Certain games crashing to desktop, freezing
 

So I got a radeon 9800XT from my friend last year, and so far it's been running fine. It seems that in certain games, though, it's started freezing repeatedly. Splinter Cell 3, Beyond Good & Evil, and The Suffering 2 seem like the primary culprits.

Now, I never had problems whatsoever before I started playing The Suffering 2, but I reasoned with myself that it probably wasn't the graphics card, because I was using a cracked copy and running around starforce. So, when I started to get graphical corruption, crashes, and even a couple of reboots, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. I ran the starforce removal tool and figured I'd be done with it.

But now my legit copies of Splinter Cell 3, Morrowind, and Beyond Good & Evil are freezing, then continuing the game, and finally crashing to desktop if I don't exit the game immediately. I don't have any graphics corruption, and thank god no reboots yet, but I'm wondering if it's just that the batch of games that I've been playing isn't gelling with my hardware setup, or if graphics-heavy games are causing my card to overheat.

The thing is, I wouldn't think of Suffering 2, Beyond Good & Evil, or Morrowind as graphics-intensive. I haven't heard all of them having a reputation for being buggy, either. Just Morrowind. And other games, like Battlefield 2, Black & White, Half-Life 2, and Neverwinter Nights don't seem to give me any trouble.

Here's my specs:
athlon 64 2800+
2gb PQI ram
Radeon 9800XT
western-digital 80 gig HDD
western-digital 120 gig HDD
ASUS DVD-rw
Lite-on DVD rom

I do only have one exhaust fan on my case right now, and I am running those 2 HDDs and 2 DVD drives, so I guess it's possible it's a heating issue. Any other thoughts?

It sounds like a Starforce issue to me. In case you didn't know, this type of copy protection can seriously gum-up your system and have an adverse effect on many other games and system performance (as it integrates itself with your system and runs even when a Starforce title is not being played.) Depending on how various other games use your hardware/software Starforce might also be attempting to "protect itself" by crashing/locking up your system.

You can read up on this here and a list of protectd titles can be found here (including The Suffering: Ties That Bind).

Edit: God, i'm an idiot, why do I even try?

Morrowind not graphical-intense?

Okay.

I think your card just overheats.

Overheating cards usually show some heavy-duty graphics corruption before spitting a blue screen at you. From what you've said I'd go with Grawl's idea. Try to set your computer in a well ventilated zone with the cover off.

Last time this stuff happened to me, it turned out it was just a shitload of dust clogging all the fans and exhausts in my case.

I took it apart and dusted everywhere and it worked like a charm.

Well, being 3 years old and having an engine far older than that (they started production after Daggerfall, didn't they?) I just kinda assumed.

But the other thing is that games like Half-Life 2 and Battlefield 2 aren't giving me the same problems. I'll check out the case, though, and see what I can manage for it.

Could be memory-related too. Use memtest to see if it works.

Are you also sure your drivers are up-to-date?

I've been checking ATI's site repeatedly since I started having problems, and I had up-to-date drivers until they released the recent ones in april. I've downloaded them but haven't installed them yet.

I'd never heard of memtest before, so I'll check it out. It's unlikely that it's the memory at fault, though, since some of these games were giving me problems before I bought it.

I installed the new graphics card drivers, this time installing the control software with it, and my GPU is reporting a steamy 89 degrees C after I had to restart from playing Tomb Raider Legend.

I guess what I need is another fan, but I've heard placing them on opposite ends of the case creates a vacuum, which defeats the purpose of air cooling. Is there any truth to that?

Try cleaning the fans first. 5 dollar can of compressed air + 5 minutes of work >>> 15-20 dollar fan, that may not solve the problem, and needs a good 15-20 minutes to install, and takes up a plug from your power supply. =\