Annoying ET problem

(ECpunx) #1

Ok, I’m at the end of my rope here, any help is appreciated.

Problem is this: While playing ET every few minutes, the game “freezes” for a few seconds, sound loops over and over and the screen freezes. After about 5 seconds the game comes back, the lagometer shows a few seconds worth of packetloss and normal gameplay resumes for a few more minutes until the problem repeats.

I have been able to remedy this problem for a day or two at a time by uninstalling my vid card drivers and then reinstalling them. I have tried rolling back my drivers to no avail. It works fine for a few days and the problems returns. Problem happens on all ET mods and ETMain.

Here are my specs:

P4 3.0
512 KB Geil Running dual channel
9800 Pro 128mb

I have also tried reinstalling the game, which does not work.

Thanks in advance

(Rain) #2

Try playing for a moment on a non-PB server to see if the problem goes away. Some people have had PB cause these kind of symptoms for them.

(Azarael) #3

Rain’s right, stuff like that seems to be related to video driver stuff. A fresh install (maybe after using one of the video driver cleaners that’s out there) of the drivers might help if it is a pb issue.

(_IRON_MAN_) #4

It seems to me to be something related to networking - the system is waiting for data. I might be wrong, but it could possibly be the following:

The Quake 3 engine (or modified form) relates frames on the screen to packets of data during on-line play. So did the Quake II engine for that matter. For example, if the packets drop the engine is waiting for the data in them to determine what to process as the video frame. When the data stream catches back up, the video is updated to the corresponding data in the incoming packets. This is something that many Q3 engine gamers have experienced. “Zoid” of id Software (creator of the CTF mod for Quake II) spoke of this in an interview about 3 years ago. It was recomended by him that if someone was experiencing pausing of the video or bad lag in Q3 engine games, to try setting the connection speed selection in the game’s menu to the next lower setting, or try some tweeks he offered for the CFG.

I wonder if this is your problem.

If this is the problem, then the data coming in is causing the video system to pause waiting for data to know what to write to the screen - such as obkect locations, player positions, the player’s orientation to the map, etc. This may not be the problem you are having, but it could be related.

(Kendle) #5

I’m pretty sure Quake3 engine games DON’T relate frames on screen to packets of data, unlike Quake2, which did, but I happily confess to not knowing enough about game engines to prove that theory either way (just something I read somewhere).

Whilst I’d also suspect PB as a possible culprit, it might not be PB directly that’s causing it. Try playing on a non-PB server first of all to establish whether it is PB or not. If it is, and you’re running WinXP, try disabling the Indexing service. It’s known to conflict with PB-enabled games. Having disabled the Indexing service (and re-booted your PC), try playing on a PB server again.

(SCDS_reyalP) #6

“This paper is so bad it is not even wrong.” - Wolfgang Pauli

_IRON_MAN_s post is technobable worthy of that quote.

Here is a more coherent description:
http://bani.anime.net/banimod/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3550

That link may also help ECpunx interpret his problem.

It sounds to me like a driver or hardware problem, which is causing his sytem to freeze for a few moments. I’ve had this sort of thing a few times, and it seemed to be related to failing hardware or overheating. There are certainly other possible causes as well, but a network problem wouldn’t leave you with the sound looping. This should be rather obvious to anyone who has had CI. Looping sound is usually caused by your game (and possibly the rest of your system) being so completely stalled it can’t tell the sound card to stop playing the current loop.

(Lekdevil.NL) #7

You can indeed safely ignore Ironman’s post. Interruption of server updates cannot lead to sound loops on your PC (which is an indication of a hung process and usually has nothing to do with the sound card itself, by the way). Please read my post in this thread, which is about a problem similar to yours, follow the instructions and post your results.

HTH.

(meLonF) #8

I used to suffer from an identical problem. It turned out it was caused by flakey hardware. I had run all of the things like memtest / prime95 / cpu burn and my system showed to be 100% stable. As it turned out, it was simply a lose connection for one of my SATA drives … I discovered this when my RAID array failed :o

i know SATA connectors are not the exact cause of other peoples problems, but it does seem to indicate that this ‘looping/freezing’ problem can be the result of hardware instability. So it would be well worth checking all of your hardware :slight_smile:

(_IRON_MAN_) #9

lol Take it up with id. If your had played games long enough, I would consider what you say, but alas, as a noob, you did not read the interview. I do take pleasure in your trolling idioticy, however. You are my entertainment. Please continue.

…and that is the REST of the story. See you in antoher thread, where you will undoubtably follow me. You are behind though. I have posted in many threads. YOu need to spend more time searching. Can you not keep up? Come on. You’re much younger than me. Stay alert.

meLonF, such a problemn as a lose connector would effect the PC not just during games, but at any time. Your problem was always, not related to ET. So, um, hogwash.

(meLonF) #10

meLonF, such a problemn as a lose connector would effect the PC not just during games, but at any time. Your problem was always, not related to ET. So, um, hogwash.

The problem would occur when I was playing ET around 3-4 times per night. Whereas my pc only ever crashed roughly 3 or 4 times in total, when using any other windows applications, during a 2 month period. The day I replaced my SATA cables the problem disappeared immediately and has never resurfaced.

It appears Punkbuster is more sensitive to flaky hardware than other games. This is backed up by the Punkbuster FAQ, which states:


PunkBuster “pushes” hardware and the Windows Operating System more than most software and uses functions in the Windows API (low level functions) that aren’t used by most other programs. As such, there are a few cases where using PB can actually expose flaky hardware or other situations that don’t cause problems for other software.

So while the lock-ups may only occur when playing ET, you can not immediately reject the possibility that the problem is cause by flaky hardware.

IRONMAN, if you actually have any evidence to back-up your claim that the information I have provided is ‘hogwash’, please feel to post that evidence here. Otherwise, please refrain from trying to discredit valid information that may useful in solving ECpunx’s problems.

(CM..Punk) #11

^^^ Hmm is that why my PC used to overheat and make ET crash (with the sound loop thing), yet never overheat when I was running anything else? If so, damn you PB.

(Lekdevil.NL) #12

:???: If your PC overheats then you’ve got a cooling problem which should be fixed. It’s rather pointless to blame a piece of software for that, IMO.

(CM..Punk) #13

I did fix it, bought an extra 2 case fans. Was just strange ET crashed whenever it went over 68 degrees, but no other game or program had trouble. Took months to figure out what it was, even gave up playing ET because of it. Fine now though.

(Rain) #14

68°C? :eek2:
Methinks you were lucky to have the problems only occur in ET.

(Sick Boy) #15

Always depends whether the temperature is core or socket temperature, and how accurate the reading is

(Vaibhav) #16

i get this problem too with ET snd i also get another problem when if im in a server and the map finshes and the new map loading. when the loading bar reaches the end i get disconnected from server. and when i click on reconnect the game laods fine. so on every server i have to reconnect after every map.

(SCDS_reyalP) #17

This can happen if you system loads very slowly. What are you system specs ?

(Vaibhav) #18

ive got a
1.5 ghz deskotp
64 mb nvidia graphics
256 mb SDram
40 Gb hardrive with about 9 Gb space left
and my internet speed is 150k (from tiscali in UK)

:bash: :banghead: :angry:

(Rain) #19

Always depends whether the temperature is core or socket temperature, and how accurate the reading is[/quote]
Of course, but moderately accurate core readings are most common, and I’m guessing that’s the case here since he did have troubles.
:stuck_out_tongue:
Always better to err well on the side of caution!

(SCDS_reyalP) #20

That’s not much ram. If you haven’t already, make sure you have your graphic detail turned down. r_picmip 3 should help load times.

If you have increased your com_hunkmegs from the default, turn it back down.

Make sure you don’t have any other program running when you start ET.