Re: NASCAR heat locking up..please help

Mine just takes ages, you've waited a long time? -- Tim, [email hidden]|[email hidden] http://legends.sports-gaming.com/forums.shtml FREE forums for your league... http://legends.sports-gaming.com Sim racing website loosely based on gpl... Mike Dunn <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > After 2 nights and numerous attempts, i am faced with a > reformat of the C drive. I just cannot for the life of me > figure out whats wrong with my PC and why i cant get NASCAR > heat to load the game up. I can move all through the menus, > but when i click on race, it starts the FIRST loading > screen, than starts the second. Right after that it locks > up on the screen with the picture of the door with the #18 > on the side. A cold boot is needed to save me past this. > > First i was running a Viper 550, than last night i got a > Creative labs TNT2 card, same problem. Currently i have > done the following: > > New drivers for both cards. > Installed Direct X 7.0a > New Drivers for the SB live sound card > New drivers for my Motherboard MS 5169 > I am using the TNT2 card right now, and the drivers i am > using are the NVIDA ones listed on the web site. I was also > using the drivers off the Creative labs site as well..no > luck. > > I have tried everything, but what is happening is minor, > its a loading problem, or Display problem. Just for more > info sometimes i will get a lock up while moving through > the menus. > > > * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

After 2 nights and numerous attempts, i am faced with a reformat of the C drive. I just cannot for the life of me figure out whats wrong with my PC and why i cant get NASCAR heat to load the game up. I can move all through the menus, but when i click on race, it starts the FIRST loading screen, than starts the second. Right after that it locks up on the screen with the picture of the door with the #18 on the side. A cold boot is needed to save me past this. First i was running a Viper 550, than last night i got a Creative labs TNT2 card, same problem. Currently i have done the following: New drivers for both cards. Installed Direct X 7.0a New Drivers for the SB live sound card New drivers for my Motherboard MS 5169 I am using the TNT2 card right now, and the drivers i am using are the NVIDA ones listed on the web site. I was also using the drivers off the Creative labs site as well..no luck. I have tried everything, but what is happening is minor, its a loading problem, or Display problem. Just for more info sometimes i will get a lock up while moving through the menus. * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Alan, Nope..i havent even touched any of the cfg files yet. i am still trying just to get in the game.I just am stumped. Every combo you can think of i have been trying. Just for added info, i DONOT have any conflicting resources in my Controll panel menu. Mike * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Have you modified the options.cfg file? If you have enabled vertex damage then the lock-up is actually a delay, not lock-up as it can take anything from 2-5 minutes to load (don't look for HD activity either, there is none). TBH I don't really see any major improvement on the gfx side with vertex damage, and have turned it of myself, there is plenty of eye-candy in NH anyway. Gotta love viewing replays of my spin-outs from the cockpit view of the cars behind me on the track *vbg* especially when it causes a major pile-up (often in my case LOL) Alan. Mike Dunn wrote:

Quoted text (28 lines)

> After 2 nights and numerous attempts, i am faced with a > reformat of the C drive. I just cannot for the life of me > figure out whats wrong with my PC and why i cant get NASCAR > heat to load the game up. I can move all through the menus, > but when i click on race, it starts the FIRST loading > screen, than starts the second. Right after that it locks > up on the screen with the picture of the door with the #18 > on the side. A cold boot is needed to save me past this. > > First i was running a Viper 550, than last night i got a > Creative labs TNT2 card, same problem. Currently i have > done the following: > > New drivers for both cards. > Installed Direct X 7.0a > New Drivers for the SB live sound card > New drivers for my Motherboard MS 5169 > I am using the TNT2 card right now, and the drivers i am > using are the NVIDA ones listed on the web site. I was also > using the drivers off the Creative labs site as well..no > luck. > > I have tried everything, but what is happening is minor, > its a loading problem, or Display problem. Just for more > info sometimes i will get a lock up while moving through > the menus. > > * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Mike, I know you said you'd re-installed DX7a and new drivers for your gfx card, what order? dx then drivers?, IIRC it is always best with nvidia cards to always re-install DX AFTER you install the gfx drivers. try it. BTW which tnt drivers you using? Alan Mike Dunn wrote:

Quoted text (11 lines)

> Alan, > > Nope..i havent even touched any of the cfg files yet. i am > still trying just to get in the game.I just am stumped. > Every combo you can think of i have been trying. Just for > added info, i DONOT have any conflicting resources in my > Controll panel menu. > > Mike > > * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Alan, Lets see..last night when i installed the new card (CL Riva tnt2) i installed the drivers from the CL web site. They are the Version -- 4.12.01.0532 , these are listed in the Fast trax.exe package.I also installed the BC403.exe as well. Beforing doing any of this i had DX 7.0a already installed. here is where i grabed them from: http://www.creativehelp.com/files/download.asp? OS=Win98&prod=db_riva i just looked at the CL site and noticed these drivers: Creative TNT/TNT2/GeForce/GeForce Pro/GeForce2 series card driver for Win9x TNTA-9XWEB-3-US (NVIDIA reference driver version: 5.30) Should i be using these instead? Ok back to the Story, Than it still wouldnt work, so i went over to the nvida web site and DL the new drivers there.Installed them and reinstalled DX 7.0a. Mike Dunn * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Tim, Yes, I let it go for 10 mins..no luck. Mike * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Get the new Nvidia drivers, and make sure you totally remove the old video drivers as instructed before you do so. Also how long are you waiting before you assume its frozen? Try loading it up, getting something to eat, wait 10-15 minutes and see if it's still not loaded. and don't be afraid to touch that options file and enable hardcore mode. Mike Dunn <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted text (30 lines)

> Alan, > > Lets see..last night when i installed the new card (CL Riva > tnt2) i installed the drivers from the CL web site. They > are the Version -- 4.12.01.0532 , these are listed in the > Fast trax.exe package.I also installed the BC403.exe as > well. Beforing doing any of this i had DX 7.0a already > installed. > here is where i grabed them from: > > http://www.creativehelp.com/files/download.asp? > OS=Win98&prod=db_riva > > i just looked at the CL site and noticed these drivers: > > Creative TNT/TNT2/GeForce/GeForce Pro/GeForce2 series card > driver for Win9x > TNTA-9XWEB-3-US > (NVIDIA reference driver version: 5.30) > > Should i be using these instead? > > Ok back to the Story, Than it still wouldnt work, so i went > over to the nvida web site and DL the new drivers > there.Installed them and reinstalled DX 7.0a. > > Mike Dunn > > > * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find

related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Mike... I took the advice of Alan below.....turned off vertex damage....and NH now loads without problems. I was experiencing the exact same thing as you described.....using a V-5 card also. But, I keep my system/device drivers current.... including DX7.0a and so forth.....so I knew it wasn't my equipment per se, but something that NH didn't like about it....or, something I had inadvertently done. What I'm surprised about is two things: 1) Why it took three days to get someone from the beta team....or Hasbro.....to offer this explanation? I'm thankful to Alan for getting it......but heck, I've seen posts here and in two other newsgroups talking about this same problem from last Sunday! A "crash" of NH also generated an email alert to MGI (probably to Dave Broske....sounds like a Broske thing to have crashes auto-send him an email with the heat.log file......nice job Dave).....nothing from them either. Glad this was an easy fix......sorry it took so long to be made public. 2) Why wasn't this listed in the readme.txt file as a "known issue?" Sounds to me like "testing" of NH on a V-5 card was not very thorough....it would be hard to miss this problem wouldn't it? And, that assumes this only happens with a V-5 card? Possibly this is only a problem with the "demo version".....but that seems unlikely. I drove NH at E-3 in Los Angeles a few months back. I am interested in seeing the difference in the product....then and now. My overall reaction to NH from my E-3 driving experience was as follows: Driver Immersion Factor: Arcade level, with good-to-excellent car physics. The work that we are doing through SearsGroup/Bulldozer.......has brought us to the conclusion that the term "Driver Immersion Factor" is really a combination of the simulation's features we've divided in this way: Track graphics (track surface and distant textures being the most important), "other cars" graphics, track design/shape realism (how much does it look and feel like the real-world race track), cockpit graphics (surface texture and driver FOV being the most important), car physics realism and sound (engine sounds, spotter sounds are the two key areas). There is one other factor...but this is not dependent on the software of the simulation....it is the "sim equipment" used (referring to racing seat, monitor, racing wheel, etc.). While this has not been a totally scientific study, we have had feedback and input from several Winston Cup drivers, along with some of the best racing sim communities' drivers around. Our general conclusions are when the individual "features" are rated (we use a 1-10 scale, 10 being the highest) by real-world drivers....if the average is above 8.0 they also tend to "relate" a higher Driver Immersion Factor....both by what they "say" to us after driving in one of our racing simulators....and by what we can observe their behavior to be while actually driving (for example: Jeff Gordon said he'd give us five minutes....he ended up driving for more than 30 minutes, was late for an interview appointment...and he brought his dad back a few hours later to show him our simulator. Its no surprise then that when asked, Jeff said the "Driver Immersion Factor" was "high.......and frankly, it was totally unexpected." [Gordon comments are paraphrased by me....these are not intended to reflect his exact words). I pulled my "notes" from E-3 and this is how NH was rated by me (after two days of driving NH in their display booth off and on for a total of about two hours....ignoring their "sim equipment" rating since it was just a desktop pc with a stool in front it....their single WC type sim car wasn't much better): Track Graphics: 8.5 Other Car Graphics: 7.0 Track Design/Shape: un-rated (I have never driven a WC car at Daytona...so this was not rated nor included in any average below.) Cockpit Graphics: 5.0 (lack of surface texture and the fact that the rearview mirror "floated"....hurt this rating). Car Physics: 9.0 Sound: 4.0 (this is not a "typo"...the sound was really bad......pure arcade level, especially the spotter and engines). Driver Immersion Factor: 6.7 (five factors above added, divided by 5) This puts NH (from my E-3 experience only) in the Arcade level.....noting the excellent car physics because it stands out from the others. I would like to point out two things about this.....before too many get up in arms about me apparently calling NH an arcade game. First, I'm not using the word "arcade" the way many of the people who post in this newsgroup seem to be using it. It's descriptive of our rating system described here. It is NOT intended to be a "knock" or negative as it is often used by hardcore sim racers. Second, it is our belief that good arcade racing games do more to advance the cause of sim racing in general than most people give them credit for. While the upper echelon of our sim racing ranks has only hardcore sim racers......those ranks are filled by the initial "gamers" who take more than a "gaming interest" in sim racing and are willing and capable of doing the things necessary to get their skill level up to the "hardcore sim racer" levels. That usually means a year or two of serious weekly practice. Just like in real racing......the future of racing lays not with today's top drivers, but with today's newest race driver! It has long been established that the life-blood of any racing series....depends more on its ability to attract and capture the best of the young/new drivers....than it does on the quality of its "seasoned veterans." NASCAR has done an excellent job in providing excellent "training ground" racing series around the country, at the local track level.......this has brought to the WC level the kind of "rookie driver" quality we've seen in the last few years with drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Steve Parks and Dale, Jr., and so forth (I'm not trying leave any "rookies" out....I'm just trying to briefly illustrate the point). We are delighted that NH is a "top rated" arcade level racing simulation (if that's what it turns out to be in the final analysis).......for these reasons. When the full version comes out (and/or I get a chance to run more than two laps on the demo)....this may change? But it doesn't matter.....as is.....NH is great and helps all of us....because it furthers the "sport" of sim racing. Now, if MGI's "target" was to produce a pure hardcore racing simulation, then they missed their mark badly. And, I'm not even suggesting that it was. If on the other hand, it was to produce the best arcade level racing sim to date....with maybe enough "hardcore sim" features to attract and encourage "gamers" to move up the ranks....then they have done a first rate job of it. Bravo MGI.....!!! As a footnote to this post: N4 didn't rate much better.....it was higher...but not a dramatic difference. Remember, I was seeing two very early versions of each. Also, we do not rate the AI cars because we don't think any "computer driven" race car can even come close to the performance characteristics of a live, human driver......"unpredictability" being the key factor here, and we don't race against the AI cars in our work with Bulldozer anyway. I do have reason to believe however, that because of the way NH models it's AI cars.....we may be taking another look at that factor. Sorry for the long post......but I didn't want to just make a comment without some kind of support for what it meant (to us at least). Regards, Tom Pabst PS: Those of you who don't know about SearsGroup or Bulldozer, can read about it at High Gear. There's a press release issued by Sears Point Raceway in the news archives. I am also writing a series of articles about all of this...they will start appearing on High Gear monthly, starting next month. "Mike Dunn" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted text (29 lines)

> After 2 nights and numerous attempts, i am faced with a > reformat of the C drive. I just cannot for the life of me > figure out whats wrong with my PC and why i cant get NASCAR > heat to load the game up. I can move all through the menus, > but when i click on race, it starts the FIRST loading > screen, than starts the second. Right after that it locks > up on the screen with the picture of the door with the #18 > on the side. A cold boot is needed to save me past this. > > First i was running a Viper 550, than last night i got a > Creative labs TNT2 card, same problem. Currently i have > done the following: > > New drivers for both cards. > Installed Direct X 7.0a > New Drivers for the SB live sound card > New drivers for my Motherboard MS 5169 > I am using the TNT2 card right now, and the drivers i am > using are the NVIDA ones listed on the web site. I was also > using the drivers off the Creative labs site as well..no > luck. > > I have tried everything, but what is happening is minor, > its a loading problem, or Display problem. Just for more > info sometimes i will get a lock up while moving through > the menus. > > > * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find

related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

On Thu, 17 Aug 2000 21:25:12 GMT, "Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted text (11 lines)

>Mike... > >I took the advice of Alan below.....turned off vertex damage....and NH now >loads without problems. I was experiencing the exact same thing as you >described.....using a V-5 card also. But, I keep my system/device drivers >current.... including DX7.0a and so forth.....so I knew it wasn't my >equipment per se, but something that NH didn't like about it....or, >something I had inadvertently done. What I'm surprised about is two things: > > 1) Why it took three days to get someone from the beta team....or >Hasbro.....to offer this explanation?

Demos do not include customer support.

Quoted text (9 lines)

>I'm thankful to Alan for getting >it......but heck, I've seen posts here and in two other newsgroups talking >about this same problem from last Sunday! A "crash" of NH also generated an >email alert to MGI (probably to Dave Broske....sounds like a Broske thing to >have crashes auto-send him an email with the heat.log file......nice job >Dave).....nothing from them either. Glad this was an easy fix......sorry it >took so long to be made public. > > 2) Why wasn't this listed in the readme.txt file as a "known issue?"

It wasnt even supported by MGI. Someone hacked the options.cfg file and word got around. >Sounds to me like "testing" of NH on a V-5 card was not very thorough....it >would be hard to miss this problem wouldn't it? And, that assumes this only >happens with a V-5 card? Possibly this is only a problem with the "demo >version".....but that seems unlikely.

Tom, I havent messed with any of the files on NASCAR heat. Do i need to go into the cfg file and turn off Vertex? I thought it was turned off by default. BTW, last night i let it sit there for over 20 mins on the loading screen..no luck. I am so bummed out, I have never had a problem with trying to load games to play them. This is the first game thats ever gave me problems. Saturday, i am going to reformat my HD. Fresh install of Win98 and Direct X 7.0a, new drivers, for the SB live, CL tnt2, modem, MB, etc. Mike * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

Revved..... You are right. I should have searched the newsgroup better....but man...there were about 1300 new posts that one day alone. I tried...but didn't find anything about this vertex damage thing. When I thought about the several posts from Ed Martin last week....in preparation for the Heat "demo" coming out, about "fully testing all the new video cards" it didn't make sense to me that such a simple problem was going un-fixed for so many days. It may have been someone "hacking" the config.cfg file that made the suggestion about turning on "vertex damage" but he sure sounded like he was a Heat beta tester that knew what he was talking about. Obviously he didn't, and I wasn't the only one that lost several days before getting the demo to run because of it. I have followed your many posts about NH topics over the last week or so. I note that you are clearly a supporter of Heat....and rightfully so. I haven't been allowed to make posts on r.a.s. for several months (because of a news blackout imposed on us by the Sears track with regard to our work there).....so I haven't gotten to know you like I have many of the other "regulars" on r.a.s. That probably means the reverse is true also. I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been....but I was using the term "arcade game" in a much different way than is normally used in reference to racing simulations currently coming out by "posters" on r.a.s. I don't place the negative connotation on that term that many others do here. But I do see how that could have been misconstrued by my remarks...out of context. Because of the work we are doing with Bulldozer.....we have a completely different set of standards that we must apply to a racing simulation. It was "those standards" which I was comparing NH to....not the ones we usually see used by sim racing users on r.a.s. Remember, if I have to sit a "Jeff Gordon" down in one of our race simulators....that becomes something completely different than you and I joining up for an online race. I hope you can understand that? My reference to my "evaluation" of NH from back at E-3....was only provided to give a frame of reference to how much the sim had improved since then....which is what I found....and what I expected. I'm sorry if it appeared I was using that information to represent my current thoughts about it. I wasn't. I should tell you that we are considering working with Hasbro on the simulation track design work we are doing at SearsGroup. So, obviously I don't think Heat is an arcade game. Are there things I think they could have done better? Of course, there always will be....and I'm sure Ed Martin has his list of "do better next time" things too. And speaking of SearsGroup.....I hope you can take a few minutes and better understand just exactly what it is we are doing. There is a press release from about a month ago.....still in the news archives at High Gear....that explains a lot of what we are doing...and how we are doing it. There's pictures too......of our work with several WC drivers. The URL for this press release is: http://www.simracingnews.com/article.cfm?news_id=1388 I hope after reading this......it makes some of my remarks.........about Heat.....maybe a little clearer? When we look at any new racing simulation coming to the retail "gaming" marketplace. We have to strip away everything but the factors I mentioned in my post....in order to evaluate it's potential worth to us in what we are doing with Bulldozer. Again, a Jeff Gordon or Steve Parks set of standards for a racing sim would be much more stringent than the average online sim racer's might be. After all, these guys climb into "the real thing" almost every day! I hope you can see what I mean? If you have any questions about what you read in the press release at HG.....give me a "ring"....send an email message! Also, I'd be glad to have you in my address book....and I'll try to keep you updated with the progress we make with Bulldozer as we move out of the "testing phase" and into actual production for client race tracks. Regards, Tom Pabst SearsGroup/Pabst-Racing.com "rrevved" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > On Thu, 17 Aug 2000 21:25:12 GMT, "Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >Mike... > > > >I took the advice of Alan below.....turned off vertex damage....and NHnow > >loads without problems. I was experiencing the exact same thing as you > >described.....using a V-5 card also. But, I keep my system/devicedrivers > >current.... including DX7.0a and so forth.....so I knew it wasn't my > >equipment per se, but something that NH didn't like about it....or, > >something I had inadvertently done. What I'm surprised about is twothings: > > > > 1) Why it took three days to get someone from the beta team....or > >Hasbro.....to offer this explanation? I'm thankful to Alan for getting > >it......but heck, I've seen posts here and in two other newsgroupstalking > >about this same problem from last Sunday! A "crash" of NH also generatedan > >email alert to MGI (probably to Dave Broske....sounds like a Broske thingto > >have crashes auto-send him an email with the heat.log file......nice job > >Dave).....nothing from them either. Glad this was an easy fix......sorryit

Quoted text (9 lines)

> >took so long to be made public. > > > > Uhh.. Tom, I found out about the long load times with vertex damage > almost -immediately- from this newsgroup. FWIW, I downloaded the > NH demo the first night. > > > 2) Why wasn't this listed in the readme.txt file as a "known issue?" > >Sounds to me like "testing" of NH on a V-5 card was not very

thorough....it > >would be hard to miss this problem wouldn't it? And, that assumes thisonly

Quoted text (16 lines)

> >happens with a V-5 card? Possibly this is only a problem with the "demo > >version".....but that seems unlikely. > > > > Also, from this newsgroup, we all immediately learned that the long > load times with vertex damage were not restricted to V5 cards.. > > On another subject, you know about 'hardcore' mode in NH, right? > > [snip Tom's E3 'arcade' comments, since they are out-of-date] > > >Tom Pabst > > > >PS: Those of you who don't know about SearsGroup or Bulldozer, can read > >about it at High Gear. There's a press release issued by Sears Point > >Raceway in the news archives. I am also writing a series of articles

about > >all of this...they will start appearing on High Gear monthly, startingnext

Quoted text (12 lines)

> >month. > > > > Pardon me, but if your 'group' feels that NH is an "arcade game", > then I will be sure to avoid your commentary/opinion like the plague. > > I hope you're just pulling our collective legs. > > And yes, I raced in RL for ~10 years. Mostlt SCCA (FF/FV/CSR) > > BTW, you made some nice sounds for GPL. Thanks for that. >

Sim players, I am lost. i reformated my C drive new drivers, everything..it still locks up. Any other wild ideas? Mike Dunn

I am not over clocking, nor is the HD drive hot or even warm. i also have a extra fan in my case. I have been posting in the NASCAr heat forum ( 34 messages so far on my topic)and Ed, at hasbro has been trying to help me there as well. If anyone has a good clue whats happening to me..please e-mail me. www.nascarheat.com

Check how hot your hard disk is... Mine was locking up until I fitted the HDD with a fan. -- Tim, [email hidden]|[email hidden] http://legends.sports-gaming.com/forums.shtml FREE forums for your league... http://legends.sports-gaming.com Sim racing website loosely based on gpl... Mike Dunn <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Sim players, > > I am lost. i reformated my C drive new drivers, everything..it still locks > up. Any other wild ideas? > > Mike Dunn > >