Power User Needs Help with Game Stability

Mon May 05, 2003 10:07 pm by jpsempire

Please take some time to read the following system specs...

< Hardware >
Processor: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 8 735 MHz Stepping 3
Math Support: On Chip
BIOS: Award Software 08/01/00

Bus Type: PCI,ISA,USB,AGP
Ports: 1 Parallel, 2 Serial
Memory: 384 MB (32% Utilized)
Floppy Disks: 1.44 MB
Hard Disks: 28.64 GB
Multimedia: Sound, Joystick, CD-ROM
Video: 1024x768 in 64K Colors, NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 Ver. 4.0
Video RAM: 64 MB on board
Drivers: 4.13.01.4109 (tried latest, failed)

< Operating System >
Windows: 98 Second Edition 4.10 (Build 2222 A )
DOS: 7.10
Net Clients: Microsoft Network, Microsoft Family Logon

< Sound >
Sound: Avance AC97 Audio

< Input >
Keyboard: Microsoft HID Compliant keyboard
Mouse: Nicrosoft USB Intellimouse Explorer (Intellipoint) Infrared

< DirectX >
Version: 9.0a (4.09.0000.0901)

Microsoft Freelancer: As released, no mods

Problem:

Game crash at random to desktop. During combat, during landing, space launch, docking, moving around bases/planets, entering/exiting jump points. Game will play ok for about 5-10 minutes before a crash.

I tried everything. Sound updates as per forum suggestions. The latest Nvidia drivers causes a black screen. Game has been unintalled and re-installed many times. Drive has been initialized. Everything that I can think of has been done.

MicroSoft has been contacted. No solution available from them.

Other things I tried:

I had the sound issues that many players on these boards had. Used the fixes suggested and it fixed my problems. I tried the latest DirextX 9.0a (see above). I tried turining graphics acceleration down a notch. I disabled sound acceleration. I switched off AGP texturing, tried a clean Windows boot, etc, etc, etc...

My Background:

I am an IT proffesional for 30 years from Cape Town and have been playing games since PC's came out. I consider myself a power user.

The following current games are also being played and is running fine on this system:

Half-Life Series, Emperor Battle for Dune, Empire Earth, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, Homeworld, Silent Hunter II, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, Need for Speed Porche 2000 (using Brooklyn Booster 9000 set), Microsoft Filght Simulator 2002 (using Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2), and many other games.

I realy like Freelancer. I also played all the Wing Commander games, Privateer, Righteous Fire, Privateer 2 and so on.

I cannot afford to play it like this any more. I am at the end of my ability to get this game to play stable. I know that there is a power user out there willing and able to help me. For now this game will have to be shelved until real help arrives...

PLEASE HELP ME (if you can)...

-------
JP

Edited by - jpsempire on 06-05-2003 00:35:34

Tue May 06, 2003 7:35 am by Jedyte

I'm sorry I can't help you with this, I have the exact same problem, I've tried updating all drivers, reinstalling several times but nothing seems to work.

My specs:

Amd xp 2100, 512 mb twinmos, epox8rda+, geforce3 ti-200, soundblaster live 5.1, western digital 80 gb hd, win ME

sorry I couldn't help you, but i thought it would be better to post here then to create a new topic

Tue May 06, 2003 10:52 am by Hassers

Have similar config and had same problem.
Recent update of motherboard and it had re-enabled the onboard audio which I hadn't noticed (Doh!). This caused internal conflict and multiple crashes in FL, rest of system ran AOK. Disabled onboard audio and FL alot more stable, however, still get the Odd lock-up which is a pain. Recommend update to DirectX 9a since this seems to help.

Wed May 07, 2003 10:51 am by Seanus

I've had similar problems with this new setup:
amd 2600+
Albatron Kx400-8x
512 DDR333
XP pro SP1
PNY Verto Ti4200

Their are two things you can try.
1. There is a posting that say's use WHQL certified drivers, of which the most recent is 40.72. I'm going to try this tonight.
2. There is an option on the nvidia configuration screen, which improved things for me. I can't remember what it was called (on different machine now), but it had something to do with not using the CPU graphics extensions, and was next to the texture clamping options.

I tried both these in one test, and i think it might have fixed it. I've got another problem where FL says it doesn't recognise my card. So i don't know where i'm going right now.

Hope this helps, i'd be interested to see you response posted.

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