GPL - weird problem!

Hi, I have a weird problem when I use GPL.... after about 15/20 minutes of racing (on or off line), I get a sudden reduction in frame rate (FPS)... I normally obtain about 25 fps. which is not to bad, but it will then drop to about 3/4 fps... this makes the sim undrivable and turns it into a slide show! I have three possible theory's... 1) My Voodoo II 3DFX card is overheating (Diamond Monster II)! 2) My temperature protected CPU is overheating, causing the CPU to run slow! 3) The GPL replay 'buffer' (ram I presume) is filling up, causing a memory problem! I use a P200MMX, 64mb.EDO, Mystique 2D + the 3DFX (8mb.) Can anyone suggest anything else it could be, or any tests I could do to determine any of the above as the cause? Failing any suggestions, I will rip the cover off the computer and start installing more fans/cooling ;-) It is infuriating getting 2/3rds through a race with a reasonable position, only to retire because of this 'slide show' effect. Once I stop racing.... and return to the menu screen, I can then start again with my max. fps, until it clogs up again! Regards Dave Hawnt (UK)

I'd guess its the ram problem. You can reduce the replay length to overcome this - but I'm not sure how off the topof my head. Have a read of http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison/gpl/ - might find it there or in one of her links

Not likely. No, if it is, GPL and Windoz woud crash right at the moment. That is a possibility, but if you have it on default, it is unlikely. I think it is HDD swapping coused by Fastfind, or a virus scanner, try to disable them ! Fastfind drove me crazy for weeks ! Cya, Tilus

Dave, What you've described sounds more like lack of swap space rather than a temp problem. Firstly, check your Virtual Memory settings, your contigious free space on your HDD and use a cache manager. Unless you have the CPU and/or the Voodoo card massively over-clocked you shouldn't have an over-heating problem.

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> Hi, > I have a weird problem when I use GPL.... after about 15/20 > minutes of racing (on or off line), I get a sudden reduction > in frame rate (FPS)... > I normally obtain about 25 fps. which is not to bad, but it > will then drop to about 3/4 fps... this makes the sim > undrivable and turns it into a slide show! > I have three possible theory's... > 1) My Voodoo II 3DFX card is overheating (Diamond Monster II)! > 2) My temperature protected CPU is overheating, causing the > CPU to run slow! > 3) The GPL replay 'buffer' (ram I presume) is filling up, > causing a memory problem! > I use a P200MMX, 64mb.EDO, Mystique 2D + the 3DFX (8mb.) > Can anyone suggest anything else it could be, or any tests I > could do to determine any of the above as the cause? Failing > any suggestions, I will rip the cover off the computer and > start installing more fans/cooling ;-) > It is infuriating getting 2/3rds through a race with a > reasonable position, only to retire because of this 'slide > show' effect. Once I stop racing.... and return to the menu > screen, I can then start again with my max. fps, until it > clogs up again! > Regards > Dave Hawnt (UK)

-- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The Stunned Mullet-------seriously satirical stuff! http://www2.tpg.com.au/users/brucek/mullet/index.htm ----------

> I have a weird problem when I use GPL.... after about 15/20 > minutes of racing (on or off line), I get a sudden reduction > in frame rate (FPS)... > I normally obtain about 25 fps. which is not to bad, but it > will then drop to about 3/4 fps... this makes the sim > undrivable and turns it into a slide show! I have had problems similar to this. My favourite suspect would be something running in background stealing your cpu cycles. Have you met the little yellow man from AOL? If you have Netscape 4.07, he sits on a button on the toolbar. If you accidentally click this button (don't do it!) he goes to live permanently in your system tray. Unfortunately for me, my wife activated this guy and didn't tell me. I found GPL was getting slower, and stuttering. I went out and bought a fan to cool my Voodoo2. Soon after, I started a GPL race with a frame rate of about 0.5 (I kid you not). Then I noticed the yellow man and killed him off (fire him up, there's a checkbox in there somewhere that disables him). I have not had a problem since, but now I make sure there is *nothing* in the system tray, and always double check what's running with CTRL-ALT-DEL before running GPL (if I see anything I don't recognise, I'll reboot). It's nice to have a "real gamer's" minimal system. Hope this helps, Anton -- Antony Bowers, Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, UK. http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~bowers/

I have a freeze problem with a Monster 3D I and I am wondering if the problem would not come from the L2 cache. However I have no idea how to change or even view the settings. I have Win 98. Any idea ?

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> > 1) My Voodoo II 3DFX card is overheating (Diamond Monster II)! > Not likely. > > 2) My temperature protected CPU is overheating, causing the > > CPU to run slow! > No, if it is, GPL and Windoz woud crash right at the moment. > > 3) The GPL replay 'buffer' (ram I presume) is filling up, > > causing a memory problem! > That is a possibility, but if you have it on default, it is unlikely. > I think it is HDD swapping coused by Fastfind, or a virus scanner, try to > disable them ! > Fastfind drove me crazy for weeks ! > Cya, > Tilus

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> > I have a weird problem when I use GPL.... after about 15/20 > > minutes of racing (on or off line), I get a sudden reduction > > in frame rate (FPS)... > > I normally obtain about 25 fps. which is not to bad, but it > > will then drop to about 3/4 fps... this makes the sim > > undrivable and turns it into a slide show! > I have had problems similar to this. My favourite suspect would be > something running in background stealing your cpu cycles. > Have you met the little yellow man from AOL? If you have Netscape 4.07, > he sits on a button on the toolbar. If you accidentally click this button > (don't do it!) he goes to live permanently in your system tray. > Unfortunately for me, my wife activated this guy and didn't tell me. I > found GPL was getting slower, and stuttering. I went out and bought a fan > to cool my Voodoo2. Soon after, I started a GPL race with a frame rate of > about 0.5 (I kid you not). > Then I noticed the yellow man and killed him off (fire him up, there's a > checkbox in there somewhere that disables him). I have not had a problem > since, but now I make sure there is *nothing* in the system tray, and always double check what's running with CTRL-ALT-DEL before > running GPL (if I see > anything I don't recognise, I'll reboot). > It's nice to have a "real gamer's" minimal system. Hope this helps, > Anton

Hi Anton, Thanks for your advise re the little 'yellow basdard', I recon you hit the nail on the head! I have disabled the blighter.... AOL, God save us from them!!! I also disabled 'Fast Find', that was resident on my machine.... as suggested by Tilus (thanks Tilus ;-) I often look at the 'Ctrl/alt/del' list, but never sure what is safe to delete... when in dought, leave it! Hopefully I will get no more problems..... Thanks for all the suggestions guys, most helpful.... Dave Hawnt (UK)