Possible Fix for HL2 Sound Loop Crash

[12Iceman]

I decided to take a break from CS:S and loaded up HL2 and every time i tried to play after about 5-15 minutes the game would freeze and the last sound played would loop over and over. I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL and end the hl2.exe process in order to get back to desktop.

I searched google (didn't find anything that was usefull) and consulted the valve support article My games crash with sound looping over and over, usually no error messages which recommended I update all the drivers on my system (pretty much the we don't have a clue so try this approach). So I did what the article recommended, I upgraded my motherboard drivers (to nForce UDP 5.10), audio drivers (nForce Audio Driver 4.62) and video drives (Catalyst 5.10). I also fiddled with a bunch of cvars I found on google that were supposed to help (like -heapsize xxx), but no luck. The game still crashed.

Finally, I thought about why the game worked on my laptop (mobile 9700) and not my desktop (9600XT) and thought maybe since i was using the omega drivers on my laptop and the ati ones on my desktop that maybe the omega drivers somehow fixed the problem.

I remembered that I saw that the Omega Drivers defaulted to fast writes off and the ati ones defaulted to fast writes on, so I gave it a shot and turned off fast writes, and sure enough now my game works.

So to fix the problem, right click on desktop, go to properties, settings, advanced, SMARTGART, and set Fast Writes to off. Reboot, and now instead of the game freezing, the game will just slow down every once in a while for a few seconds and then speed back up again.

I can now play at 1280x1024 at max settings (but with AA and AF off) and get around 60 FPS average. This may not work for everyone, but so far it has seemed to fix my problem.

Edited October 15, 2005 by 12Iceman

[Cerebral_Kamikaze]

Were you getting the crash with the datacache.dll file being the file responsible? Or just a sound loop to crash error?

[12Iceman]

The game would freeze and the sound would just continue loop over and over again. I usually ended the process after waiting a couple minutes for the game to come back, but the one time i let it just sit there, it eventually crashed to desktop with a "Memory cannot be read" error.

Edit: The setting might be in a different spot if you are using the Catalyst Control Center, I was using the Control Panel. Just poke around the CCC and hopefully there will be a FASTGART option in their somewhere. It might also be possible to disable fast writes in your motherboard's bios.

Edited October 15, 2005 by 12Iceman

[thollian]

I don't see SMARTGART on video settings....(X800XT)

I get the datacache.dll crash all the time in DoD....its really annoying...

[bangbang023 Veteran]

I don't get this problem when I use 4.11's but do when I use any 5.x catalysts. Maybe tomorrow I'll try 5.10 again and turn off fast writes this time and see what happens.

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Just tried it and it did nothing. Started up DoD:S and as soon as I chose my weapon class, looping sound crash. Back to my good ole 4.11's.

[12Iceman]

I just confirmed that it does not fix the DOD:S problem, but HL2 now works when it didnt before. So if your problem was with HL2 and not DOD:S this may still help you. Otherwise, sorry to get you excited.

[ozgeek]

I have been having this problem which is why I am replacing my ****ty ATI Radoen X300 with a nVidia 7800GT.

With the X300, I would be playing ANY game, yes ANY game, and it would at random freeze and the sound loops and then my screen would change to blank and then scrambled and then back to the game, but the pc is frozen forcing me to restart the computer.

I know why: atimag.dll has ended up in an infinite loop and wants me to install new drivers which I have many times after un-installing the old drivers well enough. I went back to the drivers that came with the card. Still the same.

I can't disable Fast Writes because this card is PCI-E based. Fast Writes is for AGP cards. I searched all over the internet and the fixes always point to AGP cards and not PCI-E card which I have.

[Cerebral_Kamikaze]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but if you guys go to steam forums and look up "Sarkie" look him up and he's starting a debug of the datacache.dll

[6785077276]

Any new fixes for this?

To those with superiority complexes: Yes, I know this is an old topic.

[Chode]

No superiority complex, but you would have been better to start a new thread!