UT Nightmare

[varisc]

Hey guys/gals...

Here's some things to look at.
First off, check your PCI cards, and see what IRQs they are using. Especially in the case of KT7s...
If at all possible, try to give your video card, sound card, and network/modem card different IRQs. Although you're supposed to be able to get them to share, that's not always the case. The SB series is notoriously picky about wanting its own IRQ.
Also, for the KT7, if you have a SB, try disabling "SB 16 emulation". That's another big issue for games to freeze.
Finally, check your RAM settings. The first would be to see if you're running at CAS 2 or 3. If it's 2, try going to 3. Then, if you're running it in "Turbo" or "Fast" mode, try bumping it down to "Normal".
I was experiencing some very odd crashes/lockups with certian games, and when I changed my RAM's CAS to 3, everything worked fine.

G/L

Varisc

 

[DamationAngel]

all sblive people need to disable sb16 emulation in windows this fixed the problem for me.....so far one full evening no locks....try it folks.

 

[varisc]

Glad it helped.
Yeah, for some reason, especially with a lot of Althon MBs, SB16 emulation is a real problem. I won't pretend I understand why, but 99% of the stuff you use nowadays doesn't need it. It's nice that Creative wants to support old-school, but you would think they could do it a little better.

Varisc

 

[minkie]

sb16 emulation

Hey Damnation!

Where do I disable SB16 emulation? I can't seem to find it.
I VERY much appreciate your help with this!

 

[MarleyMarl]

Lockups too

Hi all,

I've been following this thread for a few days and wanted to add my specs into the mix too because I've bene having identical problems for almost a year now with lotsa different variances. I used to freeze while playing online randomly, 1 minutes or an hour into playing. I would totally lock up, sound still playing, usually skipping, had to physically hard reboot the machine. Then after tweaking, new UT patches etc. I would still freeze but now, when I hit ctrl-alt-del twice I'd get a "System Busy" screen. I press any key and I get a "Unreal Tournament not responding message" I end the program and then I can start it up again. sometimes the sound is not working when I restart the game and sometimes it is after a freeze. a reboot fixes the sound problem.

I have a AMD K6-2 350, 128 RAM, Sb LIVE xGamer, Asus P5A-B MB with latest drivers, a 32 mb Creative TNT2 Video card. (I can only use the 3.76 I beleive drivers, all the new drivers 6.x and so on freeze me before I even get to the server list.) Also running patch UT Patch 436.

Hope this helps and we can all find the solution. I'm gonna try the above solution tonight.

Marleymarl

 

[DamationAngel]

Minkie at your desktop goto my computer and right click no double click no left RIGHT click and goto properties. This opens windows system properties.Then gotothe device manager tab , Then about 3 icons down you will see a tab that says"creative misc devices. open this up by left clickin on it. You will see sb16emulation there. highlight it with a single click and hit the properties button on the bottom.At this point you should see the option to disable in this hardware profile or exist in all profiles place a check in the box by clicking on it. click on disable in this hardware profile. You will see a red x on the item indicating its disabled. Reboot and play your freakin ass off.

 

[scudsukah-:-)]

lockups

hey i had al the lockups that you have diagnosed
if you're running youre keyboard and mouse on ps2 try switching them both to usb my lockups consisted of the game still running and remaining conncted to the net but.. no control only remedy at the time was a cold shutdown!!!!!!!!! bad bad bad after awhile it take toll on your harddrive i switched my mouse to usb i got an optical mouse from logitech and lemme tell ya no lockups what so ever!!!!!!!!!! a little hangup here and there but im able to workaround it with the good ole' cntrl escape trick..... next friday i will switch my keyboard to usb as well maybe the hangups will hit the road too as well
i think its the isa ps2 sharing goin on with the mobo and thats not a good thing!!!!!!!!

 

[psyckotic]

im tired of this

i have pretty much the same problem with ut crashin all the time,, see i bought ut a few months ago, and i have all the recent updates, patches, blah blah, the game ran fine, never a problem not once, untill recently when i installed direct x 8, and then it all went downhill, now every time i play ut online of offline, i can play 5 to 10 minutes before locking up my system, sometimes even an hour, but then BOOM, im stuck with the option of bashin my system in with a bat, or reseting it, this is really pissin me off, it worked fine untill that day when i install dx8, i have all the newest drivers for my vid card, i dont know what the hell the problem is, any help would be greatly appretiated, or however you spell that,
dont think anyone can help though, seems there is no solution for this problem

 

[WasHighPingDuck]

Hi all,
Have you tried what Varsic mentioned.
From the control panel select System/ Device Manager/ right click the little monitor at the top of the list/ Properties.
If you have devices sharing IRQs that is not so good. (steering is normal)
My system crashed when mine were tangled.
Try removing the driver for one of the devices, turning off the computer and moving the card to a different slot (ground yourself first) and reinstall the driver.
Random crashes are no fun and you may all have a different reason for them.
Hope this helps.

 

[psyckotic]

fixed the problem

i fixed my problem, i bit the bullet and reformatted my hd and reinstalled win98 se, works great now, im on a lan, so all most of my files were backed up, i know this isnt what most people want to do, but if you want to play ut bad enough you will, hope you all find some solutions to your problems, cause i know this has made me want to kill kill kill
laterz

 

[scudsukah-:-)]

i have youre cure i hope

if youre running a ps2 keyboard and mouse which im sure you
are.. do this and ask no questions.. go to best buy and pick up a usb compatible mouse and keyboard.. if no available usb sockets get a hub. may even want to get another usb pci card just for the mouse and keyboard this solved my lockup problem with ut. I posted a thread 2 days ago on this discovery.. epic told me it was due to graphic card overheating.. they're half right!! overheating maybe but not the graphix card. the ps2 to isa bridge will short out durring data overload <in sense sending your os into a keyboardless operating mode to protect itself. the ecc ram should correct this but ut is hogging it all up.. go figure! Trust me on this go and buy the hardware afrag away with hours of lockup free play!! oh yeah try out daves deck online youl find it under deck16 if nt heres the ip 216.5.178.162:7777 ejoy hope to kick your arse online...

 

[Stosh]

AT LEAST I'M NOT ALONE

My system specs:

Tbird 1ghz
KT7A
256 PC133
V5-5500

I've tried the latest 4n1 drivers... I tried patch 432 (Instead of 436) Reloaded Windows, and UT numerous times. Tried my V3-3k... Tried Glide and D3D, both cause system to freeze

Just like the other freezes.. I can sit there a play sometimes for hours... or for just 5 minutes... but sooner or later... it will lockup....

I am going to try disabling the sb16 emulater... and check into my irq sharing, I will keep u posted...

Thanks for the info. Lets keep this thread alive till we get UT running like it should...

-Stosh

 

[Ultraman]

Well i been playing Ut and havent experienced any freeze online and i have ps2 mouse and keyboard. Well i think it could be Dx8 because i have Dx7. Try making sure your devices have there own irq. It could be a Sb live issue. Ive heard of a way to uninstall Directx but i dont know yet

 

[Stosh]

IT ACTUALLY WORKED

I have to let everybody know... I was able to fix my FREEZE in UT.

I have the Tbird 1ghz and KT7A with the Via 133 chipset.

What I did is disable SB16 emulation, and move my NIC to another PCI slot. It was sharing an interrupt with my SBlive card..

Since I made this change, I've been playing all day, with NO lockups...

 

[Kray]

I'm using my mobo's on-board sound. Does it use sb16 emulation? If, so, how do I fix this?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I'm using via apollo pro 133 mobo.

 

[Stosh]

Here is how I disabled SB16 emulation....

Originally posted by Damnation
Minkie at your desktop goto my computer and right click no double click no left RIGHT click and goto properties. This opens windows system properties.Then gotothe device manager tab , Then about 3 icons down you will see a tab that says"creative misc devices. open this up by left clickin on it. You will see sb16emulation there. highlight it with a single click and hit the properties button on the bottom.At this point you should see the option to disable in this hardware profile or exist in all profiles place a check in the box by clicking on it. click on disable in this hardware profile. You will see a red x on the item indicating its disabled. Reboot and play your freakin ass off.

I don't know if this is what solved the problem, or the fact that I ensured that my NIC and Soundcard were using different interrrupts... I lean more towards the latter.

 

[Dr Cropper]

Stable System !

Mmmmm,

In my case the "lock up" was not SB emulation related. How do I Know this?
Easy was not in my Puter following a clean installation.

If you do have a SB or CD/RW conflict Manually set IRQ 5 to ISA/Legacy in Bios (For Abit MoBo's anyway)

I Have improved the Stability of my system by :-
1) Installing the Via Chipset drivers (Not the 4 in 1) each on there own.
go to http://www.viahardware.com/ for these

2) Increasing the Core voltage and I/O by one Notch in Bios. The Abit MoBo's (KT7A-Raid) use power slightly differently than most other boards (long story).

Kray U have some nice pointers Thnx.

N.B Please do not take this reply as a "fix" I am still testing it. I Will report back in good time.


My System :-

1.1 TBird Not Oc'd
IBM Deskstar 45 gig
Abit KT7A-Raid
Toshiba DVD Not Usin DMA

This is not my full system, i.e. SB Plat 5.1 not in
= Better for system stability checking.

 

[Hannibal_L]

Anyone get a solution to this yet?
Same problem here and only with UT online.
800mhz Tbird
128mb sdram
sblive
ati radeon
Abit KT7-Raid

 

[ToastGodSupreme]

Here's the deal, after installing DX8, started getting freezes due to memory being consumed by UT (about 600Mb in all). Well, after upgrading my Ram to 320Mb, changing the AGP apeture size to 128Mb and doing some cleanup I have not had this problem since. Well, here are my system specs:

Win2k; SP1; DX8a; all patches & bonus packs for UT; latest beta renderers for UT

Processor: Intel Pentium II-ECC 300Mhz @ 463Mhz (103Mhz FSB)

Motherboard: ASUS P2B; BIOS rev.1012; PCB rev.1.04

Video Card: Hercules Prophet GeForce2 MX (Dual Display, 32Mb, default speeds)

Sound Card: Creative SBLive! Value 2 (CT4830)

Drives:
WesternDigital 4.0Gb
WesternDigital 1.5Gb
Creative Infra 18x CD-ROM
Mitsumi 40x CD-ROM

Memory:
256Mb PC133 SpecTek (3-2-2-10)
32Mb PC100 Hyudai (3-2-2-10)
32Mb PC100 Smart Modular (3-2-2-10)

Communication: SMC Network Card (model 1280)

 

[Dr Cropper]

NO STILL Crashes

The "Frame Freeze" problem, online only for UT happened again after 3 hours.

I have been unable to I.D. the root cause.

Will be trying some more "possible" solutions.

1) Change HDrive to a non-raid IDE.
2) Disable HPoint ATA 100 controller.

I Do not believe the Core voltage is a contributory factor.

USB Option - will try out P'raps.