now trying Cheesy999's fix.
Though I never had an issue with Dirt 2.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 31, 2011)

Black Panther said:


> Now, without not having changed a thing, I managed to do a track. Then I watched the entire replay. Then it "stopped responding" upon clicking the "continue" button (gah and I was 1st place!) .
> 
> I noticed that just upon stopping responding the picture on the monitor turns like 8 bit, not really artifacts but it goes with the same picture in red and blue... like games of 20 years ago, there's no chance to get a screenshot, it's just a split second.
> 
> ...



Hmm, sounds like you should do tip #11 but go over the rest.


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2011)

Black Panther said:


> But I'll leave Cadaveca's for last  (my gpu's not overclocked and the oc on my cpu never caused any stability problems so far..)



Me either. What happened was I swapped in some new mem to play with, that had previously given me issues on the gaming rig.

I tested it, everything passed, including other games, but Dirt3, for some reason, once it had crashed, got progessively worse, until I couldn't play the game at all..it would crash on startup.

Swapped in the known-good ram, things worked perfectly.

So, EasyRhino has some issues...noting that, I played around with clocks, and found the point, on my system, where isntability will cause issues, and all three, CPU/MEM, and GPU cloccks, can lead to this issue.


Would be nice to identify another cause for this, though.


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## Easy Rhino (May 31, 2011)

codemasters are codenoobs. lots of different work arounds but still no acknowledgment of the problems people are facing. the dirt 3 forums are filled with people having issues.


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> codemasters are codenoobs. lots of different work arounds but still no acknowledgment of the problems people are facing. the dirt 3 forums are filled with people having issues.



same with dirt 2, just buy it a month after release and someone will of worked out a fix to everything


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## Black Panther (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> i had a simler problem on dirt 2, i fixed it by going into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\hardwaresettings and deleting the config files, if dirt 3 works in a similer way (same engine isn't it?) then go into C:\Users\whateveryouraccountis\Documents\My Games\DiRT3\hardwaresettings and delete whatever config files dirt 3 sets up



Nothing doing.

If it can help, here's what I'm getting:



> Problem signature:
> Problem Event Name:	BlueScreen
> OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
> Locale ID:	1033
> ...


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

i google'd your BSOD, its a hardware error so it might be your o/c but its most likely to be sound drivers (reminding anyone of dirt 2)


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## swaaye (May 31, 2011)

The only problem I've had with DIRT 3 is with one race I got some serious stuttering. But that was one race out of probably 50 that I've done. No crashes or any other problems. (Radeon 6950, Phenom II X4)

I had no problems with DIRT 2. (8800GTX, Phenom II X4)


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 31, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> codemasters are codenoobs.



quite right there im 3 dirt games deep and not one has ever been patched so it Dosnt very randomly and ocassionally crash:shadedshu
 ,when ive got pc harmony goin on now, nowt crashes it bar dirt games, i thought 3 was sweet for 3 days i was laughin at me m8 and his crashes then bam 3 in a row  but noot really funny


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## EastCoasthandle (May 31, 2011)

I recall the replay.pbf causing problems for some in Dirt 2.  It was found in C:\ProgramData\Codemasters\game name\DataCache\replay\ if I recall.  What was happening was that the replay.pbf was suppose to be deleted when exiting that race but for some it was still there (a 2-3 Gig file).


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## Easy Rhino (May 31, 2011)

maybe im just a grumpy old man, but i refuse to try any of these workarounds. when i pay for a product i shouldnt have to spend my own damned time working on fixing it. fail. thankfully ive got other games i can play if i feel like it until codenoobs gets their crap together. beta minecraft runs better than dirt 3 lmao!


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## Black Panther (May 31, 2011)

Sorry guys, it was all my fault. I just remembered that I had down'd the voltage of my cpu around a month ago, just to see if Portal 2 ran.

I upped it up again a notch, and no more crashes, freezes or BSOD's...


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2011)

I _was_ pretty sure this specific issue is hardware-related, and your BSOD code confirmed it.

Now if only we could convince EasyRhino to check his OC.


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## Easy Rhino (May 31, 2011)

hrm, well your problem is different than mine. im pretty sure my problem is a software issue, not a hardware issue. we will see...


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> maybe im just a grumpy old man, but i refuse to try any of these workarounds. when i pay for a product i shouldnt have to spend my own damned time working on fixing it. fail. thankfully ive got other games i can play if i feel like it until codenoobs gets their crap together. beta minecraft runs better than dirt 3 lmao!



calm down it wasn't even the game is was her dodgy overclocks


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## Easy Rhino (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> calm down it wasn't even the game is was her dodgy overclocks



oh, im calm...too calm...

my issues are different than hers but similiar to untold hundreds of other users based on the dirt 3 forum reaction. 

regardless, paying 45 bucks for a game and then having to spend time fixing the issues for it is ridiculous. they should be paying me to fix their game


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> oh, im calm...too calm...
> 
> my issues are different than hers but similiar to untold hundreds of other users based on the dirt 3 forum reaction.
> 
> regardless, paying 45 bucks for a game and then having to spend time fixing the issues for it is ridiculous. they should be paying me to fix their game



seems like every games released as a rolling beta though, better to just wait 6 months and buy a working game for 1/4 of the price


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> oh, im calm...too calm...
> 
> my issues are different than hers but similiar to untold hundreds of other users based on the dirt 3 forum reaction.
> 
> regardless, paying 45 bucks for a game and then having to spend time fixing the issues for it is ridiculous. they should be paying me to fix their game



I dunno, to me, it's useful if it exposes hardware faults. Too many users don't validate thier clocks like I do, yet even so, this game did give me issues, even after my own rigorous OC testing.

I'm currently validating clock scaling with this app, to see if I should replace F1 2010 in my reviews...if it's a "system-killer", then it's one that might very well be very sensitive to clockspeed, so of course, that interests me greatly.

Personally, i think most of the crashing issues are stability ones, and I am near 80% convinced it's due to the Rature3D audio causing higher system utilization. Time will tell...back to review writing for me.


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> I dunno, to me, it's useful if it exposes hardware faults. Too many users don't validate thier clocks like I do, yet even so, this game did give me issues, even after my own rigorous OC testing.
> 
> I'm currently validating clock scaling with this app, to see if I should replace F1 2010 in my reviews...if it's a "system-killer", then it's one that might very well be very sensitive to clockspeed, so of course, that interests me greatly.
> 
> Personally, i think most of the crashing issues are stability ones, and I am near 80% convinced it's due to the Rature3D audio causing higher system utilization. Time will tell...back to review writing for me.



rapture caused 80% of dirt 2 problems so i'm sure its the same now


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## cadaveca (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> rapture caused 80% of dirt 2 problems so i'm sure its the same now



Sure, but you know what? I've NEVER had any issues with either Dirt2 or Dirt3, and Rapture3D. I had this crashing issue, but it was rectified by using stable ram, instead of the sticks I got here that I gotta now RMA.

And like I posted earlier, pushing clocks made this behavior appear, on the good ram, and GPU/CPU/MEM didn't matter...the crashes all appeared to be the same.

Take note...GPU CLOCKS...caused the same crash? Doesn't that kinda eliminate the audio portion of it?


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Take note...GPU CLOCKS...caused the same crash? Doesn't that kinda eliminate the audio portion of it?



it might...


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## Black Panther (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> calm down it wasn't even the game is was her dodgy overclocks



Excuse me, my overclocks aren't dodgy  If anything, my brain's dodgy for forgetting that I had experimented with my perfect oc 

_____

Anyway, I checked my bios and found my cpu voltage (in bios) being set at 1.2875V and I remembered it had to be 1.32V to be stable. 
Always in bios voltages though. CPU-Z always shows me much lower voltages.  (perhaps it's vdroop...)


Anyway, game never crashed again, I played over 10 multiplayer games now so I guess I'm ok.


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## Easy Rhino (May 31, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> seems like every games released as a rolling beta though, better to just wait 6 months and buy a working game for 1/4 of the price



save money since it is cheaper then AND save money on hardware buying older games


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## cheesy999 (May 31, 2011)

Black Panther said:


> Excuse me, my overclocks aren't dodgy  If anything, my brain's dodgy for forgetting that I had experimented with my perfect oc
> 
> _____
> 
> ...



in that case 'calm down it wasn't even the game it was her dodgy memory'

i'd play on dirt 3 but i don't have the money at the moment (dirt 2 ftw) and i'm not playing on line until i change my gfwl username


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## Black Panther (Jun 1, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> hrm, well your problem is different than mine. im pretty sure my problem is a software issue, not a hardware issue. we will see...



I was pretty sure mine was a software issue too 
Have you tried running the game with your Q9650 @ stock?


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 1, 2011)

Black Panther said:


> I was pretty sure mine was a software issue too
> Have you tried running the game with your Q9650 @ stock?



it works after the update. most of the people on the dirt3 forums were having software issues and since my pc was at stock clocks with the newest drivers i figured it was going to take a software patch (600megs!) to fix it. i was right.


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