How to get Direct3D9 to work?

[scirmast]

My friend has a very bad FPS problem with his UT2k4. Basically the game is just a slideshow, even though the graphics card is GeForce N6800 GT Extreme 256Mb. Before it worked without any problems, but all of a sudden it stopped. Now it could be due to many things, Windows problems, hardware problems, but we thought it wouldn't hurt trying another renderer (afterall, I fixed my copy of UT99 like that .

However, when the Direct3D9 is chosen as the renderer, the game wont start saying "terminated in a unusual way...."

Any ideas what is wrong? One could be that the card does not support that renderer, but shouldn't a card as new as this support it?

The computer has WinXP, newest DirectX and up to date drivers.

 

[JohnDoe641]

The game was never meant to support dx9 and it was removed in the 3355 patch.

Post up his other specs so we can help.

 

[The Warden]

the only way D3D9 will work if you go back a Ton of patches. AS JD said post pc specs.

 

[scirmast]

Alright, here are the specs:

Gigabyte GA-8S649MF, P4 2933Mhz, 1024 RAM (don't know what type), videoBIOS 5.40.02.26, DirectX 9.0c, ForceWare 84.21, ASUS GeForce N6800 GT Extreme 256Mb PCI-E

 

[hal]

P4 2933Mhz

Celeron.

That's a pretty limp processor for UT2004, which is pretty cpu intensive. That would be my first guess.

Having said that, there should be an acceptable setting in which it would run.

What is the screen resolution your friend is attempting to use? Are there lots of background processes running? Is the HDD nearly full and has it been recently defragged?

 

[hyrulian]

That's a pretty limp processor for UT2004, which is pretty cpu intensive. That would be my first guess.

Even if a Celeron, 2933 MHz should be plenty enough to run the game. I ran the game on an Athlon XP 2100+ before just fine.

 

[hal]

Interesting that you should bring up that processor. The 2100 XP has the same L2 cache as that Celeron but the Athlon sports 64KB L1 whereas the D340 has only 16KB.

Although, without clarification we can't be sure. It could just as easily be a P4 516 Prescott. It would just be odd to see a reasonable cpu underperforming like that.

 

[Sahkolihaa]

I did a small test some time ago with my Athlon 2600+ T-Bred vs my Celeron D 325. There was hardly any difference in frames in UT2004, and the 325 runs at 2.53GHZ, Athlon 2600+ T-Bred at 2.2GHZ.

 

[hal]

And of course all of that illustrates that the celery d is on par with Athlon XPs in some respects. I had a 2800 XP and got some stuttering at 1024 x 768. Didn't get rid of it until I moved up to a 64, which is kind of what I'm saying.

Here's a comparison of the celeron vs the athlon line: http://www.behardware.com/articles/510-9/amd-sempron-vs-intel-celeron-d.html

We really need to know at what settings and resolutions the game is being run.

 

[The Warden]

anyone else running the 84.21's?

 

[Defeat]

>I am Ward, they seem stable. No wierd graphical glitches or slowness in FPS.

 

[The Warden]

k I might have had a spyware issue. I watched my own fps goto hell, and my pc completely slow up.

 

[scirmast]

Alright, to clarify things up, the game used to work without any problems. But one day it just slowed down to a slideshow.

I believe he is using 1024x768, but has also tried to change it without any special results. He says the GFX card does not seem to work on full power. New drivers wont help either. Maybe something with the settings?

 

[hal]

I'll go back to my original questions:
Are there lots of background processes running? Is the HDD nearly full and has it been recently defragged?

Also, he mentioned that the graphics card does not seem to be running on full power. It's very possible that it is a dying or overheating GPU or a dying or underpowered PSU.

 

[scirmast]

Alright, all unnecessary background processes killed, HDD does not need defragging and almost 200GB is still free out of 233GB. Power source is also not a problem.

Heat is something we have investigate further. But in the mean time keep the suggestions coming.

 

[The Warden]

I've uninstalled the 84.21's I installed them last yesterday, and I've seen my CPU usage Crawl upto 100%, I've run a spyware check and Virus Check it found some spyware but nothing out of the ordinary.
Running the 82.12s

I've installed the drivers and a new webcam program one of the 2 is causing my problem. Dunno which yet. Drivers are first.

 

[hal]

Alright, all unnecessary background processes killed, HDD does not need defragging and almost 200GB is still free out of 233GB. Power source is also not a problem.

Heat is something we have investigate further. But in the mean time keep the suggestions coming.

What is the exact model of PSU? Keep in mind overall watts may be fine, but certain rails (such as the 12) may require a specific amperage. An underpowered PSU may yield sluggish performance.

Did your friend add any hardware in between the times where the game ran well and now? Are all of the system fans still functional?

 

[zynthetic]

Does this not work w/ any longer at all w/ 3369? Now that I've got the hardware I'm interested in what changes were made.
I dug up 3204 and pulled out D3D9Drv.dll and changed the renderer but all I get is a gpf and blank log.

 

[Defeat]

I don't think it ever worked.

 

[GreatEmerald]

It did, and does, on the 64bit edition of it. But I don't like the looks of it.