Quake, Halflife, no run; Unreal OK?

[AuraEdge]

PII 350, 64 RAM, Creative NVidia Riva TNT, SB Live! Value, DirectX 6
About 2 seconds into Quake II or Halflife, everything freezes up (I tryed all resoulutions, and software and default OpenGL drivers) Nothing worked!! Strangly everything worked under Unreal...Any ideas?

[Bleeding Edge]

You got your system running alright now [from previous posts]? Sure would like to know what resolved the video problem.

Do you patch all your games? I presume SBL's drivers are fully updated.

Did you check DirectX Files under DXDiag for errors? There's a folder for in Program Files folder or access it from SystemTools/SystemInformation/Tools

Try overriding the refresh rate under the More Help tab. To something like 85hz. Games seem to like this.

Haven't had any problem at 100hz.

[AuraEdge]

Yep...sorry never replkyed to the other thread...something really stupid (as i suspected). I installed the ABIT drivers wrong... I didnt know u need to soft boot..I did it right from windows...thinkin i installed them. I feel stupid for wastin all your time on somethin so simple.
Anyways...I havent overclocked anything on this computer (yet ) I just want everything to be running smoothly first. I have 6.0..and theres a 6.1 of DirectX out. So after I download that and install it i will try again. I would expect Unreal to stall before Quake II cuz its so much more requirement sapping. Well..Well see
I checked..I didnt recieve any errors. I will try to run it without any other programs running (antivirus, SB Live tools, TNT tools getright etc.). Maybe its a conflict in programs..? who knows...
Anyways Thanks alot. You really helped me though the first phase of my problems (yea I mail abit and I get a cheezy automated response =P ) After I try all these things I'll report back.

[Bleeding Edge]

About the refresh rate in the post above...

That's just the monitor refresh rate adjustment for when a call to DirectX is made. Such as from games. The default rate is below 70hz which causes a flickering effect. When a directx game is started, even if your TNT's normal refresh rate for the monitor is at the optimal setting (under Adapter Settings,) directx will change that to the lower refresh rate unless you prevent it from doing so by typing in the overriding value.

I like to keep the value the same as my optimal setting through out.

I can't praise you enough for getting the system to run smoothly first -Wise!

I have at least a dozen full-install games (all patched immediately) that runs without any hitches. All 3D accelerated -Yummy!

But before I installed any apps, I took the time to make certain the OS and hardware was purring happily.

I've come across couple games that would crash and where the publisher offered no worth while patches. Those games I just trash and accept the loss. It's a worth while trade off in order to keep the system stable.

I do the same for regular apps. Anything that misbehaves and no patch is offered -For get it!

None of the highend apps give me trouble.

One thought though. If there's nothing preventing you from getting Win98 do so now before you feel like you invested too much time. Even if you do feel that way, don't let it stop you from install Win98.

Really.

[AuraEdge]

Hmm I just got DirectX 6.1
Still neither of the programs work
I have my monitor settings to 1024x768 @ 75Hz
I didnt do any DirectX overriding or such...Should it help?
When i play Halflife or Quake 2 it freezes up like 2 seconds into it and effect sounds repeat (like a broken record) Background music still plays normal (from CD) and the game is frozen at that frame. I cant Alt tab out or Alt ctrl Del
As before, Unreal works fine (spectactularly I might add) even in 32 bit 1024x768. Starcraft also works fine, but has no 3d so im guessing thats the core of the problem...something with 3d or 3d drivers.
Im just learning as I go along, Im not really experienced at all at this technical stuff and again I appreciate your help very much.

[Bleeding Edge]

You did't say if you patched those games or not. You gotta do this.

The sound loops are caused by conflicts and incompatabilities between the sound card driver and a game.

Updating the driver usaully always helps.

Individual game patches often address these issues and more.

I was using two different sound cards at one time. One was the based on the Aureal vortex A3D and the other, which I'm using now, is the Sound Blaster Live.

As with both cards the drivers needed updating. With the A3d card, sound loops were experienced under Unreal. That was a while ago. A driver update cured that.

Some games needed the patch to address other issues.

[AuraEdge]

Yep...I patched em..sorry forgot to mention it..Quake 2 v3.20 (newest) and halflife..through auto update. I have SB Live Value.
I also have the lastest drivers for SB live (4.05.1033) and the detonator TNT drivers.
sometimes i get about 5 seconds into the game before it freezes, and sometimes i can do no more than make a 90 degree turn before it freezes.
Again, Edge, youve been a great help. No other tech expert (Online or phone or otherwise) is this freindly in my 1 1/2 years of computer experience. Thank you.

[Bleeding Edge]

Did you read this yet? It's from the Knowledge Base.


Game locks up when launching single player game.

When launching a single-player game, Half-Life tries to start an Internet connection to connect to WON.NET in the background. This locks up the game.


Solution
Create a shortcut or disable the auto-connect


Create a shortcut on the desktop and modify the properties:
1. Right-click in the middle of the desktop and choose New\Shortcut.
2. Click on Browse.
3. Choose the C: drive for Look In at the top of that window.
4. Double-click on the Sierra folder and then on the Halflife folder.
5. Then double-click on the HL.EXE or HL file listed there (it will appear with the
Half-Life logo icon).
6. Click on the Next button and type Halflife Single Player.
7. Click Finish.
8. Right-click on that Halflife Single Player icon that is now on the desktop
and choose Properties.
9. In the Shortcut tab at the end of the Target file add -noip 0 (it should read
"C:\SIERRA\HALFLIFE\HL.EXE -noip 0" (minus N O I P space zero).
10. Click Okay and use this icon to launch Half-life for single player games.

Alternately, disable the auto-connection in Internet Properties. To do this:

1. Click on Start, go to Settings, and choose Control Panel.
2. Double-click on Internet.
3. Choose the Connection tab and choose "Connect to Internet using local
area network" Note: In older versions of Internet Explorer un-check
"connect to internet as needed" instead.


http://www.sierra.com/support/

[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 03-25-99).]

[AuraEdge]

I just did what you told me to do. No go...same exact thing happened. With the broken-record effect, it froze again couple frames into the game. Im guessing its either a video card or sound card problem. I attempted to install the Creative Riva TNT driver for bios update. It said to use a -d command to unzip. Do i need to soft boot for that? when I did it from Softboot, it just restarted. When I did it from MS dos prompt inside windows, it said it wasnt a valid win32 application. Could that be the problem? Im so oblivious to whats going on that Ill try just about anything.

[Bleeding Edge]

Updating the BIOS for the video card is similar to updating the motherboard BIOS.

1) Make a bootable floppy:
Insert blank floppy in a: drive
At command prompt (win DOS promt) type: FORMAT A: /S

2) Extract all files from the downloaded file to a:

Note:
In your case it asking to extract it with the -d (dash and d key)option. "The name of the file followed by a space then the -d." This unzips the file, recreating the original directory structure of that file

3) Reboot to floppy to flash bios

4) Remove floppy and reboot


[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 03-26-99).]

Looking over your post again, Ithought it might be helpful to point out that if you don't have an unzipping utility you'll have to use the "extract" command from Dos Prompt. You would type:

extract <the path to where the file is and the name of the file> <-d> A: (for the destination)

[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 03-26-99).]

[AuraEdge]

I did just that. It just replyed with a simple "File isnt a cabinet file"
And another intresting note. On 3d Mark max, When I run the demo (even on 640x480) It crashes. First time it ran for about 20 seconds
second time around it only ran about 10 seconds into it.
It seems the only 3d game that works ok was unreal. Ill get Total Annihilation back this weekend...(never ran good on my old 1MB of video ram, so let my friend borrow it til I got a new comp, the one I have now).
Ill see if that works....
Also, when I got repairs (mostly to put the new comp together from the parts), The guy reported a weak power supply, (It shorted or something on the test run, and wouldnt turn on, but when tryed again a minute later, after trying a spare one he had handy (which worked), it worked fine again. We concluded it was a weak power signal. I doubt this problem would be game specific. I will now post a message onto the videocard board to see if anyone else had problems extracting the gbrtbios.exe file (grafix blaster Riva TNT Bios update). Ill be on a little raodtrip with friends this weekend. Ill be back sunday night. Ill cya.

[Bleeding Edge]

My mistake. I gave you instructions to extract .cab files. Sorry.

Here's the correct way:

This assumes gbrtbios.exe is placed directly under the C drive.
The path name being: C:\gbrtbios.exe
AND
You are unzipping the file to a bootable diskette inserted in the floppy drive.

Start MS DOS Prompt.

Type: cd\
Press the Enter key

Type: gbrtbios.exe -d a:
Note that there is a space before and after -d
Press enter

Answer Y to extract files.

[Butte]

I have to admit, from the posts I have seen from Bleeding he seems to be one of the nicest folks that posts on here.

Now for the problem. I don'tknow if this might have anything to do with it but I had a problem with Descent and it was my Energy Monitor settings. Seems that when it got to a certain screen something would kick into sleep mode and it would lock up so I disabled all the sleep options and haven't had a problem since. I don't know if this might have anything to do with your problem. Just a WAG, wild assed guess.

Mark

[Bleeding Edge]

Yeah..Power management is better disabled, especially from within the Bios but in Windows also.

There's no doubt about that

[AuraEdge]

Hey Im back...
Hmm..I didnt even think about that. Since it locks up in the begining could that possibly be it? I would think it would lock up 10 minutes in or whatever you have Energy saver set to. Its off in windows, and I will check BIOS later.. Thanks again.
BTW, Bleeding, When I just tryed to do that last thing you told me to do (wit the .EXE file to make onto a boot disk) I got an illegal error. I thought maybe the file was busted, so i re-DL'ed it with no avail. The file had to be working because it was from the people at Creative Labs themselves....Hmm I wonder...