PING, CoolJ.. gamers..

[EvilAjax]

I dunno why my games crash when I'm playing... it stops responding... well, not really.. It just exits all of a sudden... What is that? Why does it happen? I have Windows XP with DirX8.1 and have 192MB RAM, Nvidia Aladdin TNT2 video card (has drivers XP came with)... CMI8738 sound card... PING, you seem to know your gaming stuff... what could be the problem?

Thanks

[Immortal]

is it for all the games or one game in particular?

[EvilAjax]

All...

[Joe]

I couldnt tell you off hand but my best guess is that its direct X 8.1 or XP

Id grab the win 2K version of dx 8a

Does it happen in OGL as well?

give me a few examples of the games.

[EvilAjax]

Max Payne, Need for speed Porshe Unleashed.. that's all I have right now.. but before formatting I had more and they didn't work neither. Only one not to crash was HL-CS. Any ideas? You think it could be the DirectX? Not my vid card or anything? It plays videos just fine... damn

[Joe]

try to install the latest 2K direct X or try to run those games in open gl

[EvilAjax]

open gl?

[Joe]

its a rendering method or rather an interface...

Most games such as half life give you choices... Direct 3d (directx) - Open GL - or software (no video accel)

[EvilAjax]

Just downloaded detonator XP 21.81 for my TNT2 Vid card.. rebooting now.. I hope this works :(

[EvilAjax]

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=windows2000

Here's where I got it from :) Be right back.

[EvilAjax]

Okay.. there are some weird settings here in display properties now that I've downloaded the latest drivers for my vid card. In the Settings tab>Advanced tab > to additional properties... here are the settings crap..

Performance and Compatibilty Options
Enable Buffer region extension - Checked
All the dual planes extensionto use local video memory - Checked
Use fast linear-mipmap-linear filtering - unchecked
Disable Support for enhanced CPU instruction sets - unchecked
Use unified back/depth buffer - Checked
Enable Quadbuffer stereo API - Unchecked
Enable Overlays - Unchecked

Default Color Depth for textures: Use desktop color depth
Buffer Flipping Mode: Auto-Select
Vertical Sync: On by default
Anistropic Filtering: Disabled (these are changeable options)

Up to 5MB <that is changeable of system memory for textures in PCI mode.

Custom Open GL settings
NO IDEA WHAT TO DO HERE...
http://www.dabros.com/images/evil/nvidia.jpg
And this is only the Open GL settings... sheesh :(

Maybe these settings can fix the problem?

[Joe]

Well do your games still crash?

Leave all of that alone unless Full Screen AA is on (turn it off)

also turn off V-Sync if its on (its a pulldown.. make it disabled)

[EvilAjax]

Now instead of crashing.. it froze :(
I'll try with V sync off

[Loots]

The probs could be the drivers.The newest detonators are made for Geforce 3.The ones made for TNT2 are i think 6.81 but they maybe don´t match XP.Kinky.

[Loots]

Forgot to add,have you checked the IRQ-settings?This is something i´m not sure about what´s what in XP but these settings sometimes screw things up.You MIGHT have to adjust them, just an idea.

[EvilAjax]

I got rid of those stupid detonator drivers and went back to the old ones. Game started freezing again, I think maybe caused from the stupid detonator.. so I uninstalled it then reinstalled it. Game still crashes though :(

I uninstalled it and forgot I deleted the directory.. LOL
Now I'm without Max Payne *wink**wink* cough! can you hook a fellow speed guider up?? cough! *wink**wink*

Ahem.. sorry about that.. Um.. yeah. Damn... I haven't tried other games yet.. Crap... Dunno what game to download yet.... Why am I talking to myself?................

[YeOldeStonecat]

Det 4 and Det XP drivers do not work well for pre-GeForce cards, the latest official ones that worked well for pre-GeForce cards were 6.41's...which won't do the job for Windoze XP. For once you're better off sticking with XP's built in crappy microsoft drivers.

192 megs isn't very sufficient for XP...barely enough for 2K, I can't stand 2K on any rig under 256 megs of RAM, I don't care if it's a 2 giger rig, can't imagine XP on that little.

As for backing up to the old DX 8.0....it's a general rule of thumb you don't go backwards with core components of your operating system.

[Joe]

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
Det 4 and Det XP drivers do not work well for pre-GeForce cards, the latest official ones that worked well for pre-GeForce cards were 6.41's...which won't do the job for Windoze XP. For once you're better off sticking with XP's built in crappy microsoft drivers.

192 megs isn't very sufficient for XP...barely enough for 2K, I can't stand 2K on any rig under 256 megs of RAM, I don't care if it's a 2 giger rig, can't imagine XP on that little.

As for backing up to the old DX 8.0....it's a general rule of thumb you don't go backwards with core components of your operating system.

Where have you been?

I "ran" 2K on a P2 350 w/ 128MB of ram no problems at all.

And Now with a 450 and 192MB of ram flawlessly...

As for the drivers.... HUH? 6.41? The best pre Det 4 drivers are the 10.80 or the 12.xx depending on who you talk to.

I should know because Ive used every single Det 3 made as well as a few pre det 3.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by PING


Where have you been?

I "ran" 2K on a P2 350 w/ 128MB of ram no problems at all.

And Now with a 450 and 192MB of ram flawlessly...

As for the drivers.... HUH? 6.41? The best pre Det 4 drivers are the 10.80 or the 12.xx depending on who you talk to.

I should know because Ive used every single Det 3 made as well as a few pre det 3.

Where have I been? Uhm, networking and computers is what I do all day long for a living..for years, so I've been right along side of it since 2K NFR was released to VARs and not public yet. And building high end gaming rigs on the side....for years. Building servers for public gaming cohosting and some pretty big LAN parties. But as a demanding user, I like performance. What is good for someone else isn't always acceptable for me. I'm sure 2K on 64 megs if "OK" for some peeps, one of my backup workstations that I just reformatted a couple of weeks ago at the office is a PII 450 with 192 megs, but I couldnt sit down at it all day long, I really don't like 2K on anything less than 256 megs....(preferably 512). NT 4 Workstation was tough on unless it was on at least 256 megs, 2K (which is really just NT 5) more bloated, so naturally it's required ram to be snappy will be higher. I don't care if you're on a P4 2 giger...you still need RAM. XP...really being NT Workstation version 6.0....isn't any lighter in its RAM requirements. I'm not one to believe in the side of the box that says "Minimum system requirements"....it's good to at least triple what that says.

As for the Det drivers....notice I said "Official"...and the last official pre-Det 4 drivers (meaning Det 3) were 6.41 I believe. I found best performance to be in the 7.xx range for Det3...but wouldn't recommend trying those in XP. Det 4 drivers often hurt the performance for non-GF3 cards, (meaning TNT variants), based on all the benchmarks I read. And yes I consider Det 4 drivers to start at 10.80...officially with 12.60, but Det 4 really came out for GF3 cards, and I remember seeing only GF2s benefit from those, GF1s were marginal.

[PitDemon]

I went through about a month and a half where I couldnt play ANY online games.The pings were in the thousands and sometimes in the tens of thousands!I finally got them to send a guy out and the day before he showed up, the damn thing cleared up and i pinged in the 40-130 range!Then i was happy so i called the guy off.The line kept getting worse and worse until im back in the same situation.Now my ISP wants me to document the problem from my end!Now I have to go to the cable company and argue with them face-to-face I guess.It just seems like the second you mention gaming they treat you like youre not worth worrying about.Oyeah, DSLreports says i have a consistent time-out on the sixth hop from my computer, and the first hop is usually 2-10% latency.Any ideas for my great argument?

[PitDemon]

Sorry about the whacked reply!Wrong post!Anyways check to see if the card is heating up too bad.That lockup could be heat.Also some of the drivers have an overclocking option that you might want to check and make sure its disabled.If the card doesnt have a fan,they make a case fan that fits in a PCI slot you can plug right in underneath the vid-card.This may seem trivial,but some boards are more susceptible to heat tham others,and playin FPS games like halflife and quake will make alot of heat from all the rendering.Get that air movin if it aint!If you cant get a fan real fast,try setting a house-fan behind the case blowing outwards.Its all worth a try.The site for that fan is : www.overclockwarehouse.com