Can a game screw up your PC?
 

I used to play this game, on my laptop, when it was still Windows8. It was the only computer I had that would play the game ("The Saboteur", appropriately). But it would crash... quite often... but not often enough to put me off loading right up again... because it was such a really good game. But it wasn't just your normal ctd... the pc would switch right off.

And then a couple of times, when it came back on, I got a message saying that the computer was "repairing" itself. "Not good", I thought... "Not good at all". The second time this happened the laptop just died and had to have a complete reinstall. I've never tried running that game since... I don't dare to because (despite what I've read) I believe that it damaged my computer. That laptop is Win10 now so probably wouldn't run it anymore... that's happened with a number of games but that's another story. Can a video game screw up your pc?

I could imagine two scenarios possible, one of which I have experienced myself.


Games as well as OS, are code. And whenever new code - from swap files or for save game files - gets written to HD or SD, there is a tiny, a very small and very tiny chance that the writing goes wrong and an essential amount of bytes from something gets overwritten. I have had that in the days of of manually installing a lot of stuff for FS 2000 and with Windows 98SE. Also, I have experienced that some synchronising or file writing to HD for a Steam game chnaged the sinstallation files that were not to be chanbged. A repair via Steam file verification usually finds that out. It does not happen often, it is rare, it is not the rule - but yes, it seldomly can happen, absolutely. I would expect to see it happening less often with SDs than HDs, since a HD is mechanical, has mechancial moving parts and thus has a certain amount of friction that needs to be expected, but I am not sure on how likely that is.

The other risk, also not bvig but technically possible, is that a game heats CPU or GPU and the temp in short time goes thorugh the ceiling. I can see that happening with randomised spawning mods for Fallout 4, which I therefore use only hesitently anbd wioth low settings despite my strong hardware - the working temps usually are - no water cooling - between 72 and 78 ° for five core andf the sixth core scratching shgort of the 80° mark. With these mods affecting the temps however I found that the temps in all cores bary in the rangre of 85 and 90°, which is too risky for my taste, and so I switched that stuff off again. And who knows what temp the GPU then already has...

Its nothing to be too alarmed about, since the hardware shoulod nowadays have auto-brake safety thropttleiong down CPU prefrences when the tmep gets really cirtical. But I think it is good advise not to push it just becasue so far you got away with it. Heat is most likely affecting the durability of your components.

So, yes, I would think a game can damage your hardware or your software installations including the OS. But the chance of it is such that it would usually not be my first guess as a cause for any problems I suddenly face.

Software btw can also malfunction due to software error or RAM problem or whatever. The perfect, flawless, always failsafe piec eof code so far has not been invented.

What goes up, must come down. What got assembled, will break apart again. What was build will get destroyed again. Software and hardware, biologcial and machinery, chemcial agents, genetic codifications - everything. :D


Edit: P.S. Avoid having your drive defragging while files get written to it due to playing a game. Theoretically modfern OS and mutlitaksign shoukld be able to keep both things separate, but in practice there is a certain, small risk that the data handling gets "hickups" and writes the right thigns into the wrong place, or corrupts data structures. I prefer to have the machine left to itself and alone when it does such stuff. Also, defragging can cause stuttering game performance. Must not alway be, but can happen.

Thanks very much for that, Sky :):salute:

EDIT: I'm going to start editing my post like a teacher might have done once upon a time!


Going from DOS to Windows 95, most computer-illiterate people would just turn off the computer...


This led to many corrupted/hosed/fragged/dead (pick any one you want ladies and gentleman, we got penty of terms!) Win95 installs...


As no one was allowing the system to write the last of the data to the hard drive before shutting down.


Same thing can occur when the system unexpectedly loses power.
Either do to power outage, power supply getting switched off, or most likely in your case, overheating.
EDIT: "Either" implies one (1) of two (2) items, not one (1) of three (3)!



If it happens enough the drive's data can get corrupted. Can also, on some older drives lead to the read/write head contacting the disk surface causing physical damage
(although I haven't heard of this in years).


Most likely what occured in your case.
EDIT: REDUNDANT

I knew someone that had a laptop that was capable of running a few really good games.
But the manufacturer made (a) massive mistake(s) in the design of the case when it came to cooling.
As a result, he couldn't play them for very long if it wasn't freezing outside!

Barracuda


EDIT: B-

Thanks, buddy. This laptop does tend to overheat when things get a bit hectic on the gaming side. Fortunately most games will play on my big monster desktop, but there are one or two which it won't entertain... usually because they don't like the graphics card. Maybe that game caused it to run extra hot

Most likely, Games requires the graphics card to be put to work which generates heat and in a laptop that's a match made in hell as most of them have poor to inadequate cooling which will result in the components hitting their temperature treshold pretty easy and forces the laptop to shut down to prevent damage.

If temperatures get to high in a desktop that's just a matter of opening the case, clean out the dust and if needed replace the thermal paste on the CPU and/or GPU. A laptop however again that's a nightmare unless you know your way around it. If there's a lot of dust in and around the fan entries and fan blades it might be worth a shot but I would suggest to see if there's a work around for that game of yours to be played on that desktop of yours.

Does that game have a forum? Perhaps its worth asking if anyone is having the same issue with their graphics card and the game not working and maybe knows a way to fix it.

Thank you, Hunter... this must be the problem (overheating). And I've visited forums or parts of forums dedicated to this game and it seems to be a nightmare for everyone, with crashes etc. That's where I discovered it doesn't like my Radeon card... so it just won't run on my desktop, even though that's XP.

Thanks for all your help. fellas :salute:

I just had me a great idea: take the laptop out to the car, start the car then play the game with the air con switched on :Kaleun_Salute::Kaleun_Applaud::Kaleun_Cheers:

NOW you're thinking like a true GAMER.


It doesn't matter where you are, as long as you can play.:haha:


Barracuda