Before I start, I will say that this thread has NOTHING to do with a power failure or house power-outage. Thank you for your cooperation.


Well, just today I was using the CryEngine2 SandBox2 level editor, and all of a sudden the screen goes black.
I try to hit the Windows key, nothing.
Alt+Tab, nothing.
Control+Shift+Esc (Task manager)
Nothing.

Finally I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete and it comes up with the Windows screen asking what I want to do.
I click in task manager and then I close out SandBox 2, I think then, it went black again. Switch back to task manager, close out SandBox 2 from there, and then the screen goes black again, then after SB2 closes, the screen goes back to normal.

Since this game/level editing software requires High-Graphic and system memory, and is both a CPU and GPU hog, it is possible my Graphics processor stopped responding to display commands from the driver?  Either, way, it scared me.

I actually thought my GPU had fried or something, I'm taking as many precautions I can to save my GPU from SITUATIONS like this.

If anybody knows what this could have been caused by, please post your answer here, and what I can do to prevent this.

Thanks!

I've also had a situation like this where the display in the viewpoint messed up, where the shaders and lighting quit, and I just saw white spots floating around at random positions. And the screen was more in a grey-tone.

As I was saying, if anybody can think  of the cause(s) of this, please tell me here!
Thanks to you all!   A overheating graphics card can cause this issue, especially if the sound of the program continues in the background.
My HD 4870 can overheat when my fan dust filter gets blocked and I am in a hot environment.
The game i am playing will freeze on the screen, go black, but I can still 'play' eg still shoot the gun in Modern Warfare 2 and such.
After the card has cooled sufficiently the card kicks back in and it can run stable, of course it wil just heat up again.

Do you notice the fan get louder with use?If you're able to get out to the desktop with Ctrl Alt Del, then it most likely isn't a heat problem, as it would not display anything until it cooled sufficiently. It wouldn't selectively choose what to show. Most like, it's either a driver issue or problem with the editor. If it has only happened once, I wouldn't worry about it.

I take it you're not having trouble playing GAMES, just with Sandbox? Quote from: quaxo on July 20, 2010, 01:34:49 AM

If you're able to get out to the desktop with Ctrl Alt Del, then it most likely isn't a heat problem, as it would not display anything until it cooled sufficiently. It wouldn't selectively choose what to show. Most like, it's either a driver issue or problem with the editor. If it has only happened once, I wouldn't worry about it.

I take it you're not having trouble playing games, just with Sandbox?

Nope.

Then what do I do!? 

I thought this was a help forum, not a topic just for information!!!

-_- 

Before I start, I will say that this thread has NOTHING to do with a power failure or house power-outage. Thank you for your cooperation.

Then what do I do!? 

I thought this was a help forum, not a topic just for information!!!

-_- 

sandbox2 is known to be unstable on certain (many!) platforms. Especially 32 bit ones. I see a lot of fancy yellow highlight and font trickery and no details of hardware/OS

sandbox2 is known to be unstable on certain (many!) platforms.

Like I said,

No OS details, I see. I presume that with 8 GB of RAM you are not running a 32 bit OS. That would be foolish. Are you using Crossfire? If you have a separate graphics card, why are you setting aside nearly 1 GB of RAM for onboard graphics?

sandbox2 is known to be unstable on certain (many!) platforms.

I'm sorry, I have an Nvidia GTS 250 GPU hooked up to the PCI-E port I believe, Its a one in a slot, so obviously its not onboard.

And the GPU has on it 1003 MB of DDR3 type memory, I think I believe it was.

My OS is Windows 7, if you ever looked on the left(!) side of the forum where User Information is put aside.
It is x64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate.