Problems with some games - HELP!!!

C

C-O-R-E-Y

Guest
The following are my computer specs:

- Pentium III 800MHz
- geForce2 MX400 64MB (with lattest nVIDIA drivers)
- 128 RAM
- Seagate 40GB (7200rpm) Hard Drive (about 33GB left)
- Soundblaster Live 1024 Player

I think it's enough for you to try to help me with my problem.

My problem is the following:

The games that I had this problem are F1 2001 and Operation Flashpoint.
As you can see from my specs I can play this games very well, not at the maximum of course, but with nice and playable graphics. But sometimes in the middle of the game, the game stops a litlle and then continues and as you might think when playing like this in F1 2001 after a few miliseconds of stopage time in the gameplay I got out of the track.
I wanted to know why this happen in some games. It doesn't matter if I put the graphics to the minimum this will happen anyway.
Do you know of any utilities or you know something that can help me? Please tell me.

One last thing:
When I'm runing this game I have the following programs in the systray:
- Go!Zilla 4.1
- Gator
- Norton Antivirus 2002
- Norton Personal Firewall 2002
- DirectCD (Easy CD Creator app)
- Xnotes (a simple program so I can take notes)
- The sound icon
- Touch Manager (an app to manage my special keyboard from Trust)

Do you think that me having all this apps running is fact?
Or is it because the RAM that isn't too much?

Please help me.
Thanks.
 
omg...dude turn off all apps while playing and try it again , 128 MB Ram are not enuff for all the stuff you are trying to do...

geez :)
 
but If I had more RAm could I have all the apps running?
 
Originally posted by C-O-R-E-Y
but If I had more RAm could I have all the apps running?

There are several factors that are affecting your game play.

NAV will most likely slow things down if its in autoprotect mode. Why you have gator installed is beyond me.

You need a *minimum* 128 megs of RAM just to run XP effectively. Thats not including memory for your apps. I would recommend at least 256 if you want to play games. 512 if you want to play these games with all the apps open. That doesnt exclude taking out NAV autoprotect. No amount of memory is going to help you there, as it slows down access to the files as it scans them.

Next, your MX400 is severely hampered by its crippled memory controller. Its also most likely the source of your stuttering graphics. If your going to play with it, I wouldn't go above 800x600, medium details, and stay at 16-bit resolution. Of course this depends on the game. Dont think that the 64 MB of memory on the card are being utilized correctly, not even close. Reviews showed the 64 MB MXs to be no more faster than the 32 MB cards, again due to the crippled memory controller.

Sorry for being the bearer of bad news, but thats what I think is wrong with your gaming.

Hope this helps...
 
Here are 3 things to try:

1:Definately close down your running apps no matter what.
2:Download and install the nvidia refresh rate fix because xp sets yours to 60fps and the nvidia fix lets you set it to your monitors max hence improving performance.
3:Nvidia latest drivers have probs on xp so download an earlier version.I have got the same card and i am using detonator 3, 12.41 for win2k and there are no probs now.

Have a look on the main page on the 3rd article after yours called directx8.1 and if you scroll down i have attached the nvidia refresh rate fix and further down i have put the direct link to the drivers i am using.

Before i put these drivers on i was having probs with games and some where crashing back to desktop but now everything works great.
My system:
AMD ATHLON
1400 DDR
512 DDR RAM
GE-FORCE 2 MX400 64MB
SOUNDBLASTER LIVE 1024
 
This is to Speed4Ever:
One thing you are wrong. I can play many games in 1024x768 withou no problems and like I said before it doesn't matter if you play them in 1024 or 640 the game stops some times anyway.
On F1 2001 the game stoped a few times in the first 2 laps after that I overpassed many cars and changed views and I had no problems playing in 1024x768 I think that my problem is when loading the objects for the first time.

Now another thing:
I have closed all my running apps but it didn't worked. the game as slow on the beggining as it was before.

Now I'll try what bossdodgers said, then I'll let you know something in this post.
 
Originally posted by C-O-R-E-Y
This is to Speed4Ever:
One thing you are wrong. I can play many games in 1024x768 withou no problems and like I said before it doesn't matter if you play them in 1024 or 640 the game stops some times anyway.
On F1 2001 the game stoped a few times in the first 2 laps after that I overpassed many cars and changed views and I had no problems playing in 1024x768 I think that my problem is when loading the objects for the first time.

Now another thing:
I have closed all my running apps but it didn't worked. the game as slow on the beggining as it was before.

Now I'll try what bossdodgers said, then I'll let you know something in this post.

I'll have to admit, I may owe an apology for the way I stated my last post. Although I still stand by what I said, the manner in which it was written was not entirely kosher. This may have to do with my being sick today, and not in the greatest mood :D . I probably shouldnt be posting today period, but thats that, I guess.

Anyhoo, on to your problem.

It may be that the game doesnt entirely run all that great in XP, or, as you stated it, has times when the loading of some objects takes up time. If it is that, it may take a patch or something to fix it. Sorry I cant recommend anything else that hasnt been posted in this thread.

My previous post was related to my experiences with a MX card that I tried earlier last summer when looking for an upgrade. Nevertheless, my experiences were less than stellar to say the least. But I should have stated that what I said was my opinion only, since many things in computing are rarely duplicated from one system to another. As I said, I apologize, and hope it didnt rub you the wrong way. That wasnt my intention.

I think I'm hitting the sack before I put my foot in my mouth again, and hopefully I can get rid of this bug :D

Later...
 
I have downloaded that thing about the refresh rate fix but I haven't used because I play F1 2001 at 1024x768 without any problems (less this stoping of gameplay problem I'm having) and my monitor at this resolution only supports 60Hz but the graphics card supports til 240Hz anyway I haven't use that app because F1 2001 as an option to configure wich resolution and wich refresh rate we want to use and the maximum refresh rate that I could use at 640x480 has 100Hz so I selected that option and I didn't noticed any changes, the game still stoping sometimes.

Might be the RAM or if I played this game with 240Hz I would have no problems? Do you think that I should use the Nvidia refresh rate fix app and the use the configuration of F1 2001?

Another thing, for this game there's a patch that i'm downloading that says it fixes a lot the performance of the geforce 2 and geforce 3 cards, this might be the solution but what about for operation flashpoint? I have all the patches of that game and this still happens. I'll try this game at 640x468 with 100Hz to see what happens then I'll let you know something.
 
You still need to install the refresh rate fix because of the way Xp defaults etc. This program lets you set every resolution to your monitors maximum and overrides the Xp default and is very easy to use. Once you have run it once that is it set up for whatever you play. However the main problem i think you are having is the drivers. if you are using Nvidias drivers 21.83 onwards there are known stability problems with XP and I have been using the 12.41 drivers and have had no game problems whatsoever. Previous to these drivers I had tried both 21.83 and 23.11 and I had sound problems and games quitting to desktop for no reason and now the same games run perfect. Incidentally i am playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein with these drivers and it plays great.

Also have a read of this site there is some interesting stuff relating to GeForce 2 and Xp

http://www.tweak3d.net/faq/faq.cgi

If you decide to try the Detonator 3, 12.41 Win2K drivers, during installation it will find 2 files and say the ones already installed are newer and ask if you want to keep them. Say yes and continue installation and you will still have certified drivers. A good trick.

Getting off the subject for a sec,have you checked your registry lately.Run a registry cleaner app and you may be surprised how many invalid entries xp leaves behind.I got rid of 1100 invalid entries the other day.
 
I'm using the drivers 23.11 withou any problems.

I've tryed that refresh rate fix and played f1 2001 and operation flashpoint in 640x480 100Hz but the games still stoping some times.

And I'll try to clean my registry
 
There are lots of people having problems with nvidias 23.11 drivers including myself until I changed them. I thought I wasn't having problems with them until it came to certain games with glitches etc. My best advice from what you've been saying is try the drivers I've already told you about and if there is no difference you can always roll-back to 23.11. You've got nothing to lose. One more thing you need to do as well is to try another defragmenter as the one in XP leaves fragmented files behind and this slows your system.

I thought the nvidia 23.11 drivers were great too until i changed them.

Good luck.
 
I've tryed the drivers you recomended me. I wnet into that directx post and downloaded them
But it didn't solve the problem, it still slow sometimes, i've now reverted to 23.11 again.

One thing I noticed on F1 2001 is that:
Today I was in first then I had an accident and because fo the cars the overtaken me and because of the cars that hited me, the game became really slow but after that I could have lots of accidents (in the same race) and the game wouldn't be slow. Perhaps this is because of low RAM and in this times the computer is loading the other cars skins so, you see.

At least I think it's because of this.

Another thing that says that Speed4ever is wrong once again.
F1 2001 as an utility to calculate wich options should I use to have the best performance and the results were bad, it said to me to put almost everything in medium and without no special effects(smoke, dust, etc...) no lights on the car and other things. But I am running with all dispaly settings in (the highest option in some display options is "high" but in others is "full") "high" and the ones I could put in "full" i leaved them alone cuz that was asking too much from my graphics card. I even played the game (with this settings) at 1024x768 in 32 bits and without any problems, less the one i'm having of course.
Maybe with an overclock I can put it at full. Who knows.
 
Another thing that says that Speed4ever is wrong once again.
F1 2001 as an utility to calculate wich options should I use to have the best performance and the results were bad, it said to me to put almost everything in medium and without no special effects(smoke, dust, etc...) no lights on the car and other things. But I am running with all dispaly settings in (the highest option in some display options is "high" but in others is "full") "high" and the ones I could put in "full" i leaved them alone cuz that was asking too much from my graphics card. I even played the game (with this settings) at 1024x768 in 32 bits and without any problems, less the one i'm having of course.
Maybe with an overclock I can put it at full. Who knows.

So where do you think I was wrong?

I recommended that either your RAM, running apps, and /or videocard may be the problem.

You say that "...without any problems, less the one i'm having of course." Thats what I thought we were talking about in the first place. The stuttering that your exhibiting could be caused by the reasons I stated. Those reasons are the typical causes of this type of problem, although my list is hardly exhaustive. There may be other contributing factors also, such as hard drive access, or possibly program bugs. But based on the information you gave in your initial post, RAM, open apps, and the videocard would have been likely suspects. One of those may still be the reason.

I never said that all games would be affected by these problems. Some would probably run just fine under those circumstances.
But to tell me I'm wrong by your above statement, telling us that you play the game at high detail at 32-bit resolution, "and without any problems, less the one i'm having of course", tells me that your still having the problem you've discussed, and havent found the reason for it yet.

Am I missing something here?

If you got something against me taking time out of my day to try and help you out, by all means, say the word, I wont even attempt to anymore.

I come here to try to help people in computing, to learn, and to maybe get help from other people should my resources be exausted. But to go over and over telling me I'm wrong, while still having the problem, and not ruling out all my theories, doesnt make sense to me...

Excuse my lack of experience here, but I've dealt with computers since before you were born, played games back when text-based were popular, so while not being a genius in all areas of computing, I think I know a thing or two about them...

If I have in someway misunderstood you, please let me know. I dont like people having ill-will towards me. On the other hand, if you want me out of this thread, consider it done...
 
No I don't have anything against you but you said in your first post to this thread the following:
Next, your MX400 is severely hampered by its crippled memory controller. Its also most likely the source of your stuttering graphics. If your going to play with it, I wouldn't go above 800x600, medium details, and stay at 16-bit resolution.

And that is not true as I said to all of you in my last post.
It doesn't matter if all the display options are in maximum or in the minimum the game stops when some cars pass by me and after 2 or 3 laps the game has no problems. And can't be because of all those apps running cuz I tested with them all closed and with them opened and the game works the same way so I believe now it is from the RAM.

I apolagize if you got mad with me but I just want to people know that if they buy a card like mine they will not be able to run game in high res cuz they will, not in all games and in a near future they'll need a better one just like any person. I'm sorry.
 
Originally posted by C-O-R-E-Y
And that is not true as I said to all of you in my last post.
It doesn't matter if all the display options are in maximum or in the minimum the game stops when some cars pass by me and after 2 or 3 laps the game has no problems. And can't be because of all those apps running cuz I tested with them all closed and with them opened and the game works the same way so I believe now it is from the RAM.

I apolagize if you got mad with me but I just want to people know that if they buy a card like mine they will not be able to run game in high res cuz they will, not in all games and in a near future they'll need a better one just like any person. I'm sorry.

C-O-R-E-Y,

I guess we can possibly chalk this up to a misunderstanding, and possibly a language barrier if your native language isnt english. Sorry if I got hot-headed at you, that wasnt my intention.

With my experience with the MX cards, it is a known fact that Nvidia installed a crippled memory controller (compared to the higher-end cards). This tends to exhibit the symptoms that your seeing. When I said most likely that it was causing it, I should have rephrased that as meaning a possible cause.

The crippled memory controller is similiar to the analogy between the Pentium 3 and the Celeron. Both are basically the same chip, only Intel crippled the L1 and L2 cache on the celeron. This means that the celeron runs much slower in some situations than the P3, although they are masically the same chip. Something similiar was done with the MX videocard.

Also, I had interpreted your saying I was wrong, as meaning that my information about the card was inaccurate. Looking over your posts, I guess you were trying to tell me that it didnt seem to pertain to your situation. If this is so, again you have my apology.

I can see now in hindsight that we were both misunderstanding eachother, as such can happen in these groups in certain situations.

Your apology is accepted, as I hope you accept mine in return.

Thanks for clearing this up, and its maybe taught me a lesson not to jump the gun at the first impression. We've had enough of that happening this past couple of days, I dont want to be adding to it.

On your last post, you said that your RAM might be causing it. This is possible if it is slower RAM. It could be bug in the game (some will do this), the videocard (yes, it may still be a contributing factor), or a combination of these. Its difficult to tell. It could even be a latency in reading the info off the CD-ROM. Once its loaded into memory, it will be accessed much faster next time. Do you ever get CD-ROM errors or warnings in the event viewer when you get these stutter problems?
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back