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Video games locking up


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#1
dflo404

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Hey all. I recently got this new laptop about a month or so ago (Dell XPS M140), and it uses Windows XP Media Center addition.

There are two games in particular that I am having trouble with. They are City of Heroes, and The Sims 2. These games lock up every once in a while when I play them, and the entire computer freezes all together. If I try to fiddle around with Ctrl. Alt. Delete, I eventually get brought back to my desktop with my resolution and color set to an extremly low level, and a warning pop up telling me that something went wrong with my graphics, and my computer has to be reset.

So now it has just come down to me resetting the computer right away whenever the games lock up. And I know this cannot be good, and it is very annoying.

I've come to realize that before I play these particular games, it helps to lower my screen resolution to 1024 by 768 (the default resolution is 1280 by 800 widescreen). When I do so before I play the games, they both run a little bit smoother, but still lock up, just not as often.

I've tried updating my graphics card several times and there has been no updates available since I got this computer. Could this simply just be a problem between my computer resolution and my game resolutions? Is this simply just a problem with my compatability with my games? This computer is sapposed to be top notch for media, but it doesn't seem to be meeting up to it's standards, concidering it has difficulty running games that my old Dell Inspiron 8200 ran perfectly fine with.
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#2
SuperSam

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What is the complete specs of the laptop, and what is the Graphics card on the laptop?

Also, remember most laptops arent built for gaming, its more desktops which have more power and fast processors as they arent mobility. Some laptops use a power save function, when you remove the power cord, some laptops clock down the processor speed to save battery, I will look into your laptop make to see if it does this. Also have your laptop on a flat wooden surface to keep the air vents open for the fans to breathe, which will cool your processor. Having a hot processor can cause lock ups / resets / drop in computer speed. Having up to date drivers on things can also affect how they work. If your Graphics card is either an ATi Radeon or an nVidia GeForce, please consider switching drivers to omegadrivers: www.omegadrivers.net. I have an ATi Radeon 9800XT which was boosted performance wise with these drivers.
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#3
SuperSam

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From looking at the dell site it seems the Laptop is a reasonable spec. The Graphics is an ATi Mobility Radeon 9000 (64MB) on an AGP 4x Bus. I may be talking trash to you, but this just means you can use the omega drivers.

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ < the site
http://www.driverhea...ga_38221_7z.exe < The download link.
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#4
dflo404

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Ok thanks for the links. No you arent talking trash to me :tazz: I understand what you mean. I'm going to give this download a shot but I won't be testing out the games untill tommorow. I'll let you know how it goes.
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#5
dflo404

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Ok, I gave the download a shot and it didn't seem to help at all. I tried playing again today and it just happened again. What am I to do now?
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