Is this normal in Midtown Madness 2

When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something to do with loading into memory. Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? While here I thought I might as well ask another question. Has anyone noticed their hard drive going mad at random times with Windows Millennium? You will be driving along in your formula 1 car when suddenly it crawls for about 5-10 seconds and then goes back to normal. It never happened in 98 and if I press ctrl alt del nothing unusual is running in the background. The effect is something like the one you get when task scheduler is running. My system: Athlon 750, Asus K7V motherboard, Asus V6800 deluxe graphics card (GeForce 32mb DDR) , 192 MB 133mhz RAM, IBM 25gig Hard Drive (UDMA66), SoundBlaster Live Value, Windows Millennium, Direct x7.0a, Interact V4fx Racing Wheel. Thanks Ian

Thanks for everyone's response. It has sorted out the mysterious hard drive activity. I am still though having the same problem with MM2. Which I have restated below: When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something to do with loading into memory. Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? Thanks again for all your help. Ian

I don't have WinME, but can hazard a guess about your 2nd question. It's probably the new "system restore" function that's kicking in intermittently. Like GoBack ( a utility I use with Win95), it takes a "snapshot" of your system periodically, I imagine that this requires a fairly extensive disk read and write. Perhaps there's a setting that can change how often this "snapshot" occurs? With GoBack, my drive goes fairly crazy when I first boot up, but after that there's no problem. Same function, but with a slightly different implementation. Cowly wrote:

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> When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run > perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in > Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs > fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I > restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something > to do with loading into memory. > > Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? > > While here I thought I might as well ask another question. Has anyone > noticed their hard drive going mad at random times with Windows Millennium? > You will be driving along in your formula 1 car when suddenly it crawls for > about 5-10 seconds and then goes back to normal. It never happened in 98 and > if I press ctrl alt del nothing unusual is running in the background. The > effect is something like the one you get when task scheduler is running. > > My system: Athlon 750, Asus K7V motherboard, Asus V6800 deluxe graphics card > (GeForce 32mb DDR) , 192 MB 133mhz RAM, IBM 25gig Hard Drive (UDMA66), > SoundBlaster Live Value, Windows Millennium, Direct x7.0a, Interact V4fx > Racing Wheel. > > Thanks > > Ian

sounds like you may have a swap file being resized. Go to the control panel section, choose system, then device manager. clik the performance tab and choose the swap file section. clik the manage your own file button. And choose a # that is 3 times your memory.(or so I've been told , dunno why) then arange the high and low swap file setting to be the same #(3xyour mem) Another posibility, is too many little programs hogging resources. shut down as many of the systray functions as you can. there is a small utility called enditall that should do this for you. dave henrie "Cowly" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8s5832$lpb$[email hidden]... > When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run > perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in > Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs > fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I > restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it issomething > to do with loading into memory. > > Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? > > While here I thought I might as well ask another question. Has anyone > noticed their hard drive going mad at random times with WindowsMillennium? > You will be driving along in your formula 1 car when suddenly it crawlsfor > about 5-10 seconds and then goes back to normal. It never happened in 98and > if I press ctrl alt del nothing unusual is running in the background. The > effect is something like the one you get when task scheduler is running. > > My system: Athlon 750, Asus K7V motherboard, Asus V6800 deluxe graphicscard

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> (GeForce 32mb DDR) , 192 MB 133mhz RAM, IBM 25gig Hard Drive (UDMA66), > SoundBlaster Live Value, Windows Millennium, Direct x7.0a, Interact V4fx > Racing Wheel. > > Thanks > > Ian > > > > > >

This is a message that was posted a week or so ago regarding problems with ME. I found turning off PC Health to be most hopeful when speeding up games. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- From: Stan Marsh <neddo69 AT hotmail DOT com> Newsgroups: rec.autos.simulators Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 1:05 PM Subject: Re: ME is GARBAGE - tips I dont like ME either, but I got an email listing tips to optimise it. Tells you how to turn off restore correctly and stuff. The email is listed below. "Optimizing Windows Millennium 10 modifications that I have made to Windows ME to gain SIGNIFICANT increase in speed, performance and security. I have tested these settings for over a month and haven't encountered any problems. After applying these tweaks and rebooting the free resources are 99%. Before you decide you actually want to give up these features for the extra speed you should read this page. http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/features/2000/sept00/09-05winme.asp Keep in mind that the developers and testers for these features never encountered a worm or trojan or they may have found that PC Health and Restore will reinstall a trojan because it wants to take you back to the previous state before your "cleaning" modifications were made. Their ideas are good but unfortunately they didn't take these problems into account. It's also obvious they use very fast computers and didn't notice the deterioration of speed (compared to 9x) with all these features turned on. 1. Disable System Restore. Open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> File System - > Troubleshooting area -> Disable System Restore (While you are in this window click on the Floppy Disk tab and uncheck the box so the system doesn't check for a NEW floppy drive every time it starts.) ~~ 2. Uninstall Pc Health. Start / Run "\windows\pchealth\support\pchsetup /uninstall" ~~ 3. Turn off Automatic Updating. (This will hog your modem for 30 mins every day when you first go on line if you don't turn it off.) Start / Settings / Taskbar / Advanced then check Expand Control Panel and close and go to Start / Settings / Control Panel / Automatic Updates and turn OFF Automatic Updating ~~ 4. Use ram memory rather than the swap file. (The system needs OVER 64 megs of ram.) Start / Search / Files type and enter: "system.ini" then click on it and open it in Notepad and add this line after [386Enh] (without quotes) "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" ~~ 5. Set file system to cache about 20 times higher than its default setting. Copy and paste these lines to Notepad and name the file MaxCached.reg then click on MaxCached.reg from Windows Explorer and say Yes you want to add that information to your registry. (You must set Notepad to "all files" when you save it or it will save as text.) -------------------------------- copy below ---------------------------------- REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates] @="Max Cache" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Max Cache] @="Max Cache" "NameCache"=hex:00,18,00,00 "PathCache"=hex:80,00,00,00 ------------------------------- to above ------------------------------------ ~~ 6. Disable these settings in the start menu. Start / Run type and enter: "Msconfig" then click on Startup and UNCHECK PcHealth, StateMgr, SchedulingAgent and Taskmon Then allow the system to reboot so all these changes will take effect. ~~ 7. Run Windows Explorer and click on Tools / Folder Options / View and select "Show hidden files and folders" then browse the c: drive and delete the _Restore folder. Hold your shift key so it doesn't move it to the recycle bin while you press del. This folder can have hundreds of megs of temp files if you have been running ME for a while with the system Restore and PC Health on. If you get an error message saying there is a sharing violation you haven't successfully turned off Pc Health and Restore. The _Restore folder should NOT appears again in the future (unless you update a key Microsoft program like IE). ~~ 8. See if anything unnecessary is running all the time. Press CTRL + ALT + DEl at the same time, after you have first booted up and see what programs are loaded. You may find several programs running that don't need to run all the time. Most of them, if actually needed, can be loaded from the Start / Programs menu. ~~ 9. Don't let windows run HTA, SHS and VBS Script automatically. Those file associations allow viruses to infect your system. Open Windows Explorer and click Tools / Folder Options / File Types and delete HTA, SHS and VBSscript. It is very unlikely a normal PC user would need those file associations turned on. ~~ 10. Disable "Automatic check for Windows Explorer updates" >From the IE "Tools" menu click on "Internet Options" then go to"Advanced" and uncheck the 4th box. EVERY week back up modified files, defrag the system and update the definitions and scan the whole system with your favorite anti-viral program. Run Ad-Aware to fight the spying that a least 100 programs are known to do. (I do this mainly to save the baud width wasted by the data and banner ads that are passing back and forth.) I also manually load ZoneAlarm Pro. from time to time to monitor all programs and report everything that tries to access the internet. I don't like programs "calling home" without my permission. Note: Win ME does not use c:\command.com or win.com. I have found that deleting these files - that are NECESSARY for Win 9x - does not make a difference for ME. New cool feature I found in Win ME: When in DOS mode you can recall the past commands you have run from the dos prompt by pressing the up arrow key or page up. " Aparantly the author hasnt heard of DOSkey Hope this helps Pete ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------- Hope this helps Chris -- Simbok Racing www.geocities.com/simbokza Remove _your_clothes before replying "Cowly" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8s5832$lpb$[email hidden]... > When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run > perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in > Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs > fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I > restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something > to do with loading into memory. > > Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? > > While here I thought I might as well ask another question. Has anyone > noticed their hard drive going mad at random times with Windows Millennium? > You will be driving along in your formula 1 car when suddenly it crawls for > about 5-10 seconds and then goes back to normal. It never happened in 98 and > if I press ctrl alt del nothing unusual is running in the background. The > effect is something like the one you get when task scheduler is running. > > My system: Athlon 750, Asus K7V motherboard, Asus V6800 deluxe graphics card > (GeForce 32mb DDR) , 192 MB 133mhz RAM, IBM 25gig Hard Drive (UDMA66), > SoundBlaster Live Value, Windows Millennium, Direct x7.0a, Interact V4fx > Racing Wheel. > > Thanks > > Ian > > > > > >

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 21:50:53 +0100, "Cowly" <[email hidden]> wrote: >While here I thought I might as well ask another question. Has anyone >noticed their hard drive going mad at random times with Windows Millennium? >You will be driving along in your formula 1 car when suddenly it crawls for >about 5-10 seconds and then goes back to normal. It never happened in 98 and >if I press ctrl alt del nothing unusual is running in the background. The >effect is something like the one you get when task scheduler is running. I didn't even know Midtown Madness 2 was out so I can't answer your first question, but the second one is easy: It's called "System Restore." To kill it off: right click "My Computer" pick "Properties" Performance tab File system button Troubleshooting tab put a check in the box next to "Disable system restore" Close, Close Restart your computer. ~daxe

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 19:19:05 +0100, "Cowly" <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>Thanks for everyone's response. It has sorted out the mysterious hard drive >activity. I am still though having the same problem with MM2. Which I have >restated below: > >When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run >perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in >Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs >fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I >restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something >to do with loading into memory. > >Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? > >Thanks again for all your help.

Does MidMad2 have a choice of texture detail like MidMad1 does? I remember them being low, med, high, very high (AGP) or something like that. Try changing that setting (if it has it) and see if that changes anything? I dont recall your hardware list but maybe your AGP aperture is too small or something? SOunds possibly like the game loading the textures into memory? Possibly a driver bug that messes up loading of textures? Have you defragged your disks lately? Just tossing out ideas. ~daxe

MM1 has a Fast Load feature (can't remember exactly what it's called) that can cause this problem. If MM2 has it, make sure it's not checked. -- Slot www.slottweak.com Tweaks & Reviews Cowly <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8s7jj4$60n$[email hidden]... > Thanks for everyone's response. It has sorted out the mysterious hard drive > activity. I am still though having the same problem with MM2. Which I have > restated below: > > When I switch my computer on and load MM2 the first race I try will run > perfectly. As soon as I start a second race the graphics start off in > Jerk-o-vision and start to get better. If I click on restart race it runs > fine. Whenever I switch to another race it always starts off slow until I > restart the race. This happens in all resolutions. I presume it is something > to do with loading into memory. > > Are other people suffering this same problem or is there a solution? > > Thanks again for all your help. > > Ian > >

Thanks but I can't find such a feature, it appears to be a driver issue. See my other post for what else I have tried. Ian "GTX_SlotCar" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:cRLF5.8572$[email hidden]...

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> MM1 has a Fast Load feature (can't remember exactly what it's called) that > can cause this problem. If MM2 has it, make sure it's not checked. > > -- > > Slot > www.slottweak.com > Tweaks & Reviews

Thanks for the new suggestions. It does appears to be driver related but changing these has caused a new problem. I have summarised my findings below (all my other racing games work fine with any driver or bios): 3.77 Nvidia Drivers with 1007a bios for motherboard: Midtown Madness 2 shows the following fault; Even with all the graphics reduced to the minimum the game will fly the first time a game is started but as soon as I quit to main menu and then start the same game again it goes to being jerky at the beginning. If I then change everything to full, even upping the resolution to 1600x1200 and start a new event then the game flies along. When I next exit to race menu and then start the same event it goes back to jerk-o-vision for the while before going back to full speed. As I have said before if I restart the race without going back to the main menu then everything flies again. The weird thing is that when I change a graphics setting the game will run perfectly well the first time I choose an event and it is only after that first event that things go wrong. 5.xx to 6.xx drivers from both Nvidia and Asus would not work with 1007a bios for my motherboard. 6.31 Nvidia Drivers with 1007a bios for motherboard: Midtown Madness locks up in all resolutions above 800x600 but runs fine apart from this. 3.77 Nvidia Drivers with latest 1008.01c bios for motherboard: Same fault shown as with the 3.77 driver and 1007a bios. 6.31 Nvidia Drivers with 1008.01c bios for motherboard: Midtown Madness 2 will start in any resolution and seem to be running fine for a short while before it locks up completely! I hope all this makes sense and does anyone have any suggestions for a fix? Or will I have to wait for the next set of drivers. My system: Athlon 750, Asus K7V motherboard, Asus V6800 deluxe graphics card (GeForce 32mb DDR) , 192 MB 133mhz RAM, IBM 25gig Hard Drive (UDMA66), SoundBlaster Live Value, Windows Millennium, Direct x7.0a, Interact V4fx Racing Wheel. Ian "daxe" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Does MidMad2 have a choice of texture detail like MidMad1 does? I > remember them being low, med, high, very high (AGP) or something like > that. Try changing that setting (if it has it) and see if that > changes anything? I dont recall your hardware list but maybe your AGP > aperture is too small or something? SOunds possibly like the game > loading the textures into memory? Possibly a driver bug that messes up > loading of textures? Have you defragged your disks lately? > > Just tossing out ideas. > > ~daxe