Slight problem

[imported_Zippo]

Hey everyone, i have a slight problem.

After my brother decided to upgrade my computer with a new motherboard and another stick of 512 RAM Horizons has become unplayable.

The problem starts about 2-3 mins after the game has fully loaded (the character is standing in the middle of the screen) after that the game and the computer freeze for about 30 seconds and then returns to normal only to repeat the whole process of freezing every 2-3 mins, if i try to touch anything while it has frozen the game and the computer locks up completely and needs to be restarted.

I have a Gforce 4 Ti 4200 and Nvidia 5303 drivers, i realise they are old drivers but i dout they are the cause for they worked before.

My new motherboard is a ASUS P4C800-E and im just wondering if anyone has had any luck playing Horizons with it or something similar.

If i have left anything else out which might help please tell me and ill post it.

Any help with getting Horizons to work would be greatly apreciated.

[Cobal]

putting in a new mobo is a rather big change to a pc.
I can imagine your new mobo uses a different chipset then your previous one did.
Try and see if you can de-install the previous chipset drivers and then re-instal the ones supplied with the new mobo.

I suggest re-installing windows after major changes such as a new mobo, its the best option.
Personally I allways do this with such major changes.

[imported_Zippo]

Yay finaly, a reply! [:P]

The computer was formated when the new board was installed.

[Cobal]

a new motherboard and another stick of 512 RAM

mmmh, new mobo and new stick.

Try running HZ for a day or two with ONLY the old stick in your pc.
Then a few days with ONLY the new stick, to check if one of them is faulty.

If it works fine (no matter what stick) then the combo of the two sticks is the problem and you should change to a matched pair of ram sticks.

and if it doesnt, then you have found the faulty part.

[imported_Zippo]

Hmm, i shall try that,but the new stick has been in my brothers computer (so its not realy new) butis working.

But i also tried swapping both sticks out for 2 new sticks, both 512 and both generic brand.

Didnt make any difference sadly.

[Custard]

Are you using the latest motherboard drivers from the manufacturer? The ones you get on CD witha newmotherboard are typically well out of date.

Have you tried updating your BIOS firmware?

Also, check that your BIOS is set for "optimal" (safe) rather than performance/extreme/w00t type settings.

[gopher65]

If you are uncertain of your memory (it doesn't sound like that is the problem to me, but you never know) download a memory tester. That can tell you if anything is wrong with your ram.

EDIT: also try checking the settings on your video card. The card may be set for 8x AA8x AF or something like that. I still think this sounds like a video card issue. Check to make sure your card is fully compatable with your motherboard as well.

[imported_Zippo]

It may be a video problem, when i delete my prefs dir to reset everything to default i get atleast about 5 mins before it starts crashing.

Also, just before it completely locks up the terrain dissapears.

How would i check if my video is compatible with my board?

As far as i know the BIOS and motherboard drivers are standard.

[imported_Zippo]

The BIOS was updated but didnt do much to solve the crashes, also, both AA and AF settings were set to off to begin with.

[gopher65]

I don't know then:(. Some of the people in the bug forums have reported they can't get ingame because of a weird problem with their Def Files being corrupted everytime the log out (after last patch I think). So maybe this isn't related to your new MB, but a bug in the client. Try reposting this there and see if anyone can help you?

[Death-knell]

I'm pretty sure it is a video card problem. I upgraded from a TI4600 to a 6800GT 2 days ago.
Since then I get exactly the same thing you're describing. I log into the game, everythings fine for a time. Then everything freezes for a few seconds and then the games fine. The longer I stay in game the more frequest the freezes occur till the freeze becomes permanent and I'm forced to reboot my computer.

I've:
1) Tried the latest Nvidia drivers AND the latest beta drivers
2) Deleted my worldcache and my clientprefs_graphics
3) I'm in the process of reloading the game, I guess I was too aggressive in deleting files the 2nd time and a full scan didn't replace the files I deleted (DOH!)

Some background:
I've played HZ since mid-beta and had no problems except bug issues and UI issues that were known and eventually fixed by AE. 4 months ago I did a EQ2 upgrade to my system(ie....upgraded to a new motherboard/CPU(2.8E) and a gig of ram to match the FSB speed.). So the upgraded computer with the old video card has been working in HZ for a few months of play(off and ON play time). I installed the new card and ever since then I have experienced the above issues.

To add: I'm also having the same kind of issues as are many other with the 6800GT in EQ2. Nvidia has even admitted and is working on some issue dealing with stability issues in EQ2.
I get the feeling the 6800 was designed to do most of the video processing and not much was done to compensate for the fact that most games are still coded for CPU useage and the 6800 is having problems adapting to that.(not real backward compatible). But those are just my opinions/observation.

[imported_Zippo]

Well, i went through a whole lot of drivers:

53.03, 44.03, 56.72, 61.77 and the latest 71.80.

None seem to solve the problem although the 61.77 seemed to crash the least.

I also changed my sound drivers back to older ones just incase, but still no joy.

I would still love some help with this problem [:'(]

[Custard]

From here I'd suggest two things.

1. Open the case, point a desk fan into it. Play game and see if it crashes.

2. Try a different power supply (one with a bit more grunt).

[HratLi]

Some more things to try:

Run Dxdiag and check to make sure that all the directX packages are current.

Run some sort of system 'burn in' test, I think Mad Onion makes one that gives a preliminary result set for free.

Try turning off the audio in game. (Or even disable the device in windows). I remember that used to cause some issues for some folks.

Defrag. (Sounds Silly, but it HAS helped me on at least one wierd crashing event).

I couldn't tell, did you try the game with ONLY one stick of memory? (DDR MB's are sometimes VERY touchy about dual sticks).

Also have you tried the conservative default settings in your MB?

Did you update the bios/firmware for both the MB and the video card if available? (mentioned above, but thought it'd be worth restating).

Is there a temp monitor built in on the MB? Because I KNOW HZ is VERY CPU intensive. Actually It overheated my CPU core for a while before I upgraded the heatsink. It would take no more than a few minutes in game before it starts to kick out some massive BTU's.

And if all else fails, I know power supplies without enough wattage will cause problems with high CPU intensity apps like HZ. Good luck!

-HratLi

[gopher65]

yeah wait, are you using 1 stick or two? Are they in dual channel or not? If they aren't in dual channel, make sure to go into bios and check to make sure the setting is not on dual channel.

[imported_Zippo]

Dxdiag reports no errors and is up to date with directx 9.0c.

Tried turning audio off, makes no difference.

Already tried defragging.

Played with 2 sticks of 512 Corsairand 2 sticks of 512 generic brand, makes no difference.

Bios has been updated and the video reports it is up to date.

There is already a large heatsink on the CPU along plenty of artic silver and a fan.

Power supply is big enough.

RAM was in dual channel before, was taken out and still makes no difference.

[Custard]

Doesn't really matter what thermal grease you use so long as it's applied the right way. Here's an interesting comparison of the stuff http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

Also, itdoesn't matter if you have the best cooler on a cpu or graphics card, if you don't have a decent flow of air through the PC it's going to fail when you stress it.

Here's a memory checker you might want to try. It'sa nice shareware program (ie slightly crippled but still useful, pay for it if you want the full version) that will tell you whether your memory is good or bad, or your memory controller is dodgy. http://www.goldmemory.cz/

You could always ask for your old motherboard back :)

[imported_Zippo]

You could always ask for your old motherboard back [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img]

Hehe, i could, but this one is newer and much faster.

I installed Horizons on my brothers computer, it has the same motherboard and similar RAM but has a Radeon 9800 XT and it worked without a problem even when all settings were put right up.

It apears my video card doesnt like to run at AGP 8x even though it is supported by both the motherboard and the card, if there was a way to switch it back to 4x it may work.

Thank you all for your help and suggestions, it looks like a new video card is in order [:S]