rec.autos.simulators

by **Hick** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 17:19:49

After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
what is possible, even with a 56k modem.
Apart from falling off the track, I had a couple of other technical
problems though -

1. After the warm-up session, I see the cars lining up, but then the
game froze. Engine sound was stuck. Had to reboot.

BTW I have DX 8.0. Would installing 8.1 help?

2. Trying to connect to other servers, I got a 'connection timed out'
message. After quiting the game, I could not restart it (got 'program
has performed illegal operation' error). Again had to reboot the PC.

I'm using Zonealarm. Could this be causing a problem?

I have the 1.2 patch, and D3D patch.
Any other advice appreciated.

BTW system specs:

ABit KT7 RAID
128MB
ASUS v6800 GF
SoundBlaster Live

--
Cpl Hicks

by **Olav Malmi** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 17:25:12

> After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
> time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
> online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
> what is possible, even with a 56k modem.

Whats even more amazing, it works on a average external 28.8 modem.

--
Olav Malmin
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by **Remco Moe** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:32:53

The first problem is caused by ZoneAlarm indeed. I don't know the
reason for the second problem.

Remco

by **Kevin Clar** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:37:42

> After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
> time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
> online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
> what is possible, even with a 56k modem.
> Apart from falling off the track, I had a couple of other technical
> problems though -

> 1. After the warm-up session, I see the cars lining up, but then the
> game froze. Engine sound was stuck. Had to reboot.

> BTW I have DX 8.0. Would installing 8.1 help?

> 2. Trying to connect to other servers, I got a 'connection timed out'
> message. After quiting the game, I could not restart it (got 'program
> has performed illegal operation' error). Again had to reboot the PC.

> I'm using Zonealarm. Could this be causing a problem?

> I have the 1.2 patch, and D3D patch.
> Any other advice appreciated.

Zone alarm is known to cause problems. try a google search of this
newsgroup or search the RSC forum.

Kev

by **Dan Leac** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:59:37

Really u want to close all the programs you can before racing online,
especially zonealarm.
dan

> After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
> time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
> online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
> what is possible, even with a 56k modem.
> Apart from falling off the track, I had a couple of other technical
> problems though -

> 1. After the warm-up session, I see the cars lining up, but then the
> game froze. Engine sound was stuck. Had to reboot.

> BTW I have DX 8.0. Would installing 8.1 help?

> 2. Trying to connect to other servers, I got a 'connection timed out'
> message. After quiting the game, I could not restart it (got 'program
> has performed illegal operation' error). Again had to reboot the PC.

> I'm using Zonealarm. Could this be causing a problem?

> I have the 1.2 patch, and D3D patch.
> Any other advice appreciated.

> BTW system specs:

> ABit KT7 RAID
> 128MB
> ASUS v6800 GF
> SoundBlaster Live

> --
> Cpl Hicks

by **Douglas Elliso** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 22:06:35

> > After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
> > time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
> > online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
> > what is possible, even with a 56k modem.

> Whats even more amazing, it works on a average external 28.8 modem.

And F12002 doesnt - and people think that's OK.

Doug

by **Andre Warring** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 23:09:45

On 19 Jul 2002 10:25:12 +0200, Olav Malmin

>> After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
>> time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
>> online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
>> what is possible, even with a 56k modem.

>Whats even more amazing, it works on a average external 28.8 modem.

Even more amazing is that your connection will be more stable when you
set your 56k6 modem to 28k8. Sounds silly, but it's true :)

Andre

by **m..** » Sat, 20 Jul 2002 23:42:13

you need/will benefit from the disco patch too. from www.papy.com
domnloads page.

dr martin.

by **Plowbo** » Sun, 21 Jul 2002 02:06:28

Hicks
I use zone alarm Pro, and have for over a year now I sometimes get +5 ms
added to pings at most to most servers (meaning instead of 100ms to some
server in vrock, I can have 105 ms to that server... Anyway, If free
version is anything like the PRO, Whenever you run a program like GPL that
then wants to acces the internet, ZA should&will open a small window(dialog
box) that ask for permission for GPL (or gpl.exe I think it will show) to
connect to the internet, then another one for it to act as server...
However some machines (vid cards) wont let you see this window or it can
lock when this happens because of the way gfx are handled... so on 1 of my
machines I had to do this "ALLOW" thing in stages, 1st I launched GPL, then
attempted to connect to any internet connection, then waited, then since
window didn't pop up in the game, I had to back out of GPL, then answer ZA'a
dialog box to allow (checking remember these setting). then launch it
again, goes a bit farther, might not be able to tell from inside GPL, but
when it times out again, back out and allow server for gpl in ZA's Dialog
box...

If you have already munged this up, I think you might have to shut off ZA to
get to any server...
Im using WINVROC program which is a multiplayer host program that should
have been licensed by papy, (since someone else went to the trouble to
developed it) to use in any online game Sierra produces, as it is 1000 %
more intuitive, and IMHO neater than what is built into n3-N2k2...

P.S. On my good machine though, the dialog box showed up inside the game,
but if you accidentally click anywhere else in the screen except the ZA
dialog box, you will have to back out to get to the dialog box for ZA.

hope this helps ya

> After recently getting this game, I played GPL online for the first
> time. Truly amazing! After attempting unsucessfully to play GP3 and Toca
> online some time ago, I'd given up with online racing, but GPL shows
> what is possible, even with a 56k modem.
> Apart from falling off the track, I had a couple of other technical
> problems though -

> 1. After the warm-up session, I see the cars lining up, but then the
> game froze. Engine sound was stuck. Had to reboot.

> BTW I have DX 8.0. Would installing 8.1 help?

> 2. Trying to connect to other servers, I got a 'connection timed out'
> message. After quiting the game, I could not restart it (got 'program
> has performed illegal operation' error). Again had to reboot the PC.

> I'm using Zonealarm. Could this be causing a problem?

> I have the 1.2 patch, and D3D patch.
> Any other advice appreciated.

> BTW system specs:

> ABit KT7 RAID
> 128MB
> ASUS v6800 GF
> SoundBlaster Live

> --
> Cpl Hicks

by **Malc** » Sun, 21 Jul 2002 04:55:00

I used a similar procedure with the free version of ZoneAlarm, but set gpl
to run in a window (there's a setting it core.ini to allow this in d3d) the
first time I connected to vroc, making it much easier to see the ZoneAlarm
messages.

I have both vroc & gpl set to allow connect, but not act as server, and it
works okay for me.

Having said that, plenty of people have had problems, and so you may want to
try the Tiny personal firewall instead. It's free.

hth, Malc.

by **Dave Henri** » Sun, 21 Jul 2002 08:46:38

Tiny has been bought by a company called Kerio. They still have a free
version of the firewall, but now it's called Kerio Personal firewall instead
of Tiny.
btw...do you use FSAA at all? GPL and Nvidia cards don't race well
together when fsaa is enabled.
dave henrie

by **The Black Cat =^..^** » Sun, 21 Jul 2002 10:56:20

Yes. I have to shut mine off or I freeze.

by **ymenar** » Mon, 22 Jul 2002 03:47:20

> However some machines (vid cards) wont let you see this window or it can
> lock when this happens because of the way gfx are handled...

Normally pressing Y + Enter (or Shift + Y + Enter) when you see the
ZoneAlarm question bubble will pass over that problem..

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **Eldre** » Tue, 23 Jul 2002 09:41:15

>If you have already munged this up, I think you might have to shut off ZA to
>get to any server...
>Im using WINVROC program which is a multiplayer host program that should
>have been licensed by papy, (since someone else went to the trouble to
>developed it) to use in any online game Sierra produces, as it is 1000 %
>more intuitive, and IMHO neater than what is built into n3-N2k2...

>P.S. On my good machine though, the dialog box showed up inside the game,
>but if you accidentally click anywhere else in the screen except the ZA
>dialog box, you will have to back out to get to the dialog box for ZA.

Zone Alarm has a problem with some systems/video cards unrelated to the network
connection. I had ZA setup for GPL - I could connect to servers just fine.
But, GPL would occasionally lock up. That wasn't only online. It would lock
up when running offline as well. On my system(and others, from what I've
heard), GPL and ZA do *not* get along well. You may have gotten lucky, but
most people have to disable ZA before they run GPL...

Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
My .sig file is in the shop for repairs...

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by **Hick** » Tue, 23 Jul 2002 17:53:38

Thanks for all the responses.
Yes I have ensured that GPL and WINVROC are enabled by ZoneAlarm.
It's easiest to do this by clicking on the 'programs' tab in the ZA
control panel and enabling the programs manually.

The freeze up is not so much a problem. I'm still getting GPL
startup problems. This seems to happen in
the situation where I abandon a race and exit the game. If I
try to restart the game it just comes back with 'illegal operation'.
Only cure is to reboot the PC.

I'll try a re-install of the game, reapplying all patches. In
the meantime, if anyone else has had this problem please let me
know what you did to solve it.

--
Cpl Hicks