ET bug !?!?

(Hurrykn) #1

Hi!
I’ve got a serious problem with ET for weeks, I’ll try to explain it shortly…

I play ET for months, I began playing it for 9 months on an AMD 900 with Elsa Gloria 3 (Quadro2) and Win2000 without having any problem. Then I bought an AMD 2800+ with PNY QuadroFX 500 and WinXP. ET worked fine for 5 months, then, a few weeks ago, I got the famous serious bug I mentionned before.

First of all, I have a window that quickly opens, giving me some infos about (apparently) OpenGL status. Here are some of the error messages I got (the list is huge, I only selected some of them) :

r_stereo is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_colorbits is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_texturebits is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_clampToEdge is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_texture_env_add is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_nv_fogdist_mode is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_NV_fog_dist is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_texture_filter_anisotropic is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ati_fsaa_samples is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ati_truform_pointmode is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ati_truform_normalmode is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ati_truform_tess is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_ATI_pntriangles is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_glIgnoreWicked3D is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_compiled_vertex_array is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_multitexture is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_gamma_control is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_ext_compressed_textures is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_allowExtensions is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
r_glDriver is unsafe. Check com_crashed.
couldn’t exec autoexec.cfg
Hunk_Clear: reset the hunk ok
…detecting CPU, found AMD w/ 3DNow!

That’s it.

The game begins without any problem for 5 to 10 minutes, then it crashes. It’s not really a freeze, for the sound it’s just as you repeat a digital sample as a DJ (“dynamite planted planted planted planted…”) and for the images it’s just as I’ve been disconnected (other people continue running but staying on the same place). And then it stops completely, asking me if I want to send that error to microsoft (poor microsoft, I spam them everyday with that error! niark ark ark)

If I relaunch the game after that, the crash comes more quickly. If I use some software to free RAM, it works fine for another 5 minutes, then crashes.
Sometimes, the bug morphes, and it becomes a classical “Server disconnected for unknown reason”. Later, it changes again in a freeze. Nice! It changes from Win98 bluescreens…

I know that Quadros aren’t made for games, anyway how do you explain that it always worked fine with my Quadro 2, and that it worked fine for 5 months with the quadro FX?

Here’s my hardware configuration: AMD 2800+, MB Asus A7N8X Deluxe (NForce2), PNY QuadroFX 500, LCD screen Philips 190B, cable connexion.

WHAT I TRIED TO DO TO SOLVE THAT:

  • Uninstall - Reinstall NVIDIA drivers (whql certified drivers) => doesn’t change anything
  • Uninstall - Reinstall DirectX 9.0b => doesn’t change anything
  • Uninstall DirectX 9.0b and replacing it with DirectX 8 => doesn’t change anything
  • Uninstall ET - delete ET folder - Reinstall ET => doesn’t change anything
  • Close my firewall - close XP firewall => doesn’t change anything
  • Close Kaspersky Antivirus => doesn’t change anything
  • Scan my disk for virusses => no virus
  • Delete “etconfig.cfg” (I’ve seen this on another forum) => doesn’t change anything
  • Update PunkBuster => doesn’t change anything
  • Upgrade MB drivers, sound drivers, graphic drivers => doesn’t change anything
  • Download ET and patch 1.02 again, then reinstall it => doesn’t change anything
  • System backup restore, with a backup of a day I know ET worked fine => doesn’t change anything
  • Format + Reinstall WinXP… ==> aaah, it worked again… for 10 days! Then, I got the bug again, without having installed anything special (perhaps XP upgrades?..)

I really don’t know what to do, I think I experienced everything without success (except WinXP reinstall, but I can’t do it too many times, or Microsoft won’t permit it once again, as it is a legal copy of XP). I don’t know why this bug suddenly appears… Perhaps it’s due to Windows Update, that updated my DirectX9.0b recently (because of a security hole, they said…) but I’m not sure about that, and even if it was that, I tried a system restore (prior to that upgrade) as I said before, without any change.

I’ve seen on other forums that I’m not the only one that got such a bug, but I tried all the solutions they proposed, without any improvement.

Did you have had once that problem? Do the coders of SplashDamage know something about it? But apparently, it could cause problems to other games too (I’m not sure about that)… That’s why I thought it could be due to DirectX9.0b…
Any idea?

Thanks alot for help!

(chr0nicles) #2

Hi,

r_stereo is unsafe. Check com_crashed. 
r_colorbits is unsafe. Check com_crashed. 
r_texturebits is unsafe. Check com_crashed.

You can fix that with the following, remove every instance of profile.pid from each mod directory in your et folder

etmain\profiles\SomeName\profile.pid
etpro\profiles\SomeName\profile.pid
shrub\profiles\SomeName\profile.pid

Now add the following to your ET shortcut

+set fs_game etpro

ET will now always be started with ETpro loaded, you really shouldn’t start without it, since
it fixes lots of bugs.

Update your bios, get the latest bios from www.asus.com and flash the bios manually or use on of their windows based tools :wink:

Take care

(Lekdevil.NL) #3

There isn’t any bug in ET that hangs your PC. Some PunkBuster client versions do have some incompatibilities with some nVidia driver versions, which could result in a hang. Try playing on servers that have PB disabled, to see if it still hangs. If it does, then it isn’t a PB problem. If it doesn’t, try using the command “\pb_system 1” in the console when no connected to a server and see if that helps (see the PB FAQ for details).

If all that doesn’t help, then you’re probably suffering from hardware instability or (video) driver bugs. To test for hardware stability, follow the instructions from my generic stress testing post below.

HTH.

The first thing you must do is to verify your system stability. Make sure all your BIOS settings are set to their “Optimal” defaults by choosing that option in the main BIOS screen. Then select the correct FSB frequency for the CPU in the “Advanced Chipset Features” screen. Save the changes.

Begin by checking your memory with Memtest86+. Let it run overnight. No errors may be detected during that time.

After that, use the “blend” torture test of Prime95. Your system should be able to run the TT for at least 12 hours straight without reporting a single error (just let it run overnight as well).

Finally, to check your video system, run 3DMark2001 together with Prime95 for another 8 hours. There should be no crashes and no Prime95 errors.

If your system survives all that, you can take the next step and start investigating the OS, drivers, etc. But first run the stress tests and report back your results.

HTH.

(Hurrykn) #4

Thanks Chr0nicles, I’ll try to delete those profile.pid, just in case… I updated my bios two weeks ago, that was the latest version and it had no incidence on those crashes.

Thanks Lekdevil.NL too, I don’t think it’s a PB problem cause when I play on some servers I have some friends with me that just see that I’ve been disconnected (=> error message in the console), not that I’ve been kicked because of PB. I ran 3DMark2003 v3.4.0 yesterday evening, everything was ok, no bug, no crash. I’ll try your Memtest86+ then, and Prime95 too. I think you already posted something about that in a previous forum, didn’t you? Yet I tried SiSoft Sandra benchmarks…

Thank you I’ll check your advices! :wink:

(Lekdevil.NL) #5

Just to clarify: whether you’re getting kicked or not by PB isn’t relevant. If you play on servers that have PB enabled, your PB client is activated as well. When playing on non-PB servers, the PB client is dormant. That’s how you can discount PB being the culprit of the problems on your PC.

Prime95 and Memtest86 are superior for stress testing over Sandra, because the former two actually check the integrity of the data read back from memory. As far as I know, Sandra merely stresses the system by reading and writing a lot of data, but not actually comparing the two (not 100% sure here, but fairly certain). As a result, a Sandra test would only fail if the program itself were to crash because of memory errors. It would not do so when there’d be only a single flipped bit in a remote memory location.

HTH.

(chr0nicles) #6

Try the following:

visit www.evenbalance.com and follow the instructions to manually update punkbuster, dont use pbweb :wink:

i’m very interested in the results

(Hurrykn) #7

Sorry guys but it didn’t change anything… That’s definitely not a PB problem and doesn’t seem to be related to memory either… Well, I guess I’ll have to reinstall XP once again :confused: Thanks for help anyway :wink:

(=DaRk=CrAzY-NuTTeR) #8

poor you :frowning: have u changed ur gfx card recently?

(Vaibhav) #9

Hurrykn

I get exactky the same problems as you.

(Lekdevil.NL) #10

Well, did it pass the Prime95 torture test?

(Vaibhav) #11

my puter passed the test.