GPL problems

Hello all I need some help. I have just bought GPL after playing the demo for a while. I love it except for the fact that it keeps locking up my computer which is really annoying Does anyone know if this is a common problem and is there a fix for it. The strange thing is the picture freezes but the sound continues and I can here my car crashing, as it is hard to drive when you can't see, and the force feedback continues to do its stuff as well. It also locks up in the menu from time to time as well especially when setting up the wheel. I am using an overclocked celery at 458Mhz and a CL Voodoo2 on an 83Mhz bus I suspect that the Voodoo card might be overheating but I don't have this problem with any other games. Anyone have any advice? Anyone know any good FF settings for the Act Labs force RS, while I'm at it? Cheers Hugh

We'll need to know what your system specs are to help. My guess is a voodoo video card with the wrong drivers. Or heat, or yadda yadda. But I don't know much. JM

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> Hello all > I need some help. > I have just bought GPL after playing the demo for a while. > I love it except for the fact that it keeps locking up my computer which is > really annoying > Does anyone know if this is a common problem and is there a fix for it. > The strange thing is the picture freezes but the sound continues and I can > here my car crashing, as it is hard to drive when you can't see, and the > force feedback continues to do its stuff as well. > It also locks up in the menu from time to time as well especially when > setting up the wheel. > I am using an overclocked celery at 458Mhz and a CL Voodoo2 on an 83Mhz bus > I suspect that the Voodoo card might be overheating but I don't have this > problem with any other games. > Anyone have any advice? > Anyone know any good FF settings for the Act Labs force RS, while I'm at it? > Cheers > Hugh

Try running the Celery at the normal clock speed and see what happens - let us know

I had the same sort of problem you describe. It has however stopped. I'm not quite sure why it stopped doing this because I made quite a few changes: 1) Got the latest Voodoo 2 drivers from 3dfx 2) Downloaded DirectX7a (the latest) 3) Upgraded my memory from 32mb to 96 Maybe one of these could be causing the problem Chris

I had the exact same problems as you are describing, and I can tell you it is a Voodoo2 heat issue. I was running mine SLI and was always getting the screen locking but the game continuing (you can Ctrl- Alt-Del as well and kill the process, and get back to windows, at least sometimes). However, after I got some cooling fans from 3dfxcool (www.3dfxcool.com), all my problems disappeared. (Of course I now have a TNT2, so I can't run the damn game properly, man am I bitter...) Cheers, Marc.

its the voodoo2. I had the same problem (although no overclocked PCI-bus and 2 guillemot max gamer 3d2)), clocked the voodoos to 85mhz and the problem was gone. damn shitty voodoos! why don't the work as specified? *sigh* Lio

Hugh, It's the drivers nothing else don't think it's the overheating or the pumped up Celeron... What you want do before messing with the DX7a (it works like charm but with V3) is to experiment with the drivers try installing old ones and see which works the best... Also I just saw that there are new V2 drivers for DX7, that should be your last option... send you... Cheers, -- Oli BeoRocket Racing http://www.beorocket.co.yu/

If you are running Glide 2.54 it is probably the culprit. Try 2.56 and if the problem persists put the 2.53 version of glide2x.dll in your gpl folder. > Hugh, > It's the drivers nothing else don't think it's the overheating or the pumped > up Celeron... > What you want do before messing with the DX7a (it works like charm but with > V3) is to experiment with the drivers try installing old ones and see which > works the best... > Also I just saw that there are new V2 drivers for DX7, that should be your > last option... that Oli

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> send you... > Cheers, > -- > Oli > BeoRocket Racing > http://www.beorocket.co.yu/ > > Hello all > > I need some help.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

I have experienced the same problem, as well as total freezes, with Voodoo2s in SLI mode amd Cl annihilator Geforce Pro. I don't think it is a driver problem. I've found that I can press escape, get back to the menus then clicking where I think the red button is. When I relaunc the game, everything works OK. BTW, I agree it is a bit hard to drive GPL when you can't see. On the other hand, it doesn't get much easier when you actually can see.... Jon

Here's an old reply from Randy Cassidy about GPL freezing localized at deja.com Hope this helps. As is 3dfx, and they are working on the problem. It is a bug in their Glide 2.54 drivers. This version of Glide does not properly synch with the hardware when it reads data out of the frame buffer. Sometimes this will cause GPL to leave 'mouse droppings', sometimes it can lock the 3dfx board. If you can't use the Glide 2.53 .dll for some reason, try to spend as little time as possible in the menus, and drive from the "F10" view instead of the ***pit view. If you want faster response in getting this issue fixed, feel free to talk to 3dfx about it. In the mean time, if the screen locks, try hitting <del><ctrl><alt> (in that order - it is important to press and hold the <del> key FIRST - if you press it last, GPL never sees it). GPL will exit when it sees the <del><ctrl><alt>. The 3dfx board will most likely remain locked in its current state, and not return to pass-thru mode, so the machine will still appear to be hung, but it is actually running just fine. You can then hit the "Windows" key to bring up the Start Menu, press U to select Shutdown, press R to select Restart the computer, then press return to confirm. At least this will be a cleaner reboot than hitting the reset button. As for a GPL patch: Yes we are working on one. It should not be long before it is complete, but I won't give you an expected release date until it has been posted on-line. Randy

My bet is on the Voodoo card overheating. Is the card itself overclocked or just the bus/processor? I got the same problem when I nudged my V2 to (IIRC) 90 Mhz. /petern

Wow what a funny thing you have stirred up here again. The first thing I have to say is DON'T LISTEN TO ANY OF THESE OTHER RESPONDENTS (except one, Marc Elliott has it right). The problem is with your Voodoo2 overheating, PERIOD. For proof (and before you do what any of the others say), lower your clock value on the card in the settings to the lowest value and you will not see any more video lockups. I did the driver thing, the DirectX thing, and everything else people thought was the problem. Then I did what Marc did. I bought a cooling fan for the Voodoo2 card and VOILA! I could use the Voodoo2 card at the highest clock value with no lockups. Have fun and don't give up, it will take about a week of driving to begin to appreciate GPL. Vintook

Correct, I have this too, especially when the Vodoo has to work a little harder, like when it's in 800x600. That's a definate crash after 2-3 minutes. So I put the clockfrequency down to 85MHz, the resolution in 640x480, and GPL still works fine. The starnge thing is, I never had this problem with any other program (Quake, Unreal), so why is GPL more graphics-intensive?! Seems counter-intuitive to me, as Unreal is 90% GFX (voodoo), 10% physics (P2), while GPL is exactly the other way around.

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> Correct, I have this too, especially when the Vodoo has to work a little > harder, like when it's in 800x600. That's a definate crash after 2-3 > minutes. > So I put the clockfrequency down to 85MHz, the resolution in 640x480, and > GPL still works fine. > The starnge thing is, I never had this problem with any other program > (Quake, Unreal), so why is GPL more graphics-intensive?! > Seems counter-intuitive to me, as Unreal is 90% GFX (voodoo), 10% physics > (P2), while GPL is exactly the other way around. > > Wow what a funny thing you have stirred up here again. The first thing I > > have to say is DON'T LISTEN TO ANY OF THESE OTHER RESPONDENTS (except > one, > > Marc Elliott has it right). The problem is with your Voodoo2

overheating,

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> > PERIOD. For proof (and before you do what any of the others say), lower > your > > clock value on the card in the settings to the lowest value and you will > not > > see any more video lockups. I did the driver thing, the DirectX thing, > and > > everything else people thought was the problem. Then I did what Marc

did.

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> I > > bought a cooling fan for the Voodoo2 card and VOILA! I could use the > Voodoo2 > > card at the highest clock value with no lockups. Have fun and don't give > up, > > it will take about a week of driving to begin to appreciate GPL. > > > The strange thing is the picture freezes but the sound continues and I > can > > > here my car crashing, as it is hard to drive when you can't see, and > the > > > force feedback continues to do its stuff as well. > > > It also locks up in the menu from time to time as well especially when > > > setting up the wheel.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I thought I would start with the most obvious and clocked my cpu to its proper speed of 366Mhz on a 66Mhz bus and it worked, no more lock ups while playing, but it still locks up in the menus. Cheers Parcher. Of course I now have to turn down the detail to get a decent framerate when racing other cars although I am very much still learning so don't really race that much yet(racing the AI not online racing) and anyway I think it actually helps your concentration when there is less, actually no scenery, to distract you. I am still puzzled to what the actual problem is as I still don't think it is overheating as I presume overheating would happen around the same time, ie it takes a while for the chip to heat so it wouldn't lock straight away and my lockups happened any time from as soon as I started till about 30 minutes of playing. The only thing I can think of is that the voodoo2 card does not like the PCI bus running at 42Mhz but again I use it for other things like SCGT which I presume is pretty *** it and don't have any problems. Anyway I shall mess around with drivers and other stuff and see what happens and in the mean time I shall still be able to play GPL. It really is a great game. Thanks again everyone. Hugh