Motherboard makes ET hang


(DarkGul) #1

My computer has a 6way onboard sound thingy, but i think the driver makes my ET hang. On total random occasions my ET hangs, i hear several voice commands (“Incoming”, “Defend Objective” for example) repeated a few times and then ET goes perfectly well again. Its always happened when a voice command was being used so thats why i think its the onboard soundcard. My mobo is a gigabyte k8nnxp … anyone else had this before or can some1 give me a clue about how to fix this ? Ive been looking for other drivers, but so far i didnt had results …

All my other games run perfectly well (ut2k4, painkiller, farcry, wc3 …)


(DG) #2

the gigabyte page for your mobo is here, first thing I’d try is click the Driver link and if the driver there (3.54) is newer than the one you have (go into device manager and look at the properties of the sound device) then try updating it. There’s chipset drivers etc there aswell if you want. Beware updating any drivers can have unintended effects, i.e. a different game might start being unstable, but if you still have an installable driver of what you have now you should be able to set it back.

Could also try increasing your soundmegs, pretty sceptical this will help but it’s so easy it’s worth a try. Edit the etconfig.cfg (use wordpad or notepad, or any text editor) and Find com_soundMegs and increase it a little. If it doesnt help just set it back.


(Domipheus) #3

is it a cmedia sound chip? i had the exact same thing. I had to disable it and install a standard pci card. Glad i did it tho! :smiley:


(DarkGul) #4

thx for the replies guys,

I installed a soundblaster live, disabled the realtek AC97 in my bios & windows and i still get errors … hmpfh … ill try the sound megs thingy … its worth a shot.

edit; i tried upping the soundmegs, didnt help me out … my full pc specs are amd64, k8nnxp mobo, kingston hyprx rams, my vid card is ok, i already played et with it on another computer … anyone knows of known issues with these parts ?


(Rippin Kitten) #5

Try lowering your sound hardware acceleration level. To get to this, go into your Sound and Audio Devices control panel and click the Advanced button in the Speaker Settings section. Click the Performance tab and bring the top slider down one notch. Then fire up ET and see if it continues.

RK


(no_shad) #6

i think i have exactly the same problem. Usually occurs at the same time as airstrikes/dynamite exploding, results in the sound looping a few times, my screen freezing (character still moves but usually results in death ). At first i thought it was my SB Audigy being naughty, but i’m starting to think it is hard disk access causing it, possibly the nvidia ide drivers). In an ideal world it should not need to access the hdd as i have a gig of ram.
Anyhoo when i get time i’ll mess about reloading drivers.


(DarkGul) #7

Ok, back on this :slight_smile:

I found a setting in my bios called AGP Aperture Size … it was set at 128, i lowered it to 32 (lowest setting possible) and as result, i still get hangs but they only last just a fraction of a second now and i also think my whole ET game goes faster now ! I dont really know what this setting exactly does, only the describtion “Memory blocks used for the AGP”.

Anyways its less frustrating now to play ET … but i still wanna get rid of the hangs ! … anyone can give me a tip with this new information ?


(DG) #8

http://www.rojakpot.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?Lang=0&bogno=32

AGP Aperture Size

Common Options : 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256

Quick Review

This BIOS feature does two things. It selects the size of the AGP aperture and it determines the size of the GART (Graphics Address Relocation Table).

The aperture is a portion of the PCI memory address range that is dedicated for use as AGP memory address space while the GART is a translation table that translates AGP memory addresses into actual memory addresses which are often fragmented. The GART allows the graphics card to see the memory region available to it as a contiguous piece of memory range.

Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP bus without need for translation. The aperture size also determines the maximum amount of system memory that can be allocated to the AGP graphics card for texture storage.

Please note that the AGP aperture is merely address space, not actual physical memory in use. Although it is very common to hear people recommending that the AGP aperture size should be half the size of system memory, that is wrong!

The requirement for AGP memory space shrinks as the graphics card’s local memory increases in size. This is because the graphics card will have more local memory to dedicate to texture storage. So, if you upgrade to a graphics card with more memory, you shouldn’t be “deceived” into thinking that you will need even more AGP memory! On the contrary, a smaller AGP memory space will be required.

It is recommended that you keep the AGP aperture around 64MB to 128MB in size, even if your graphics card has a lot of onboard memory. This allows flexibility in the event that you actually need extra memory for texture storage. It will also keep the GART (Graphics Address Relocation Table) within a reasonable size.


(DarkGul) #9

Blah, thx for the info, ok, so low isnt bad since my 9800pro has a nice amount of memory. Anyways i think my hangs are because of the interaction between ET and my rams, seems like these 2 dont like eachother. I think i wont be able to do anything about it … i’m just bugged that other games dont have hangs … wich means the ET code is inferior or my other games dont acces te AGP adress whilst being ingame …


(dworn) #10

ok, i fixed had the same problem with my athlon64 (3,2+) and my shuttle barebone /radeon 9600…

i changed in the bios the agp speed to 8x (it was set to auto) and sideband to “on” …
afterwards i checked the ati drivers and set the agp speed to 8x (like in the bios) and fast write to “on” (also in the bios set to “on”)

now i can get fragged without the freezing and looping :wink: