fromage99 wrote:Hi thanks for the reply. My driver supports Assassin's Creed 3 (Nvidia 310.22). I think that it may be RAM running out or an overheating problem. I noticed my available RAM was really low (853mb). How do you monitor computer heat?
Anyways, I'll update my driver when I have the time. I'll consider upgrading my video card (receipt got destroyed, so no replacement possible), but should I wait until May to buy one? There doesn't seem to be many deals right now.
You said you haven't modified your system since your move, and from what I understood about your post is that you are playing the same games as before but with lower performance, correct? If that's the case, RAM shouldn't be an issue if it was working fine before. Not unless the game itself had some major updates that crossed the line of what your GPU was capable of.
As for overheating, you can use BIOS to monitor general system temps. Most modern motherboards also have a CPU temp sensor that plugs into the board and the sensor wire goes between the CPU and the fan to offer more precise temp monitoring. But even if your board doesn't have that feature, you can still check BIOS for a fairly accurate system temp as well as monitor the fan speeds of any fans plugged into the board's fan plugs.
Some GPU also feature a temp and fan monitor as part of their management software.
A good indication that the issue is due to GPU overheating is that graphics appear fine for a while after you boot the PC and run a game, but after the game is running a while it starts to tard out. If the overheating is bad enough, your GPU will actually tell your PC to shut down for safety reasons, so you'll see your PC turn off without any warning. No "shut down", just a straight power-down. This is most likely to happen if your GPU fan is dead or failing badly enough that it can't cool your GPU below threshold.
One way you can check, keep the side cover off of your case. Have your PC shut down for a while so that it's completely cooled down, then boot it up and let it run idle on the desktop for about 20-30 minutes. Reach inside the case and place your fingers on the GPU heatsink and feel the temp level at idle. Then fire up your game and run it normally for another 15-20 minutes and feel the heatsink again. If it doesn't feel too hot and the graphics aren't glitching out, keep running the game until it does glitch. Once you start seeing graphics issues, feel the heatsink again. If it's lava hot, you're probably overheating. At that point, you'll want to check that the GPU fan is actually running, and that it's moving at a "normal" speed without making a lot of noise. If the fan isn't running, or is running very slowly or at irregular speeds, then your GPU fan might need replaced.
If your GPU fan is shot, check for replacement costs from places like ebay or Tigerdirect. You can usually get a replacement for a lot less than a whole new graphics card.
