have tracked down the source of woe. (see my previous whin...er posts on the
subject) The newer STB Velocity 128 drivers may have been causing all of
the trouble. I saw a number of posts on that seemed related to my problem
and the common denominator was the V128 so I started experimenting.
***
To recap my system specs:
Win 98 (fresh install)
P166
64mb EDO RAM
STB Velocity 128 4mb (newest drivers)
Monster 1 4mb PCI Voodoo card (newest 3dfx reference drivers)
SB AWE32 Value
[the Monster drivers were the drivers I tested as the cause of my problem
last night. I tried em all. No luck. The 3dfx ref. drivers seemed to
perform best, when the game wasn't crashing like a bastard so I stuck with
them.]
***
First, I followed the advice of many here and created a permanent swap space
(200mb) on a separate defragged drive. Fired up GPL (newest v128 drivers
loaded and 3dfx reference drivers), started Monaco ( a sure ticket to a
crash for some reason) and the expected happened. Kernel32.dll error.
I rebooted again, and installed the v128 drivers from the PREVIOUS version
(from around May 98). Rebooted and came back. Fired up GPL at Monaco.
Crashola after 3 laps (not me, that is a given. I meant the computer).
I rebooted again, came back to 98 and installed the drivers that CAME ON THE
WIN98 CD. The vanilla 128 drivers, not the (TV SUPPORT) drivers. Rebooted
again. Fired up GPL. Drove for about an hour at Monaco, watched about 20m
of replays, watched the Arnao Nurburgring replay (which I have NEVER made it
through without crashing) in its entirety. I will keep testing but even if
it crashes again, it seems a damn sight better than it was.
My questions that remain are: why would the STB card have ANYTHING to do
with this game running under 3dfx? Direct Draw? Just a wiggy thing with GPL
and the STB? It is weird stuff, but I hope this is the solution. This kind
of reboot-fest gets pretty frickin old after about...oh say... 2 minutes....
Thoughts? Eric? Randy?
J.