[rufugee]

I installed a dual-boot of Vista so I could install Steam and play BioShock. I'd love Steam if it didn't crash every twenty minutes or so. Granted, it could be Vista...I had problems with Call of Duty 4 as well.

I really, really wish a gaming virtual machine would catch on. Of course it won't because it would defeat platform lock-in, but one can dream, right? Rebooting Ubuntu into Windows just to catch a 30 minute break gets old fast.

[CaptainZapp]

It does sound like a hardware problem. It could, however, also be the game, which is corrupt.

Fret not, there's an app^H^H^H solution for that:

- Right click the game in your games list - Select properties - Select "local files" tab - Click "Check integrity of game cache" (or so)

This can take some time, but will re-download corrupted game components. I ususally have to do this with Dirt, when it dies ungracefully on me.

[wwortiz]

I don't have a problem with the dual boot thing because I only play games like once every other day or so, but I am almost certain something is wrong if steam is crashing so much (I can't say anything about cod4 but I do own bioshock) as I haven't had it crash for almost a year.

[gridspy]

It sounds very likely that you have faulty ram (use Memcheck) or an overheating graphics card. It could also be an old Motherboard BIOS.

I say this because I have had the same thing (crashing games) on my own computers and eventually traced it to those causes.