ET - a disaster.....

(adec) #21

I suspected Sound Blaster Live too, but dismissed this when I took the card out and used onboard sound adapter. The problem remained. I beginning to think it may be a question of overheating. I cleaned up the fan on my graphics card and left the box opened and it hasn’t happened again so far.

(adec) #22

“I’m beginning to think it may be a question of overheating”
No, that wasn’t it either. I started up a map called Eagles_b1, which has always crashed on me in the past, and it did just that again. So I’m back to square one.

(Ifurita) #23

How many custom pk3 files do you have in etmain and you mentioned that this problem happens more on some maps than others, which maps? Does it happen on particular servers more than others?

(adec) #24

I regularly delete PK3 files from /etmain (I’m aware of this and other serious bugs concerning ET).

Maps that often crash the game and computer are:

Raider (often)
Eagles_b1 (always)
Transmitter (often)
Etsbay (often)
etc…

Don’t think it has anything to do with servers. I can host Eagles_b1 on my own computer or play it online, it always crashes the game/computer.

(Ifurita) #25

ok, it was a longshot, but thought I’d check

(CM..Punk) #26

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAH your comp is screwed and you can’t play ET !!! AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

…wait, mine crashes all the time too, that’s why I gave up playing. Damn why am I laughing.

(No1_sonuk) #27

ISTR a compatability problem with the SB Live cards and some video cards.

When you switched over to the MB sound, did you remove all the SB drivers?

(SCDS_reyalP) #28

Just because it only happens in ET doesn’t mean that ET is the actual problem. I’ve seen quite a few systems that seemed completely stable, except for one application, yet found the root cause to be overclocking/thermal issues/faulty components.

ET really doesn’t do much different than other q3 games (you have tested q3 or RTCW or something like that right ? use the demo version if you don’t own it) other hit memory, cpu and bus loads a bit harder.

Given that you seem to get the problem with large maps, it seems quite possible that this could be memory, MB or even an HD problem.

What have you done to rule out overheating
Nothing really, how can I?

  1. make sure all heatsinks are clear of dust, and fans turn freely.
  2. install thermal monitoring software, such as MBM http://mbm.livewiredev.com/
  3. try running with your case off.
  4. aim a household fan at your open case.
  5. use less agressive timings on your components (RAM, CPU, GPU, video memory)

People with systems very similar to your own run ET without problems.

If you have alternative components to try, do that, even if they are lower performance. For example, onboard audio instead of the SBlive, or an older video card. Even if it ultimately turns out to be some kind of software issue, this may point you in the direction of which drivers you need to tweak.

(=TAC=Chron) #29

i have this kind of crash occasionally myself, i think it is probably win xp pro related, cause it has crashed exactly the same way on 2 different machines…an athlon xp2200 and an athlon 64 3400+ (bragging a bit). ET crashes shuts down and i simply restart the game and it’s fine. i gave up trying to find the reason, i just deal with it…<shrug>

(bubba g) #30

I also have a smiliar problem - intermitent crashes, can be after 20 minutes of play, or it can be after 30 hours. This only happens on one of my machines - the other is rock stable with ET. The machine that crashes is well cooled (it’s a stripped down machine for gaming so only sound & video cards, HD & CDRom , in a Lian Li with plenty of case cooling)

One strange thing I have noticed is that it often happens if I am watching an objective being blown, especially the side entrance on radar…

(adec) #31

This seems like the kind of problem I’m having. I too have noticed that crashes happen in particular maps, and even at particular spots in the map. Often the crash seems to occur when there is a combination of loud sound and visual acitvity.

(Lekdevil.NL) #32

We’re still waiting for the Memtest86 and Prime95 results…

(adec) #33

Seems like the Mersenne organization is out of business. All their sites are down.

(Lekdevil.NL) #34

Their web server sometimes goes down for a while. Here’s a mirror: http://lettuce.edsc.ulst.ac.uk/gimps/p95v238.zip

(shazmax) #35

Crashes suck!
I wouldn’t be so quick to blame ET for being the cause. It runs smoothly on a great many systems. Here’s the only thing that I found similar to your issue - but you tested the sound card by switching to the standard. I’ll post it anyways in case someone has a simliar issue:

I have uninstalled Ennemy territory, reinstalled it and ran it with the default options and everything was fine. I beleive the problem comes from the SBLive 5.1 when you enable hardware EAX. Just don’t do it and everything should be fine.
If it doesn’t work, try not using the Creative labs drivers but the windows standard drivers, as creative’s are reported to bring even more incompatibilities.

(ColdBackHAND) #36

ET crashes alot for me when I enble 8x agp.

c-ya

(adec) #37

I notice that my graphics card and my sound card both uses IRQ 16. Could this be source of my problems? And how can this be?

(bubba g) #38

Could be your problem but windows should handle it. This happens because your computer is set up as ACPI, which means windows assigns the IRQ’s. You can change this by changing to APM mode, allowing you to change your IRQ settings - but this requires a fresh install usually.

Another solution would be to change the PCI slot the sound card is in - one (or 2?) wil be shared with the AGP slot.

(Kendle) #39

LOL, just saw this thread “ET works for 99% of players but not for me, therefore ET is at fault!”. Nice logic.

But just so I don’t get flamed for picking the OP up on this fundamental flaw in his argument, I’d agree with the above. Put the soundcard in any available slot OTHER than slot 1, which shares an IRQ with the Graphics card.

(adec) #40

!