Computer lock-up problems

[Mark Rein]

Update:

Good news (well, sort of :()

In an attempt to reproduce the lock up problems some of you are having I brought home my "big iron" machine from the office and installed a Radeon 9700 in it last night.

This machine is a Dual Athlon 1900+ that I had at home for a while and took back to the office during testing. It has a very clean Windows XP Pro install and only a handful of games (Battlefield 1942 demo, Grand Prix 4 and various versions of UT2003) that I installed on it. BTW, Battlefield 1942 and Grand Prix 4 are superb games.

Up until last night it had a GeForce 4 ti 4600 in it. With the ti 4600 this machine was absolutely rock solid 100% of the time. Some European magazine writers used it when they came visit us just before we went gold and never reported any problems with it during an entire day of doing nothing but playing UT2003 on it with everything set pretty high.

With the ATI Radeon 9700 it consistently locks up hard after playing UT2003 for just a few minutes. This particular card is one of the pre-release 9700's (but supposed to be final silicon) that ATI sent us along with the latest drivers from their web site (same ones we shipped with the game). This machine is now going back to the office for extensive testing. On the way to the office I'm going to stop by CompUSA and buy an off-the-shelf retail 9700 and I fully expect, based on what I'm reading here, that the same problems will occur.

Right now I feel really stupid for not installing the 9700 in this machine during testing of the game. I had actually planned to try that but I never did it because there were enough other Radeon 9700 machines running the game and, at the time, they were going through new drivers pretty often. That is normal for prerelease cards but I didn't want to deal with it in a machine I planned to take home again. Big mistake and I apologize for that.

Hopefully now we can use this machine to find a solution to these strange problems.

Regardless of the game when windows comes back up the crash log starts off by saying "The display driver for the RADEON 9700 series seems to be responsible for the system instability."

BONUS: this machine also locks up (exact same symptoms, screen shot w/sound looping) in the Battlefield 1942 multiplayer demo and in Grand Prix 4. I had to play GP4 for about 20 minutes before it crashed but BF1942 crashed within 9 or 10 minutes whereas UT2003 crashes within 4-5 minutes. So we'll have more than one testcase to try and pinpoint some suggested solutions.

As I said before even if we're not causing the problem we still consider the fact that some of you can't play our game to be our problem and we're going to work diligently with our hardware partners to find solutions. So please be patient and hopefully we'll have some suggested remedies soon. For now we have a machine on which we can reproduce the problem - at least for Radeon 9700 anyway.

Here is last nights UT2003 crash Windows log:

//
// Watchdog Event Log File
//

LogType: Watchdog
Created: 2002-10-04 01:08:23
TimeZone: 300 - Eastern Standard Time
WindowsVersion: XP
EventType: 0xEA - Thread Stuck in Device Driver

//
// The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This
// usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device
// driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your
// display device vendor for any driver updates.
//

ShutdownCount: 23
Shutdown: 0
EventCount: 2
BreakCount: 2
BugcheckTriggered: 1
DebuggerNotPresent: 1
DriverName: ati2dvag
EventFlag: 1
DeviceClass: Display
DeviceDescription: RADEON 9700 Series
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E44&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverFixedFileInfo: FEEF04BD 00010000 0006000D 000A1816 0006000D 000A1816 0000003F 00000008 00040004 00000003 00000004 00000000 00000000
DriverCompanyName: ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverFileDescription: ATI Radeon WindowsNT Display Driver
DriverFileVersion: 6.13.10.6166
DriverInternalName: ati2dvag.dll
DriverLegalCopyright: Copyright (C) 1998-2002 ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverOriginalFilename: ati2dvag.dll
DriverProductName: ATI Radeon Family
DriverProductVersion: 5.1.2600.0


Here is the Battlefield 1942 crash Windows log:

//
// Watchdog Event Log File
//

LogType: Watchdog
Created: 2002-10-04 11:49:37
TimeZone: 300 - Eastern Standard Time
WindowsVersion: XP
EventType: 0xEA - Thread Stuck in Device Driver

//
// The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This
// usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device
// driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your
// display device vendor for any driver updates.
//

ShutdownCount: 24
Shutdown: 0
EventCount: 3
BreakCount: 3
BugcheckTriggered: 1
DebuggerNotPresent: 1
DriverName: ati2dvag
EventFlag: 1
DeviceClass: Display
DeviceDescription: RADEON 9700 Series
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E44&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverFixedFileInfo: FEEF04BD 00010000 0006000D 000A1816 0006000D 000A1816 0000003F 00000008 00040004 00000003 00000004 00000000 00000000
DriverCompanyName: ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverFileDescription: ATI Radeon WindowsNT Display Driver
DriverFileVersion: 6.13.10.6166
DriverInternalName: ati2dvag.dll
DriverLegalCopyright: Copyright (C) 1998-2002 ATI Technologies Inc.
DriverOriginalFilename: ati2dvag.dll
DriverProductName: ATI Radeon Family
DriverProductVersion: 5.1.2600.0

If you're having lock-ups and you find solutions please post them in this thread!

[legacy-Maxonjaxon]

MY LOCK UP SOLVED
I had also all the same problems that people have allready mailed

I have done all that can be done, Radeon drivers, mobo-,Sb live-,Display settings and nothing helped until...

someone was mailing his/hers ut2003.ini details.
I checked mine and noticed strange thing.
In my ini file there was ; mark in front of d3d and opengl (means disable).

My specs:
WinXp Pro
512 Ddr
Athlon 1800+ xp
Msi motherboard
SB Live
3D prophet radeon 8500 64mb

And the thing i did is that i just removed ; in front of OpenGl, then all flickering from textures disappeared and i was able to play.

For some reason i had ; mark on BOTH , D3D and Opengl and also engine,

So folks Check your INI Files.

[legacy-ianargent]

Not my work, originally (founf on board), but: Reproducible lockup error after 30 sec to 10 minute

System Specs
Athlon XP 1700+ (no overclocking)
ASUS A7V333
Radeon 8500LE
512 MB DDR RAM
CompUSA Gamer Case (400 watt P4 ready PSU, lower intake fan, CPU exhaust fan, PSU exhaust fan), with after market squirrelfan exhausting air from directly under GPU, aftermarket CPU heatsink with aftermarket fan (bloody loud, and bloody cool, dropped my Core CPU temp by 40 degree farenheit)

Relatively fresh install of WindowsXP w/ SP1

Installed latest Catalyst drivers from ATI, installed latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers, update with latest BIOS from ASUS. These did not fix.

Installed powerstrip, and used to underclock my video card to 210 from 250 (lowest possible setting). This seemed to fix problem (had about an hour of gaming time).

Final in-game video settings: 1280x1024x32 bit color, high settings on all selectables.

ATI D3D settings using Performance defaults. Write-combining disabled. I forget my AGP settigns in BIOS.

Hope this helps

[legacy-J@ckal]

Im also having same problems and i totally dunno what to do.

My Specs

P4 2.8Ghz
512ram
Ge force 4 Ti4600 128ram

Just keeps freezing after so long and i had to swicth of at mains. Any help would be appreciated as im totally uneducated enough to fix it myself. But totally love the game.:bulb:

[legacy-Bathel]

Originally posted by Mark Rein



If you're having lock-ups and you find solutions please post them in this thread!



I was having lockup or reboot in 30 sec of play. Tried all drivers for both Nvidia and Via. Different Bios. Underclocking. running safemode. OpenGL mode. Via test patches. Reformat and reinstall. Removing everything and installing just the essencials ... just about everything.

I then found the my motherboard has some issues with the AGP voltage. I increased my AGP voltage and my Vcore a few ticks and my problems went away.

Keep in mind that I was not locking up on any other application or game. 3dmark 2001se, NWN, Tactical Ops ... ect. Also I do not overclock any cards everything is running standard with very good cooling.

Now i have increased the voltage and no lockups in UT2k3 for 5 days and running.

Here is a link i found with some more information on my Voltage problems. Also found several other pages that seemed to indicate that other MB have the same issues, but I did not save these links.

http://www.thetechboard.com/ga-7vrxp.htm

Hope this helps.

Bathel

[legacy-CaptKirk]

Could you guys please test the "Kyro" chipset series of cards. I know they're starting to age, but because of their unique tile rendering method I'd like to know if that's what is locking up my box.

[legacy-kindred1]

Demo ran perfectly with no hangups with or without the patch...played it for hours and hours....

Got the retail yesterday morning.Had troubles installing it on my 40x liteon burner,popped in my dvd player and it installed fine...

Hit "Play UT2K3" on the menu,got into the options,created profile,and tried to launch a tutorial and got a "Virtuali memory error". Lowered my Aperature size in my bios from 128 back to 64.
Got to play for about 30 seconds and it crashed my pc and went into a reboot loop for about 1 minute....

I shut my pc off,reinstalled, then got to play for over an hour. Hit exit ut2k3 and instead of taking me back to my desktop it reboots my pc,and boot loops sometimes and sometimes it dont....?

when it doesnt boot loop,my os is very unstable,i try and launch a program i get a error message.....even IE.

Same thing happens with the No CD Hack.....and now it happens every so often while playing,ill be blowing people away and bam,my pc reboots.....and loops....its killing me....

Any ideas on what i can so my pc wont reboot everytime i exit the game or ???

My system specs are:

XP Pro with SP1
AMD 1.4 T-BIRD
512 DDR RAM
GA-7VTX Mobo
2 40 gig HD's
Radeon 64ddr VIVO (7200)
All drivers are up to date
Latest Via 4in1's

[Daniel Vogel]

Game crashes to desktop without any error message:
--------------------------------------------------

This most likely is caused by our CD copy protection scheme. Please
contact Infogrames technical support for help.

Game crashes a lot with different error messages:
-------------------------------------------------

The game is certainly not bug free but if you experience a lot of
crashes in different parts of the game you might want to check out
memtest86 to ensure that the crashes are not caused by bad memory.

http://www.memtest86.com/

Random freezes/ hangs/ bluescreens/ reboots:
--------------------------------------------

If you are overclocking any of your system components please revert
to the default clock rate even though other games and 3DMark might
run fine with your timings. Overclocking is a very common cause of
hangs/ freezes.

Please ensure that your GPU and CPU are not overheating. Having a
lot of fans sometimes isn't enough to guarantee a good air flow
inside the case as something could be blocking the air flow inside
your case causing your GPU or CPU to overheat and therefore lock
the system. Keep in mind that heat builds up very quickly. A lot of
customers have found that either ensuring proper cooling or
underclocking their cards have resulted in a more stable gaming
experience.

You should use the default "Software 3D Audio" for sound output and
you could also try playing without sound (-nosound on the command
line) to eliminate sound as the source of your problems.

If you have a lot of system components in your machine you might
want to ensure that your power supply can handle your system. This
has helped a couple of our customers.

Sometimes installing graphic card drivers over older versions
causes problems so you might want to try using a tool like Detonator
Destroyer

http://www.geforcezone.com/t-w-e-a-k-s/detonatordestroyer.zip

for NVIDIA drivers to uninstall your existing drivers before
upgrading to the 40.71 drivers.

A lot of customers reported the 40.71 NVIDIA's drivers help with
random lock ups so you might want to give those a try

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=winxp-2k_40.71
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=win9x_40.71


At least one customer was able to resolve random lockups by setting
NoDynamicLighting to true in his UT2003.ini file. It seems to just
shadow the issue but hey, better than locking up ;)

VIA chipsets in combination with NVIDIA cards and AMD CPUs seem
to be a constant source of trouble. Below are some helpful links:

Article about VIA problems.
http://pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/motherboards/VIA-Problems.html

VIA's website.
http://www.viaarena.com/

VIA forum thread.
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=13&threadid=8911

Direct download links.
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/VIA_4in1_443v.zip
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/others/Test_driver1.zip
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/others/rpp1.02.zip


This used to be a problem with older drivers but at least one customer
reported that applying this patch made his system run stable with
newer drivers.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2000dec/chi20001229003564.htm

If you have a Gigabyte GA-7VRX or GA-7VRXP motherboard you might
find the below link useful.

http://www.thetechboard.com/ga-7vrxp.htm


A link to a thread in the forums you might find useful.
http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=216077

Some more URL's.

VIA - http://www.viaarena.com
ALI(acer) - http://www.ali.com.tw
SIS(silicon integrated systems) - http://www.sis.com
AMD - http://www.amd.com

http://www.giga-byte.com/support/d_intel.htm

http://www.geocities.com/c4guide/ut2k3.html

http://www.geforcezone.com/t-w-e-a-k-s/nvhardpage.zip
http://www.geforcezone.com/t-w-e-a-k-s/NVmax4.exe
http://www.geforcezone.com/t-w-e-a-k-s/GTUsetup.exe
http://www.guru3d.com/files/nvhardpage/

[Daniel Vogel]

Originally posted by CaptKirk
Could you guys please test the "Kyro" chipset series of cards. I know they're starting to age, but because of their unique tile rendering method I'd like to know if that's what is locking up my box.
Kyro cards should work fine with UT2k3. At least neither I nor PowerVR found any major issues ;)

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

[legacy-telly]

Dear Mark,
Try this: install the latest beta driver from ATI 6178 for XP and play UT2003 on a Abit BD7II (motherboard) with a P4 CPU and a Soundblaster Audigy Player with Windows XP (sevice pack 1).
It's works great...no hangs!!!!!!

Try this: the same machine, the same driver, the same OS on a Gigabyte motherboard with SIS 648 chipset (with latest AGP driver)
It's doesn't work!!!!!! It's hangs!!!!!!! (but all others games works correctly)

I know that it's sounds very strange, but it's true!!!!!!!!
I hope that this can help you.

[legacy-HuFlungDung]

Vogel, what is it about the player lifts in the demo DM-Antalus map, that could cause a system crash: it seems I can play successfully for long periods of time but if I move facing the "rising bubbles" at the back of the lift, the game crashes. If I "back onto" the lift (not looking at the rising bubbles), then I can ride the lift okay, and continue to play.

Is it some particular feature of the video hardware that is being called at this particular point in the game?

Radeon 8500 here, Asus A7V266e/aa AMd 1800xp, system working quite well in UT2k3 most of the time, and perfectly well all the rest of the time.

What do you say about the possible interplay between the UT cache (if UT is installed on a different drive than C) and/or the windows swap file? Could there be extra burden on the system (or even backlog) caused by using two different (logical) drives for caching and swapping to disk when the game is maxing the system?

[legacy-dru858]

I have:

WinXP Pro SP1
ASUS P4T533-C (BIOS 1006C)
P4 2.53
1.00GB Kingston PC1066 RDRAM
Radeon 9700 Pro
SB Audigy Platinum
Maxtor 7200RPM ATA133 40GB + 80GB

--No overclocking whatsoever
--All latest non-beta drivers
--All Windows Updates

Works fine. It crashed to desktop once, doesn't any more though. Everything works fine now except for my cursors are no longer animated after I close UT2003 and when I restart my computer the hard drives power down then back up... this stuff never happened before. Only after I run UT2003. Odd. Only one crash, now I can play for an indefinate period of time w/ no crashes... I have all settings at max and hardware + EAX audio... I dunno. I want my cursors to remain animated and my hard drives to not power down when I select to restart my computer from the start menu after I play UT2003. Please address these issues as well.

Thanks,

Dru

[legacy-Neogin]

Dear Nark. Do not be surprised b y this, this error was also in UT on a GEFORCE 2!!!! Wen Itried to play with direct3d it was VERY choppy abd i had many graphical bugs no matter what i tried. It would lock up constantly, and crash a lot too. and Sometimes like you said it would reboot the computer by itself and give me a message saying "The display driver for the GEFORCE 2 MX400 seems to be responsible for the system instability." That is what it said. So I had to use openGL which ran BEAUTIFULLY. It gave me around 100 FPS on my geforce 2 MX 400 PCI which I think is nice. Now when i recieved my UT2003 preorder it switched. It runs WONDERFUL in D3D i reecieve 40-70 FPS with my stuff on low with 32 bit in 800 by 600. Mark if switching to openGL does not work then I suggest finding the problem from the root of the engine because apparently it was in UT too. I hope this helps vogel and the rest of the programers fix the problem.

[legacy-grmreepr]

I just got it all to works for me a few minutes ago!!! A guy named Gamergeddon told me i needed new drivers!! omg y didnt i think of that!!! (yea, i know, im stupid) and now it works withought a hitch!

Specs are:

1ghz AMD Athlon
128 SDRAM
S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage
codec for sound

I needed a new driver for the S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage videocard of mine, it came with the computer. EVERYONE!! KEEP YOUR DRIVER UP TO DATE!!:D

[legacy-grmreepr]

Scratch that.:sour: looks like it lasted for only one game, now i the game wont even load up! i have the CD in, i click on play to play the game, and that little mouse cursur with the CD spinning comes up, meaning that its loading, thats it... i cant even get into the game itself now!:cry: well, at least i played it once and now i know what a great game it is and what im working for to fix!
DONT GIVE UP HOPE!! ill report back after some testing and messing around... ill esepcially report if i fix it. till next time.

[legacy-KDB]

I thought I would let you know about this thread (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=216857) which I have started. It is essentially a blog documenting my efforts in trying to get UT2003 working on my WinXP/Athlon/GF4/Audigy machine, starting with a new HDD. My hope is that others may benefit from my experiences, and that I can in some small way help Epic in the search for the problem with this game on systems like mine.

I welcome everyone's comments, but would particularly like to invite Mark, Vogel or anyone else from the Epic team to contribute - perhaps my experiences with the game (or my collection of error logs) can give you some pointers as to where the problem lies? Please feel free to email me (rather than clutter up the forum) if there is anything specific you would like me to try out for you on my system.

KDB

[Daniel Vogel]

We never tested on S3 cards so I wouldn't be too surprised if there are some issues with those cards that are caused by the app not respecting lacking features of the card.

You could try setting UseHardwareTL to false in the first patch.

The retail version has a slight bug in a workaround for lack of features of certain cards that e.g. won't make the game run on SiS 315 cards which I since then fixed.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.


Originally posted by grmreepr
I just got it all to works for me a few minutes ago!!! A guy named Gamergeddon told me i needed new drivers!! omg y didnt i think of that!!! (yea, i know, im stupid) and now it works withought a hitch!

Specs are:

1ghz AMD Athlon
128 SDRAM
S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage
codec for sound

I needed a new driver for the S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage videocard of mine, it came with the computer. EVERYONE!! KEEP YOUR DRIVER UP TO DATE!!:D

[legacy-xappie]

Ok... I don't have a fix for your lockups, but I have an ATI 9700 Pro and this game runs perfectly for me.

I have no lockups, no crashes, no error messages. Maybe something magical about my setup?

WindowsXP Home
Epox 8KHA+ mobo
512MB Crucial pc2100 DDR
SB Audigy (OEM)
ATI 9700 PRO
Sigma Designs XCard DVD decoder
AMD Athlon 2000+
HP 8200 CD Writer Plus
Pioner 16X DVDROM
RealTek 100 NIC

So far, I would consider this a stable platform for UT2K3.

HTH

[Daniel Vogel]

I aquired Mark's locking machine and am currently in the process of getting the game to not lock up on it.

So far I found the easiest way to see whether the game still locks up the game is running a botmatch in BR-SlaughterHouse like below.

ut2003 br-slaughterhouse?spectatoronly=true?numbots=12?quick start=true -benchmark -seconds=600 -exec=..\Benchmark\Stuff\botmatchexec.txt -1280x1024

Slaughterhouse isn't exactly easy on the system ;) BTW, if you are running WinXP please try installing DX 8.1b which requires installing service pack 1. Mark's machine was still running DX 8.1 and I'm currently upgrading it to SP1. Bad boy, Mark ;)

So far I did (in this order):

- installed the 5.33 AMD chipset drivers available at Tyan's website
- underclocked the card to the lowest possible settings using PowerStrip
- disabled PCI Latency in the BIOS
- installed the 6178 ATI drivers

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

[legacy-_ZeroCrisis_]

installing sp1 on my machine solved all of my lockup/restart problems. Im using the 6178 drivers too. Runs great now. If only some maps would stop turning black...

[legacy-xappie]

Now that you mention it... Slaughterhouse was very hard on my system too. It didn't lockup, but the framerates were lower than in any other map.

I should've mentioned earlier... I have SP1 and all the latest drivers installed.

[legacy-CYcolone]

Just my problem and system specs....

Problem: Random Lockups like most people are having. Just locks up whenever it feels like it... Otherwise, nice graphics and performance, if only u can fix the random lockups....

Specs:
CPU - 2.0 GHz P4
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-8IHXP
Video - GeForce 2 Ultra (Detonator 30.82 Drivers)
RAM - 768 MB PC1066 RDRAM
OS - Windows XP

[legacy-Noxious Oogle]

After looking at some of these posts, I edited the .ini file so that the game uses opengl (by removing the ; ), and added the ; to block d3d, and I just ran the game for an hour without a problem. Hmmm...I hope this wasn't a fluke :)

[Daniel Vogel]

Could people with locking problems try disabling player shadows?

If you can't possibly live without shadows you might want to consider using simple blob shadows instead. Those should be much easier on the system and should also remove small pauses in netplay when a character first comes into view in a level that uses a lot of textures and your details are cranked up all the way so there isn't enough space in video memory for the rendertarget to be created.

To do this add the bBlobShadow=True line like below to the UnrealGame.UnrealPawn section of your User.ini file.

[UnrealGame.UnrealPawn]
bPlayerShadows=True
bBlobShadow=True

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

[Daniel Vogel]

I'm also interested to hear whether reducing both texture and character detail to lower fixes the lock- up issues with Radeon 9700 cards for people.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

[legacy-hansenjay]

Hey Daniel, I have had success lately with my Radeon 9700 pro by applying the no-cd execuatable and lowering the detail settings to "high". I haven't had a lock up in 2 days straight with these current settings :)

I also find that having the "normal" to "high" settings makes for one enjoyable online experience. I will take your advice on the character shadows as well and turn those off...(not that important anyway)...

I can be your "test bed" if need be for the Radeon 9700 users in the field...

Thanks again
:up:

[legacy-TheIronMonkey]

I only get to play the game for a few seconds before i get a quick bluescreen and then my computer reboots. It has only gone to the desktop once and I managed to send a bug report to you under the name "Stewart" if that is any help.

I have tried turning all graphical options to low, I've tried it in safe mode without sound: same result! I am not over-clocking at all.

Windows XP Home Edition
AMD Duron 1GHz processor
512 MB RAM
nVidia GeForce2 (100/200 Maxi i think?!?)

I got the drivers for the graphics card of UT2003 3rd disk by the way!

[legacy-bubbler]

could someone please send the windowa SP1 update, i can't get it from the site, they think i have pirated software

bubbler@attbi.com

[legacy-bubbler]

i found that if your runninf EAX on your sys, going into your DXDIAG on running your sound accelarion at basic, the number of crashes is reduced by a lot

[legacy-Bycho]

specs:
elitegroup k7s5a (sis735 chipset)
amd athlon 1.3GHz
512mb DDR
GF4 Ti 4600 (Asus Agp V8460 Ultra Deluxe) using nvidia det 40.72
winxp (without sp1)
soundblaster player 5.1

first i have to say the demo worked without any problems while running under win98se. later i changed to winxp an i got the crash/sound loop error. the same as i purchased the retail version of ut2003. tried almoust every driver except sp1 (wont accept my product key although it had to, bought xp) and bios update (ami bios, got the right files but still getting warnings when i try to flash it).

solution:
underglocked my gpu for 15/20Hz (still testing, with10Hz it is still crashing) now it works. used powerstrip (shareware-tool)
all details at highest in 1280, using software audio

im just confused, why its crashing in xp but not while running 98se. so i dont think its a heat problem (got several additional fans in my box) probably the voltage? can somebody help me to get it out?
hope i could help u

[legacy-dlehwalder]

I did as Mark Rein mentioned and raised my voltage for the agp slot. Now things work great!!! I had to up it to the max(1.8) but all seems well and I have just been playing for about 8 hours without a lockup. Thanks Mark!

My system:

Windows 2000 Pro
CPU: 1800MP
Video: 8500LE 128MB
RAM: 512MB

:)

[legacy-bootboy]

hi all
having no luck with 2003 on my system(demo worked great no hang time whatsoever). I unistalled win 2000 pro and put in 98se
limted success but still hangs after a few minutes. Then after living in this forum for the last week, I read

direct x 8.1b wrecks other games(install from ut2003)

infinte loop error

and blah blah blah add a external fan
increase agp voltage
check drivers
and also radeon9700 issues

I felt like I was being left behind with 98se so after many reformats this did the trick for me
installed 2000 pro
installed direct x 8.1b off the internet not the UT disk(can u really cleanly install direct x while running a setup of a game?)
lastly bios disabled my onboard sound(crappy AC97 audio)
installed 4 year old pci sb512

now I play in 2000 with no crashes good luck
first and last post

[legacy-perfect]

Random reboots fix suggestion:
--------------------------------------------

O.k, my system:
Athlon 1800+
Via KT 333 Mobo
GF4 4200
WinXP Pro

I had the random reboot problem every few hours. Just on December, Slaughterhouse and Face 3.

So i downloaded es a no cd patch (modified ut2003.exe).
Since i use this (2 days, lots of hours of playing ut2003 since then) , i never had a problem.
Give it a try...perhaps the reboot bug is a problem with ide traffic.
On some maps like December and Slaughterhouse, a lot of systems out there have harddisk accesses. If the copy protection checks the game-cd at the same time, the system hangs and reboots. I dont know much about this copy protection, but the cd check slowed my whole system. After the new .exe, even my in game menu is faster. Seems like the copy protection."idles" in backround and causes some different problems.
This reboot could be a chipset driver problem, but the no cd patch fixes the reason it happens...
Dont know if this is true and works for all systems, but this is my theory

[legacy-[MSG]SaberRider]

I did all what you´ve said, Vogel and Mark Rein, but it´doesn´t work. The freezes and loops are the same !!

I changed my graphic settings in the .ini from D3D to OpenGL, I changed the player shadows as you said....NOTHING !

My system is a high-end system, and I have NOT overclocked ANYTHING !!

Mainboard: MSI KT3 Ultra
CPU: AMD Athlon 2000+ 1,8 Ghz
Graphic: MSI Geforce 4 TI 4600
RAM: 760 MB SDDR-RAM LL25
System: Windows 2000
HD: NEC 60 GB

[legacy-LoonaTick]

quick question...where is the .ini that you are talking about located?

[legacy-perfect]

in UT2003/system

[legacy-Inutero]

Hello :)

I had the crash problem where it goes back to the desktop with no error at all

all i did to fix this was install a no cd crack and now the game runs fine

oh aye

i did buy the game so this aint illegal :)

[legacy-The Almighty]

Yep, I've got the lock up problem.

I have an Athlon 1.2g processor, GEForce2, and I can't get the game working. I cant even get past the intro without it either locking up completely, or crashing and sending me back to windows. I'm hoping the patch will sort this problem out because I've exhausted all other possibilities. It's a bastard, because I played the demo quite comfortably with all details and textures on high. Now my graphics card is cranked right down, and I still get the crashes, even with all details and textures off or on lowest setting.

The Almighty has spoken.

I'll see you in the arena.(Just not yet)!

[legacy-hansenjay]

oh how nice...I have been playing for a couple of days with no problems but today I was greeted with this...

This is the message that was given after a hard crash which forced me to turn off my pc...

szAppName: Drivers.Display szAppVer: 10024E440000021002
szModName: ati2dvag.dll szModVer: 6.13.10.6178 Offset: B42C06EA

This was with my Radeon 9700 pro.

Let me know if there is anything that I can provide you with. I wasn't even "in-game" it was loading Tokara Forest after just finishing a match online on the same level.

[legacy-Avalok]

Athlon XP 1900 + Abit KT7A RAID
Latest Drivers
Windows XP SP1 DX 8.1B
Radeon 9700 Pro 77 Drivers (Guru 3D)

All was fine with the UT Demo When I had a Geforce 3 Ti 500
Upgraded to The Radeon and Hard Locks - hard reset to reboot the machine. I thought that this would be fixed for the release of UT03 - I mean it was such an obvious error - and one that had been reported on these forums - but NO - bought my game and I cannot play it - tried the No-CD - 8.1B - turning off shadows - and kicking the dog - nothing
This is not good. When will a fix be available?

[legacy--]|a1|[Mr.RM!-]

Very interresting reading.. I don't know why but my ut2k3 runs very good! I haven't experienced a single crash neither in the demo or the retail version I bought :) EVER!
So I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna try to make the game crash just for fun :P

Here are my specs: P3 1GHZ, 512 MB PC-133 RAM, GF4 MX 420, Windows XP with SP1, (directx 8.1b that came with SP1) 350 watt power supply.

I read one should NOT overclock anything, so that's the first thing I tried. My gf4 mx 420 has a Engine clock that defaults to 250 mhz and a system clock that defaults to 333 mhz. Boosted the Engine clock to 280 mhz (raised 30 mhz) and the Memory clock to 370 (raised 37mhz) using PowerStrip. Game runs perfectly fine for several hours.

Over to the processor. Scared it up to 1124 mhz (1000 being default). Game still runs fine!

I get a fps boost of a total of around 40 fps by now. Tried enabling/disabling directX video acceleration, game STILL runs fine. I have NO extra cooling exept for an old p2 350 processor fan mounted on my gfx card :P

Over to memory. Tweaked the RAM cas-delay-thingy to 2-2-2. Ram driving mode was set to "strong". Game STILL works and I got some more fps still!!!!!

Seems like I can't get this game to crash if I'm able to get Windows XP to boot up :) (didn't wanna boot if I clocked processor above 1124 mhz or gfx above 280/370 mhz)

I don't know if I'm just being lucky or if this is a software bug you all are experiencing or whatever. But with my (old) hardware everything runs peachy :) Am I totally stupid to think that this SHOULD be a software related bug you are experiencing? :P If I'm totally wrong, don't flame a layman that simply knows how to overclock some things ;)

[legacy-grmreepr]

OK, MY REPORT!!!!!!! I had the S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage video card, i had the same problem as all of u , but then i finally updated the driver for it, and VIOLA!! the game works! i also mentioned that i thought it had stopped working, but with a little testing around, here are my results!
After first turning on my computer, it works withought a hitch,
If i exit the game and then....
Leave the cd IN , i can play later, but
if i take the cd OUT it won't let me play if i pop it back in to play, and so i will have to restart my computer to play!

Thats not too much of a big problem, but any problem should be fixed, right? Also, i cleaned out some of the dust accumilations by my computer's main processor and fan and heat sinks. i dunno if that did anything, but it helps to mention that i did!
There's my report!! GOOD GAME!!!! :up: :cool:
'till next time!

[legacy-Fenrir(AVA)]

I am having a very weird experience with UT2k3 as of now. I am locking up as quick as the level starts sometimes, however disabling trilinear filtering helped that out, but something else crashs it. Lowered all my detail settings to normal locks up, low, locks up. Disabled all shadows, foliage, everything still locks up.
Also as of today when I launch UT2k3 it for some reason changes my extended desktop settings into clone mood, and is displayed on both of my monitors.


Here are my specs if this will help anyone out there.

MSI K7D Master (AMD 760MPX chipset)
Ati Radeon 9700
Dual AMD Athlon 2000+ MP's
2gigs of SDRAM
SCSI interface, 2 36gig SeaGate Cheetahs and 1 17gig cheetah
Sound Blaster Audigy
Using DVI output on 9700 card.

Note the system is locking up in NOLF2 as well but not no were near as quick as UT2k3. Any suggestions/ideas?

[legacy-Yoggie]

My system:-
AMD 1.4 T-bird
256 ddr ram
geforce2gts 32 ddr
win xp with sp1

Game runs fine I tweaked my ini slightly to lower some settings and the thing has never crashed on me once. Even when I set the eyecandy to full the engine just chugged along at a very low rate but never crashed. Starting having a look at some of the other stuff upaint and maya all work well. Onto UnrealEd mmm starts up loads splash screen starts to load menu, sticks then my pc resets. :cry:

These are the things I have tried
Original and latest engine.dll file,
win98/me fix,
altering desktop to 16bit color (its normally at 32),
underclocking my vid card
deleting my ini (so it creates default ones)
Various versions of det. drivers from 28.32 up to the latest betas


This is the log file it creates:-
ShutdownCount: 683
Shutdown: 0
EventCount: 7
BreakCount: 7
BugcheckTriggered: 1
DebuggerNotPresent: 1
DriverName: nv4_disp
EventFlag: 1
DeviceClass: Display
DeviceDescription: NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0150&SUBSYS_400E1043&REV_A4
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
DriverFixedFileInfo: FEEF04BD 00010000 0006000D 000A0C0A 0006000D 000A0C0A 0000003F 00000008 00040004 00000003 00000004 00000000 00000000
DriverCompanyName: NVIDIA Corporation
DriverFileDescription: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 30.82
DriverFileVersion: 6.13.10.3082
DriverInternalName: nv_disp.dll
DriverLegalCopyright: (c) NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.
DriverOriginalFilename: nv_disp.dll
DriverProductName: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 30.82
DriverProductVersion: 6.13.10.3082


Which seems to point to the vid drivers but like I said no matter what version of them I use I still gert the same result. I know UnrealEd is unsupported but any tips or things to try would help. Since I have been using XP every program bar this I have ran fine and my system is normally 99.99% stable.

/me goes back to maya tutorial :(

[legacy-nintendo1]

Hi Epic-Staff!

Well.. I've updeted my vidcard specially for UT2k3 from a GF4 MX to a 3d Prophet 9700 from Hercules. And sadly, I'm encountering the same problems as most people on this board..

Here's a list of games that generate the same problem:


Battle Field 2003
Madden NFL 2k3 Demo


I hope you and ATI can find a solution to this problem.. Because I don't want to pay 50$ for a game that I can't play even with enoug HW power! :mad:

[legacy-mpcd]

Ok here's my situation. I have not seen many (or any) posts about nForce users on these boards. My system consists of an Athlon 1800+, an MSI K7N420 Pro nForce 420D mobo, A Visiontek ti4200 128mb card, and 512mb Kingmax pc2700 ram (running at pc2100). I get all sorts of BSOD's or lockups in the game.

What I have tried (with software): Clean install of WindowsXP with latest updates, upgrade install as well. Tried turning off write combining. Tried Det 40.51's, 40.71's, 40.72's, 31.00's, and 30.82's... no luck. I'm using the latest nForce drivers (1.13).

What happens: During gameplay (sometimes 2 minutes in, sometimes 20 minutes in, sometimes 30 seconds in) the screen will just freeze. Occasionally I'll get a BSOD instead. Never get GPF's.

I have also tried putting a huge floor fan blowing through my case (which already has a ton of air circulation). I have also put a thermaltake copper geforce4 cooler on the card with arctic silver 3. Its not overclocked. Finally I upgraded my 340 watt power supply to a 465 watt Enermax. No luck there either. I am not overclocking anything (although I've tried that too just for !#@#s & giggles).

I have tried upping the core voltage of the cpu, reducing memory timings, and a few other tweaks (or un-tweaks if you want to look at it like that). I can NOT adjust AGP voltage (its not an option in bios), and there are no diagrams on the web on how to voltage mod the motherboard (I'm an electrical engineer, I wouldn't mind doing it if someone figured it out already but I dont have time to figure out how the mobo works).

I have also done the no-cd patch, tried just about every detail setting, etc. Turning off HardwareTL seems to increase stability however it sucks so incredibly hard I do not see this as a viable choice. I forked out a ton of money and time to this project and this game is still unplayable. OpenGL runs like absolute crap at any detail setting (i mean like 10-15fps max). The demo was perfectly stable in d3d mode, and the demo runs in linux fine as well (don't have my linux working right now so I cant try the full game yet).

Couple more things to note: I tried changing the sound settings, none of the choices affect stability or performance much. Tried the "CheckForOverFlow" setting as well. I've changed settings in the driver control panels a few times, nothing changes there either. My framerates in d3d mode are great when the game does work. It seems to be much more stable in single player/instant action. Another thing, most maps let me play for a few minutes but ctf-maul.ut2 BSODs immediately when I host a game. A friend sent me ctf-lavagiant he got from some community site... that is the most stable map I have, it almost never crashes.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[legacy-bigcoops]

I am a happy owner of a Radeon 9700, and UT2K3 is the most fun I have ever had playing a videogame. The performance and visual quality of the 9700 is amazing. In UT2K3 the card performs good at all settings maxed out and resolution at 1600X1200 --- on average I get 45fps

However, when I have many players on the screen at the same time the game drops to 20-25fps, which can be difficult to play at. Naturally, I went to turn down the resolution to 1024X768 to get better performance, but the same thing happens. So, then I went to turn down detail settings, and turn off 8X AF in the D3D settings, and still I get the same performance.

Finally, I turned everything down to the lowest possible settings and tweaked out the .ini file, and now I get even lower performance compared to everything maxed out!!!

I am glad that my system is not unstable like some other 9700 owners have reported. However, this is a UT2K3 specific problem for me, and it is something that Epic needs to look at, b/c every other game on my system runs amazing and that is with all settings maxed out. It dissapoints me b/c I spent the $300 on the card just to be able to play UT2K3 without any slowdown, but that is exactly what I get. I wish the game was also built around other videocards in mind, and not just Nvidia's.

I hope Epic looks into this situation. Here is my system specs:

Athlon 1800+
Radeon 9700 Pro w/ Cat. 2.3
Gigabyte w/ KT333
768MB PC2100 DDR RAM
SB Live 5.1 Platinum
250W power suppply (400W on the way)

[legacy-KFleshman]

I'm not experiencing any crashes with the following system (Including that 10 minute botmatch):

P4 2.4GHZ, 133FSB
512MB PC800 RDRAM
Intel D850EMV2 MB
Radeon 9700
Yamaha SW1000XG
Antec 430W TruPower PS

However, I'll try the following parts in various combinations, and report back when I'm done testing:
Sound:
SBAudigy
Philips Rhythmic Edge
SBLive
Video:
Elsa Gladiac 920 (GF3)
Hercules 3D Phophet II GTS (GF2 GTS 64MB)
ATI Radeon 8500 128MB

And see if any of those combinations causes crashes. I'm guessing it'll take me a few hours (at the very least) to test all of those, but it might help narrow down what the problem. I'm currently guessing that it's an Audigy + Radeon problem, but we (might) know more after I'm all done. :D

[legacy-euan]

I've got a Dual Athlon XP system too. It's rock solid with the Radeon 9700. The only way I can get UT2003 (demo) to crash is if N-patches is enabled in the UT ini file and truform is not enabled in the Catalyst D3D control panel. BF1942 doesn't crash (which is unusual :) ). In fact I don't seem to have any games or demos that crash. Even old 8500 stuff that used to crash 100% of the time such as the ATI 8500 tech demos run stable on my system. :)

I don't have any AMD drivers installed. Just the ones that come with WinXP SP1. Using the 7.77 radeon drivers. Latest Audigy drivers are installed.

I don't think heat is an issue becuase I deliberatly run my PC hot. I use Speedfan to keep both CPUs just under 57ºC. I also don't get any of the stuttering alot of people complain about, unless one of the folding@home's start downloading a new work unit, and that is a very rare event to happen during gaming!

I have i intake fan, and 1 blowhole in the top of the case. 2 fans on a bracket suspended above two Zalman flower coolers. And the PSU fans.

System:
Dual AMD Athlon XP 1600+
Tyan Tiger MP S2460 Bios 1.04
512MB Crucial Registered ECC(off) PC2100
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro.
IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 451
Realtek 8029 PCI (Slot 2)
Hauppauge WinTV NICAM (Slot 4)
SoundBlaster Audigy (Slot 5)
Creative PCI64v ES1371 (Slot 6) (used in BeOS)
IBM 75GXP (IC25L040)
80GB ATA66 Maxtor
LiteOn 16X DVD-ROM
Plextor CDRW PX-W4012A
Enermax 550W PSU (EG651P-V(E) 300W Combined)
USB PSX Dual Shock Joypad converter
Yamaha MU100R
WINXP SP1,BEOS 5.0.0(with AMD XP patch).

Here's my DXDiag.txt if anyone wants to check files (http://ekm.users.btopenworld.com/DxDiag.txt)

[legacy-bigcoops]

To everyone who is having lockup problems check to to see if any of these help:

-Totally uninstall drivers and install the newest ones -- from Rage3D (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33633482)

-Increse the AGP voltage in motherboard BIOS

-Change Audio settings to Software mode

check Rage3d boards for others. I hope this helps.

[legacy-Avalok]

OK so My Ati Radeon 9700 Pro on a VIA board was no good - so I thought - RIGHT ON !! I have a win2K advanced server just sitting there doing what a server does - time to put it to work - only I installed it - and directx 8.1b and it still came up saying UT has triggered a bug in DirectX

Win2K AServer Athlon XP 1800+
512Meg Ram
Propiety Sound/Lan/Modem/Video on Board
(64meg of shared AGP video memory)

Oh well - is there any computer UT03 does work on?
Back to learning c#... need a programmer guys?

[legacy-KFleshman]

Hmmm... my experiment isn't working too well. I haven't been able to get mine to crash, even when using Audigy (Primary card) + SW1000XG + Radeon 9700, and an IRQ conflict between both sound cards. Right now I have it running the 10 minute benchmark in an endless loop, to see if I can get it to crash at all.

This is on WinXP SP1 w/ 7.77 Radeon 9700 drivers.

[legacy-Blu3Cavu]

Hi,
i've the same probs everybody has ... all games work fine (SoF2, Q3, WC3, Morrowind), but UT2003 hangs up the system and i've to hard reset (AMD TB1.2/SB Live/GF3Ti200/512MB SDR).

I recognize that the probs are mostly in the single player carreer or multiplayer mode ... if i just play a little "skirmish"/"quick action" with bots all work fine ...

Greats, Blu3cavu

[legacy-logikal]

MSI K7N 420 Pro, Athlon 1700+, Radeon 9700, 512 PC2100 Micron, Windows XP + SP1

This game freezes in only a couple instances: the opening in game cutscene in single player and on the map Face3. Ive also had an invisible hud bug (which was corrected by a reinstall of the game), yet the lockups remain consistant. I can not raise my AGP voltage either as my bios does not have this option.

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by Mark Rein
[B]Update:

Good news (well, sort of :()



Right off the bat I thought you, Mark, and pals would like to know that a couple of weeks before buying UT2 I swapped out my GF4 Ti4600 for a Radeon 9700. I was very skeptical of buying an ATI 3D card again--the last one I bought was a Rage Fury which I returned and at the time swore I'd never own another ATI 3D product. As such, I even made sure that I bought the 9700 from a 30-day satisfaction guaranteed vendor with no restocking fees.

At any rate the 9700 passed all of my tests with flying colors and I have cheerfully consigned my Ti4600 to my wife's machine (she doesn't much care what's in it.)

Here's the news that you need to know, and hopefully it will put your mind at ease: UT2 runs GREAT with my 9700--I mean GREAT. I'm very pleased with the way the game runs, and extremely pleased with the way the 9700 runs every 3D game I've got--and I've got a considerable amount of them, I can tell you...;) I'm a very demanding critic, and this card has done nothing but surprise and delight me since the day I put it in. The point I want to get across here is that you need not worry about UT2 not running well with the 9700--it does--although I prefer the D3d version because you guys have some work to do yet on the OpenGL renderer (which I know you know is not news.) I hope this makes you feel better--had you not said so, I would never in a million years have guessed that you had not even tested the 9700 with the game prior to shipping it.

--Let me interject here about the game. At first I wanted to kill you guys---grrrrr---for leaving out so many of the old characters in the game--like Skaarj and the Cow, etc. After playing UT for THREE YEARS you get sort of attached to certain characters, you know? It's that way with any sequel in a movie or book--the characters are what keep you coming back. I also was upset because I couldn't find Brock or Malcom or the girl from the intro movie anywhere in the game--but I finally found them last night!

Heh-Heh...I never saw them because of a peculiarity in the way the arrow gadgets work in the bot config screen--when you click on the right arrow gadget, for instance, the portraits don't shift up by one--the entire group ratchets up so that the next portrait shows up on the LEFT side of the screen next to the left arrow gadget--and what happened was that my eye kept to the right side and changing groups in the view I MISSED several bot models in the process (I missed a bunch of them...;)) Anyway, I found them last night and was very pleased. It also confused me because in the player configuration screen you aren't given the choice of being Brock or Malcom (which is understandable and correct, I think), which further underscored my misconception that these characters were not in the game at all. But they are, and I was glad to see it (bring back the Skaarj and the cow and a couple of the other older bots and things will be perfect--I get tired of looking at those fat, slovenly, boozer-looking geneboosted WWW-wannabe's, you know what I mean? But I love blowing them to kingdom come! And I love it when the bots speak clearly and I can actually understand them instead of a buch of incoherent grunts and groans.)

ASIDE from those things--I LOVE THIS GAME! I played two hours last night with 8 bots and had a ball--I don't think I've ever enjoyed the original UT as much--I love the Domination maps--Magma (not sure which game it belongs to--CTF?) is the best looking map I've ever seen in a game, I think--takes your breath, almost.

--LAST comment on the game and then I'll get back to your problem and what I think may be causing it. PLEASE bring back some of the configurability of the old UT in regards to bot configuration! Changing appearance was really cool, as well as being able to set up specific bot capability. I personally enjoy roaming the landscape immensely superior in reflexes and skill to anybody on the map--naturally as such I don't play on the Internet...;) I need to be able to configure the bots so that I am always clearly superior. That's how I enjoy playing the game and how much fun it is for me--the object of the game for me is to have fun--I don't need to prove anything.----OK, no more about the game. Back to your problem.

AS I SAID, UT2 is performing perfectly for me with the 9700 and I'm very pleased. I am using the 7.76 Catalysts instead of the 7.77's because the 7.76's allow me to configure my refresh rates like I like them and don't limit me to the silly 120Hz cap that WinXP puts on its PnP monitors. I had the exact same problem with the GF4 Ti4600 running the 30.82 Dets and had to actually edit the nVidia driver install .inf to get the refresh rates I wanted for 640x480 and 800x600--which I prefer at 160Hz. The funny thing is that this is *not* a WinXP problem--this is entirely the fault of the videocard drivers install .inf's configuration instructions--in both the 30.82 Dets and the 7.77 Catalysts, the driver install .inf by default limits the maximum refresh rate of the monitor at any resolution to 120Hz, and it just plain doesn't matter what monitor .inf you use--it's always the same. So that's why I am using the 7.76 Catalysts instead of the 7.77's--they recognize the full possibility range of refresh rates for my monitor and GPU, and I just don't feel like editing the 7.77's to do the same. (I use RefreshForce to write the preferred resolution/refresh rates to the registry so that when I open a screen--doesn't matter from which API--to a certain resolution the refresh rate for that screen will always be what I want it to be.)

Here's the rest of my configuration for my home box in case it doesn't show in my sig (I signed on here just to answer your questions.)

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU, WinXP Pro SP1
Athlon XP 2000 +
2 WD 100 0BB's in RAID 0
1 WD 40 OBB
1 WD 27-gig
56x AOpen CD
32x 12x 40x Lite-ON CD-R/RW
Toshiba DVD (SIIG PCI UDMA6 HD controller)
1.3-gigs Crucial PC2100
SBAudigy
Radeon 9700 "Built-by" ATI, ATI-branded
Linksys NIC
Lian-Li PC62 USB AL case
Klipsch 5.1's
Sony E540 21" FT
Antec TruPower 430W PSU (replaced a Power PC & Cooling 450Watt ATX)


So far, I have personally tested this configuration and my 9700 with ~30 3D games, including UT2 and the orignal UT. In all of them--believe it or not--I have not had a single crash or lockup. Well not quite all of them....I had a single crash in WarCraft III, but as I rebooted the game and played through that exact spot again without difficulty, and have not crashed since-- I'm pretty sure this was a game-code bug--and not related to the videocard. At any rate the error code was nothing remotely akin to a videocard malfunction. Actually, the only 3D game in which I have HAD a lockup--but only one, once, is UT2.

I solved it--completely--by simply upping the voltage to my AGP bus by .1v. Never had a lockup in UT2 since, and have played for hours. My theory is that running UT2 as I do at 1280x1024 with 16x AF, and running the game as I do with everything maxed out for texture quality, causes the GPU to work a bit harder than lower-quality settings would. This in turn necessitates more power required to the card. I know that the external power bus is supposed to alleviate this condition entirely, and supposed to make a card like the 9700 virtually impervious to any motherboard voltage irregularities (as was the theory behind 3dfx's V5 when 3dfx originated this practice for desktop 3D cards.) But apparently the 9700 is still in some way sensitive to power fluctuations across the AGP bus, irrespective of the external power bus connection. At least, this is my theory and a slight uptick in AGP voltage seems to have solved the problem completely for me.

Now for your error message...

This appears precisely like the old "infinite loop" errors I got with my GF4 4600 when I first booted up WinXP and tried a 3D game--I had an Abit KT7 at home at the time when I got the error. I finally traced it down and it turned out not to be related to the GF4 or its drivers at all. (The WinXP diagnostic simply misidentified the problem by identifying a symptom and not a cause for it.)

In that situation what happened is that WinXP did not at all care for my 133MHz asynchronous ram bus that I had run successfully in Win9x without a problem. Rather, it was the combination of D3d, XP, and the asynchronous bus which put The GF4 into the "infinite loop" or the "stuck in a thread" error. As such it was cured completely in that configuration by a reduction of the dram bus speed to 100MHz to sychronize with the cpu fsb, also running at 100MHz at the time.

The point relative to you is that this is most likely a problem completely unrelated to the 9700 as such, but rather a problem somewhere else in your system which the installation of your 9700 has simply brought to the fore.

I would guess the problem lies in one of these areas:

(1) PSU capacity and/or motherboard voltage regulation (the 9700 apparently requires more power, closer to spec than the GF4 4600 did.) In the past, whenever 3dfx or nVidia released an new-architecture 3D card, invariably there was always a certain number of motherboards that would prove inadequate from an onboard voltage regulation standpoint and the new-gen cards would either fail to work or else have a lot of problems. Sometimes a motherboard bios fix solved things, sometimes a new board was needed.

(2)Onboard ram. I read a post the other day from a guy consistently getting the "infinite loop" error with his 9700--a few posts later he chimed in to say it had been the fact that one of his DIMMs was halfway out of the its socket and making only partial contact with the DIMM slot. Properly inserting it permenently fixed the problem. The point here is that, just as was true for me with my GF4 and the KT7, this error seems to come about as a result of a problem with ram--this guy's wasn't seated properly and I had to clock mine down to synchronous speeds to eliminate the loop error.

While I doubt that any of your ram is unseated, it's possible that you could have a problem somewhere in your system ram (A bad DIMM, or DIMM chip). Again, the increased hardware resource requirements of a product like the 9700 (compared to the GF4 4600) put certain specification stresses on a hardware environment that lesser products like the GF4 do not, which is why you might see these kinds of problems with the 9700 but not the GF4--the 9700 requires closer adherence to specs than the GF4 and ads more electrical overhead to the system.

What I can tell you pretty clearly from my own experience is that the issue is definitely NOT a driver issue. If it was then I'd be having the same problems--but I'm not. Quite a few people on the Rage3D ATI forums are reporting trouble-free operation as well--and with UT2, too.

If it makes you feel better and in the interests of thoroughness and expediency, I would suggest swapping the card out at place of purchase or an RMA from ATI--whichever is quicker for you. Then, if you still have the problems you can eliminate the videocard itself as the cause. If the problems vanish then you'll know you simply picked up a bad card by luck of the draw.

At any rate, the evidence suggests it has to be somewhere in your hardware config in the probable areas I outlined above, and unless you just lucked out and picked up a bad card, the 9700 isn't the culprit.

Hope you can fix yur system soon--the 9700 is a great card--especially for UT2. I haven't missed the GF4 Ti4600 since the day I put it in the wife's machine. Thanks again for the great software which will-of-course-be-perfect-when-you-follow-my- suggestions--Heh-Heh...;) Let us know how things progress...Not knowing the details of your configuration, this is my best guess based on some problem reports--and their solutions--I've seen on the Rage3D 9700 technical forums.

(Pardon any spelling typos--too lazy to go back over it.)

[Daniel Vogel]

Try disabling player shadows (or use blob shadows).

More technical blurb: A 128 MByte card doesn't have enough video memory for UT2k3 at the highest texture detail settings so some textures will end up in AGP memory. The problem also is that render targets have to reside in video memory and when a player is first seen the allocation of the render target will fail if there isn't enough memory available on the card. We in turn will then evict all textures from video memory and try to allocate the render target again. On certain card/ driver combinations this can cause framerate hitches that can be avoided by either using blob shadows or a lower texture detail setting.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.


Originally posted by bigcoops
I am a happy owner of a Radeon 9700, and UT2K3 is the most fun I have ever had playing a videogame. The performance and visual quality of the 9700 is amazing. In UT2K3 the card performs good at all settings maxed out and resolution at 1600X1200 --- on average I get 45fps

However, when I have many players on the screen at the same time the game drops to 20-25fps, which can be difficult to play at. Naturally, I went to turn down the resolution to 1024X768 to get better performance, but the same thing happens. So, then I went to turn down detail settings, and turn off 8X AF in the D3D settings, and still I get the same performance.

Finally, I turned everything down to the lowest possible settings and tweaked out the .ini file, and now I get even lower performance compared to everything maxed out!!!

I am glad that my system is not unstable like some other 9700 owners have reported. However, this is a UT2K3 specific problem for me, and it is something that Epic needs to look at, b/c every other game on my system runs amazing and that is with all settings maxed out. It dissapoints me b/c I spent the $300 on the card just to be able to play UT2K3 without any slowdown, but that is exactly what I get. I wish the game was also built around other videocards in mind, and not just Nvidia's.

I hope Epic looks into this situation. Here is my system specs:

Athlon 1800+
Radeon 9700 Pro w/ Cat. 2.3
Gigabyte w/ KT333
768MB PC2100 DDR RAM
SB Live 5.1 Platinum
250W power suppply (400W on the way)

[legacy-sherm]

system is -----
athlon XP1800
KT3 ultra 2 motherboard with the very latest via drivers
256 ddr ram
geforce ti4200 128 meg graphics card with the very latest nvidia drivers
os-windows 98se
have tried upping the agp voltage -didnt work
tried removin ; from the .ini -didnt work
tried all sorts of configurations in the game ---didnt work
tried downing my cpu speed-didnt work
it just randomly locks up anywhere between 30 secs and 10 mins ................

[legacy-Kaleygh]

Finally, I made it :)

System:
AMD 1.4 GHz
Via KT266 chipset
512 MB DDR
Gainward GF4 TI 4400
SB Audigy
Windows 2000 SP3

All other applications/games/stuff runs fine. I didn't try the NOLF2 demo yet.

Ok .. I tried all the usual stuff - lockup after a few mins. Raised voltage for RAMs to 2.7V and switched off the interleave mode. That helped - but still lockups - 5 min up to 60 min now. Tried alot of other stuff, described in this thread but - no change.

Most lockups happened in the menus!!! I don't expect a heavy load here. :weird:

Got Nvidia 40.72 drivers. Wiped out old drivers. Installed 40.72s and thats it. No more lockups.

I doubt that's the drivers only. Just luck and the right combination of tweaks. :weird:

[legacy-chucks240]

My slow P4 2Gig machine seems to handle UT2K3 O.K.

Only problem I have is when enabling NPatchs. Whether
TruForm is turned off, or set to application preferences
in the driver, my system will reboot within about 30sec
to a minute. That is will all details cranked up in UT2K3.

The other thing thing I noticed is that with Anti-Aliasing
turned on in the driver (doesn't matter what setting
2x,4x, or 8x) and textures are set to any setting of
High to Highest the frame rates drop to pretty much
1 to 10fps. Though with all settings in UT2K3 set to
normal and all settings in the driver maxed out,
it works like a charm.

Probably why the demo worked so good is that its
defaults were all Normal settings, but the Retail
defaults some of the settings to High, and Highest
settings. All except for the Physics setting.

Don't know if this helps, but I thought I would mention
it.

[legacy-triad]

Originally posted by The Almighty
Yep, I've got the lock up problem.

I have an Athlon 1.2g processor, GEForce2, and I can't get the game working. I cant even get past the intro without it either locking up completely, or crashing and sending me back to windows. I'm hoping the patch will sort this problem out because I've exhausted all other possibilities. It's a bastard, because I played the demo quite comfortably with all details and textures on high. Now my graphics card is cranked right down, and I still get the crashes, even with all details and textures off or on lowest setting.

The Almighty has spoken.

I'll see you in the arena.(Just not yet)!

i have a 1.4g athlon with a geforce2 too. i cant even get past the menu. closes down after 10 seconds.


can someone tell me how to increase the voltage to my agp slot?
links would help too.

also can someone make a patch please! if i cant get it running in 3 days id probably take it back.

[legacy-Galstaph SOL]

Now I'm not sure if this will work for anyone else but it worked for me. I've been having the hard reboot problem since day 1 but now I haven't had a problem. I appied the NoCD patch and I also took my computer apart and fliped the cards around, like moved my sound card down a slot etc. After reinsalling my sound drivers the game works without a hitch full 1280x1024x32 and highest graphics all the way. Hope this may help someone else out.

Galstaph

PC Specs:

2.0A GhZ P4
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum (Internal)
1 Gig of 2100 DDR RAM
120 Gig IBM 7200 RPM Hard Disk
SIIG IDE Hard Disk Controller
32x12x40 CDRW
2.5x2.5x48 DVD+RW
16x DVD
Lian-Li Aluminum Case
Thermaltake Fan
ATI Radeon 8500 (128 MB)
VooDoo TV 200 PCI
Win2k SP3

[legacy-Oxide_Hera]

Beat it on my second clean install of XP Professional. =) It's a good thing this game rocks socks.

Athlon 2100+
MSI KT-3 Ultra2 KT-333 chipset
512 Megs GEIL PC2700 CAS 2 DDR
4.43 4-in-1s
Latest BIOS revision
Windows XP Professional + the DirectX upgrades from the install disc, did not run service pack 1.
Abit Siluro GF 4/4400 w/ Nvidia 40.72 drivers.

Had the regular crash-after-several-minutes-of-play. No longer seems present since I put the 40.72s in.

Dog

[legacy-bigcoops]

Originally posted by vogel
Try disabling player shadows (or use blob shadows).

More technical blurb: A 128 MByte card doesn't have enough video memory for UT2k3 at the highest texture detail settings so some textures will end up in AGP memory. The problem also is that render targets have to reside in video memory and when a player is first seen the allocation of the render target will fail if there isn't enough memory available on the card. We in turn will then evict all textures from video memory and try to allocate the render target again. On certain card/ driver combinations this can cause framerate hitches that can be avoided by either using blob shadows or a lower texture detail setting.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

Thank you for your reply Daniel, but I have already tried turning off character shadows. I also turned the Physics detail to low, and unhecked coronas, foliage, ect.... I have turned off every type off option that would give me a potential performance hit, tried at the lowest possible resolution, ect. (basically the game looks like Doom 1) and still have the same average framerate of 45, a max of around 60 fps, and it dips below 25 fps at time of intense action. I have also tried V-sync on and off (both in the .ini file and in the ATI control panel).

It seems something is limiting my system from churning out a high number of fps in UT2K3 even at low resolutions and lowest detail settings, ect....

I hope to god that the next set of ATI drivers will fix my problem, but I highly doubt that it is a driver problem.

Good Luck everyone else.

[legacy-sherm]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaleygh
[B]Finally, I made it :)



Got Nvidia 40.72 drivers. Wiped out old drivers. Installed 40.72s and thats it. No more lockups.

wow tnx ....tried this and it has worked so far for me ....tottaly wiped out the old drivers and even got a registery cleaner to make sure they were totaly gone ...........reinstalled the new nvidia drivers and bang got over an hours worth of gaming .......
settings are 1280x1024
32bit colour
no shadows
all detail is at highest
no trilinear filtering
and software audio
hope this is the last i see of those frustrating lockups .....will post again if PC decides otherwise

[legacy-r^ChronoCross]

Alot of Asus MB and G-Force Ti 4200 cards have problems. Has anyone with this combo found a fix are can epic set a system up like they did with the radeon to figure out what is going wrong.
After messing with the ini file in UT I finally got it up to run, but all it does is freez, it does not lockup my system but every few secs freezes it. From Demo to the retail, same patern, When I had my g-force 3 card in everything ran smooth, upgraded cards and now it does this. Ive went thru all the post, tried this tried that and it all fails. Clean installl of everything, even 40.72 drivers. Ive even underclocked my card under the defaults and it still does it. Power is not a issue for me I have 425 watt power supply. Im not using generic ddr ram. No cd patch is just a fix around the complete lockup, yes ive tried that. The freezes are so freq that you cannot play the game. No matter what I try it just does not work. I would really like to get this game running, since my new UT2k3 server will be online for the clan by Oct 17. Think we can get some type of fix are something from someone instead of this up in the air stuff ppl throw out, because there system was not setup correctly.

[legacy-MMiller8]

Everyone seems to have crashing problems; myself, I would just like to get to the menu. When I try to install the game it tells me that it 'Cannot find the temp directory', and that i have 'no video'. This happens right after i double click on the setup icon. I have tried all the fixes in the other threads ont he topic of not being able to install it, and none of them worked. I just don't want this bug to go unnoticed in the patch. I want my UT2k3!!!! (Hey, it rhymes with MTV!)

Specs:
AMD 1.2ghz Tbird
GeForce2 Ultra 64mb
SBLive 5.1 gamer
MSI KT3 Ultra ARU
512 mb ddr 2700+
Oh, and PLENTY of hard disk space... (about 75 gb)

[legacy-Incognegro]

I may have fixed my lockup issue.

I was experiencing lockups as well on my system:

P4 2.0a ghz CPU
512mb PC 2100 DDR
ASUS P4B266-C (1004 Bios)
PNY Nvidia Geforce 4 TI 4600 (30.82 Detonator Drivers)
Audigy Sound Blaster Card
Windows XP Pro
(Not using OPENGL in UT 2003 but have everything else turned on, including dynamic lighting)

I installed the beta 40.72 detonator drivers from Nvidia and I haven't had a freeze all day. Before I could only play the game for like 5 minutes then it would freeze up on me.

I'm keeping my fingers cross and I hope this helps.

[legacy-tweakt]

Originally posted by MMiller8
Everyone seems to have crashing problems; myself, I would just like to get to the menu. When I try to install the game it tells me that it 'Cannot find the temp directory', and that i have 'no video'. This happens right after i double click on the setup icon. I have tried all the fixes in the other threads ont he topic of not being able to install it, and none of them worked. I just don't want this bug to go unnoticed in the patch. I want my UT2k3!!!! (Hey, it rhymes with MTV!)


MM -- Try the ut2003.ini file edit mentioned earlier in this thread.

[legacy-tweakt]

The demo worked fine once I installed the patch. The retail version worked fine for the first day. Once I got to the Plunge level (or possibly before that), the game would freeze after a minute of play, and I have to hard reboot. I've tried a ton of things.

Set all the game options down to minimal, res to 800x600. Software audio. In the BIOS, I played with AGP aperture from 128, 64 and 32; lowered all memory settings. System temps seem to be fine, no alarms going off anyway. Chkdsk'ed & defragged, have over 3 GB's free on that partition. I tried the 2nd no CD crack.

Still left to try: Disabled 32bit zbuffer in display driver. Disabling player shadows (if haven't already). Try previous levels. Reinstalling :)

System spec:
Abit Kt7A-Raid
Tbird 1333 w/ Silverado cooler @50-55C
640 MB Crucial PC133
Matrox G400MAX dualhead, latest driver (5.86 I think)
Viewsonic G790 19"
Optiquest V115 21"
Hercules GTXP 7.1
Seagate 'Cuda IV 40 GB
IBM 75 GXP
2x Maxtor 20 GB value drives
Plextor 24/10/40
Adaptec SCSI card
Antec 400W PS
Pinnacle Studio TV Pro
Klipsch 4.1's
...

Any recommendations are appreciated. I need to get some frustration out & I was hoping UT would help.

[legacy-northernlight23]

After a week of testing in my apt with 4 computer guys, we've fixed all of the crash problems on our computers.


There is a problem with Creative Labs and VIA chipsets. I have no idea why. However I'm almost positive that is where the problem is. It could be direct8.1b conflict with the cards no idea.

Another problem, power supply, get a 400 or greater.

Seems to be a small glitch with ATI drivers still.

Solution, run on the onboard sound card.

[legacy-tweakt]

Originally posted by northernlight23

There is a problem with Creative Labs and VIA chipsets. I have no idea why. However I'm almost positive that is where the problem is. It could be direct8.1b conflict with the cards no idea.


I had that problem with my Abit KT7A-Raid + Tbird + SBLive + Matrox G400. Solution for me was to upgrade BIOS, from http://www.biosmods.com

Following up on my crash report, I got UT to work at 800x600 with all lowest settings on a bunch of different BR maps. After a few new levels, the game crashed the system again. Possible heating or stress-related problem. Which = excuse to upgrade to Athlon XP, another 512 MB RAM, and a new vid card.

[legacy-Incognegro]

I'd steer clear from VIA chipsets if you do get another Athlon. VIA is plagued with problems and bugs thats why I ended up switching back to Intel.

[legacy-tweakt]

I had vowed to save my money for a completely new motherboard instead of hitching upgrades onto a non-DDR motherboard. But waiting for serial ATA & the next horizon of goods.....eh.

THG had some good words about nForce 2 w/ regards to memory performance.

All in all, it depends on what happens to me in the next 8 months. I'm finishing up my senior year in college. If I become a wage slave, then I'll have money & a stable place to live, and will be more likely to upgrade. If I don't have any good job prospects, I'm going to move around a lot, and work PT jobs to get by. I'll probably end up selling this big rig, or leaving it at my parents house...and go back to my PII-233 laptop.

If no one wants to hire me, I'm going to live an enjoyable life!

[legacy-Virus{xPCG}]

For 9700 users on Windows XP experiencing lockups... something new to try!

Ive just read a post where someone claims to have downloaded the 6118 XP drivers, modified the INF file so that recognises the newer graphics card and installed.

Their lockups in D3D have allegedly vanished:weird:

[legacy-Silverrex]

sounds like most ppl are having lock up problems..what about reboot problems? it reboots on me at random.. and any game I run in d3d reboots.. Open GL seem to work but its slow as SNAIL

I tried everything driver to cooling bios voltage reinstall etc no luck..

I will get a new powersupply and go from there..

and ya anyone try using the onboard sound card instead? but I already remove my sb live and it still reboots..so shouldnt this rule out its the sound card?

[legacy-northernlight23]

my guess would be the power supply. You just get random reboots? That could be another entire problem.

Could be bad memory, or a cooling issue with the video card, try taking the case off.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Is there a way to force UT2003 to use Wicked GL? XP doesnt exactly agree with the good old 3dfx voodoo's running in OGL - I try to start the game, device failure.

In d3d the game runs for anywhere between 30sec and 30min, then the world falls apart - as if the video card was overheating.. I severely underclocked the card, waiting till a crash, and physically felt the underside of my voodoo - thing was room temp.

http://www.gamerspage.com/ut2k3.jpg - On occasion I can quit the game before my system craps out. XP SP1 manages to get back to the desktop with a device failure message, in 640x480@16 colors and some horrid refresh rate, not to mention I get lines on the screen if I move the mouse..

Specs:
Antec 400watt PSU
Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra Platinum
Athlon 1900+ (Usually overclocked at 1800MHz, but for the sake of making the game work I even tried 1200MHz)
Volcano 7+ cooler
3dfx Voodoo 4 4500 APG
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
512MB of PC2100, Have run tests on my ram when OC'd to 333MHz, no problems
Windows XP Professional, SP1

[Buppie]

Originally posted by vogel
[B]Game crashes to desktop without any error message:
--------------------------------------------------

This most likely is caused by our CD copy protection scheme. Please
contact Infogrames technical support for help.

-------------------------------------------------


Lo Mr-Vogel.

I've this crash, I've got a DVD player who causes this in Windows 2000 Pro.
Now I use the Crack to run the game.
I've heard there will be a patch available at Monday for this problem.
Is this true?

Thanks for answering this question.

regards

Buppie :confused:

[legacy-triad]

it seems that all the people with geforce 2 cant even get past the main menu.

[legacy-chreegy]

i had the same freezing probs like all of us!! and i was getting mad with the game. until i read one of the threads!

there someone said that he absolutely cleaned up his machine from any Nvidia files or registry entries. then he installed the 40.72 drivers and that worked for him!

and so it did for me!!!!!!!!the game runs so much smoother now!!!! it's unbelievable! :-) after hours of frustration!

Thats the way I did it:

1.Do a clean install of your drivers. This involves editing your Registry, as well as changing your adapter device. This ensures the best method of getting your drivers to work in optimal conditions. Here's how you do a clean install of your drivers:

1.Go to Add/Remove programs, and uninstall the drivers from there if you can.


2.Go to Start and Run and type regedit in there. Press Ok. Double click the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to open it up, then SOFTWARE. Now delete the Nvidia Corporation key by right clicking on it and choosing Delete. Now exit out by clicking the lil X at the top right.


3.Reboot, and hold F8 right before the Windows logo comes up. Choose Safe Mode. Go to Start and then Find and Find Files/Folders. Do a search for these files:
In C:\Windows\System: nv*.*
In C:\Windows\Inf: nv*.inf
In C:\Windows\Inf\Other: nv*.inf
Then delete the ones you find in those folders that show up.



4.Right click Desktop, choose Properties and click on the Settings tab. Click the Advanced Properties button and find the Adapter tab. In there, click the Change button and at the bottom, click the Show All Devices bubble. In the left window, scroll up to the top and choose Standard Display Types. In the right window, choose Standard Display Adapter (VGA). Click OK.


5.Reboot. Now install your drivers in the normal way. Reboot again. You're all set now.

Oh and i have installed the no-CD crack! BUT i bought the game!!!

My hardware:
MSI K7t 266 Pro2-RU
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
512MB Infineon RAM
Geforce Ti4200
80GB Maxtor
SBLive!
D-Link network 100Mbit
400watt power supply

[legacy-sherm]

Originally posted by sherm
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaleygh
[B]Finally, I made it :)




hope this is the last i see of those frustrating lockups .....will post again if PC decides otherwise


oh dear lockups are back .....tried it all........will just have to wait to see what epic or via come up with ........either that or the games goin right back to where it came from ..............!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[legacy-_Administr8or_]

Originally posted by vogel
Could people with locking problems try disabling player shadows?

If you can't possibly live without shadows you might want to consider using simple blob shadows instead. Those should be much easier on the system and should also remove small pauses in netplay when a character first comes into view in a level that uses a lot of textures and your details are cranked up all the way so there isn't enough space in video memory for the rendertarget to be created.

To do this add the bBlobShadow=True line like below to the UnrealGame.UnrealPawn section of your User.ini file.

[UnrealGame.UnrealPawn]
bPlayerShadows=True
bBlobShadow=True

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

My System :

AMD Athlon 1,33 Ghz
256 MB Ram
Ati Radeon 9700 pro
SB Live 5.1
400 W Power Supply

I just edited the user.ini file, and i lowered my resolution to 640x480x16 with all the detail as low as possible.
But without succes! I was able to play a little longer (5 minutes), but the game still locks-up.....

[legacy-TheIronMonkey]

I have a AMD Duron 1GHZ, 512MB RAM and a GeForce 2 and i only get a few seconds worth of actual gameplaying (themenus work fine).

It nearly always reboots when the level actually loads up (sometimes as soon as i perform an action like click fire) and it has crashed to the desktop just a couple of times.

The no-cd patch didn't work for me, and neither has turning the all the graphical options down or running it in a window.

Please help (by the way I have 0 technical knowledge and will not open my case or mess with the BIOS...... too scary!)

[legacy-wilko]

Oke just a suggestion worth a try. When i build this computer i first had lockup problems to in both quake and unreal. Anything else ran fine without problems.

it stopped when i increased voltage a little bit to chipset, agp and memory. It is not pretty i know but it worked and i have pretty good cooling.

Amd 1800+
Chaintech mobo with via kt333 chipset
Gforce 4 4400 Ti. (30.82 drivers)
512 mb 2700 cas 2,5 dane memory.
Win xp + sp1

Game runs fine..

Cant hurt to at least try :)

[legacy-bachhimself]

I have got the next config:

Amd Athlon xp2100+
Asus A7v333
256 Mb pc 2700 Nanya
Gainward gf4 ti4200 Golden Smaple (128 Mb)
Win 98se

I got random crashes, Locks up and just shutting down, till restarting my pc.

can somebody please help?????

Log: Possessed PlayerPawn: xPlayer DOM-ScorchedEarth.xPlayer
Log: xPlayer got player WindowsViewport
Error: Failed to register sound: ..\Music\KR-ChemicalBurn .ogg
Error: Failed to register sound: ..\Music\KR-ChemicalBurn .ogg
Log: Precaching: DOM-ScorchedEarth.LevelInfo0
Log: Allocating 16384 byte dynamic index buffer.
Log: Allocating 65536 byte dynamic vertex buffer.
Log: Allocating 21342 byte dynamic index buffer.

Log: Finished precaching geometry in 3.820 seconds
Log: Finished precaching textures in 6.181 seconds
ScriptLog: START MATCH
Critical: UModel::LineCheck
Critical: CheckWithLevel
Critical: ULevel::MultiLineCheck
Critical: ULevel::SingleLineCheck
Critical: LightVisibility
Critical: GetRelevantLights
Critical: FActorSceneNode::Render
Critical: UShadowBitmapMaterial::Get
Critical: FD3DRenderInterface::SetProjectorMaterial
Critical: FD3DRenderInterface::SetMaterial
Critical: ATerrainInfo::Render::RenderProjectors
Critical: ATerrainInfo::Render
Critical: RenderLevel
Critical: FLevelSceneNode::Render
Critical: FPlayerSceneNode::Render
Critical: UGameEngine::Draw
Critical: UWindowsViewport::Repaint
Critical: UWindowsClient::Tick
Critical: ClientTick
Critical: UGameEngine::Tick
Critical: UpdateWorld
Critical: MainLoop
Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError
Exit: UALAudioSubsystem::ShutdownAfterError
Localization: No localization: Window.IDDIALOG_CrashBox.IDC_CrashBox (int)
Localization: No localization: Window.IDDIALOG_CrashBox.IDC_CrashBox (int)
Localization: No localization: Window.IDDIALOG_CrashBox.IDC_CrashBox (int)
Localization: No localization: Window.IDDIALOG_CrashBox.IDC_CrashBox (int)
Exit: Exiting.
Log: Waiting for file streaming thread to finish...
Init: CPU FP precision changed from 53 to 24-bit
Uninitialized: Name subsystem shut down
Uninitialized: Log file closed, 10/06/02 14:43:32

[legacy-Line Bender]

I think i maybe tracked down the cause of the freezing/crashing! Now it's up to you to fix it :)

But first of all, my system specs, what i've tried so far, and the exact crash symptoms. Then i'll tell u what i think causes it.

Specs :

- PIV 2.53GHz 533FSB
- MOBO : DFI NB-76 with i845G chipset
- 512MB DDR 333 RAM @ 333Hz
- Geforce 3 Ti 500
- AGP 4X enabled
- WinXP Pro
- Onboard sound : Avance AC97
- Not a damn single component is overclocked

Crash symptoms :

- Random freeze (freezeframe, right before i freeze, there this noisy "chip" sound and it freezes the screen, all i can do i hard reset, there's no black or blue screen, and no sound loops, it just goes "chip" and the frame freezes.).

What i've tried to fix it (and still didn't work) :

- Detonators : 4072 & 4071
- Setting AGP aperture size to 64 & 128
- No CD patch (yeh i know but i was desperate)
- .ini tweaking, about every tweak available
- Started with -nosound
- Tried lowest settings and highest settings.

The only thing that has worked so far : Running in OpenGL, had no freezes whatsoever in OpenGL, but the shadows aren't there, and textures aren't animated (like the blue stripe sways over the tower & door textures in Phobos 2).

Now here it is : WHAT CAUSES THE CRASH :

- Using the Link gun in Direct3D mode. That's it. Plain and simple. Tried it 7 times in a row on different maps, and it allways happens when i fire off the link gun, usually in primary mode. Sometimes it crashes in the menu, but using the link gun will 100% certain freeze my comp up. Totally. Doesn't matter if i run in highest or lowest setting.

Hope that helps.

EDIT : On a side note, i've read that there where last minute changes made to the link gun, maybe you guys where a bit too hasty to change things and something went wrong? Just an idea.

[legacy-MMiller8]

Thx, tweakt, for the suggestion, but I tried editing the ini and the install still wont run. It gets the same error: 'Couldn't find temp directory'.

[legacy-[TNC]Nightshade]

I bought this magnificent game witch i been waiting for a loooooooong time but.

Ok when i played the demo and everything on max it worked fine
Now when im playeng everything on min my CPU lock´s it dosnt matter if i play single ore multiplayer so please would u help me my cpu spec is:

Amd xp 1800mhz
640 mb ram 233mhz
mother board MSI K7T 266 Pro
Soundcard: Hercules furtissimo 2
Graphics: Matroxmilenium g400
Yeas i know its old im getting a new one but still it should work


P.S i tried using diffirent res but that dint help

Thanks in advance

[legacy-Turgenev]

Ok, a fix story. First, my specs. Fix is on bottom.

Symptom: At various intervals, in both the game itself and in the menu (most specifically the weapons screen, scrolling through the various weapons [this happened in the demo too]), the system will freeze, looping on the last generated sound, and sit there until I hard reset. Haven't been able to figure out "trigger points" on the map, but based on some items posted here I'll gladly do my part to isolate.

Also, I have noted artifacts. Let's say I'm in the menu, selecting random items for the tabs. Once in a while, I'll see what looks like a shard of texture flicker on my screen. It really does look like a shard; long, thing, looking like a square pulled from opposite ends. It flickers for a fraction of a second and then is gone.

As suggested by Mark Rein, I'll use the in-game bug reporting tool, although I've yet to find that. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it greatly.

System specs:

CPU: Athlon 1.4Ghz, retail HS/F, with Arctic Silver compound (temperature: 80 deg F idle, 85 deg load). No overclocking.
RAM: Crucial PC2100 256MB DDR x 2 (total: 512MB). No overclocking.
Motherboard: SOYO Dragon Plus!. BIOS revision dated from Spring 2002, have latest BIOS downloaded but unapplied. Mainboard temperature: 90 deg F idle, 93 deg load.
Soundcard: CMedia audio from SOYO. Latest Drivers from SOYO site.
NIC: Built-in from SOYO. Latest Drivers from SOYO site.
Graphics: PNY GeForce3 Ti200 64MB. Recommended drivers from UT2K3 in release notes (30.82 I think?). No overclocking.
Case: InWin Q500 Full Tower, with reasonable airflow via 4 fans.
Power Supply: EnerMax 465 somethingorother (sorry, it's at home, I'm at work )
OS: Windows 2000, SP3, all security updates implemented. DirectX 8.1B as recommended.
Hard Disk: Maxtor 40GB 5400RPM

FIXED: Installed 40.71 drivers, and that has solved the crash issue that I was experiencing completely. However...

I DID crash one other time that seemed to be mentioned previously here. I was in Face3, and hosting a LAN game (non-dedicated, it was just two people with 2 bots), and my machine locked up. It was weird; sound wouldn't loop, but would break up as if it were paused, screen would freeze then unlock, keyboard settings (capslock, scroll, etc) could be hit, then when the system unfroze for a sec it would make the assigned changes...

I tried task managing out, no effect after five minutes of waiting for it to kick in. Again, this only happened ONCE in 2 days of running on the new drivers. I'm curious to see if there's any known issue here.

Hope this is helpful for others!

[legacy-DavidLanz]

I've played UT2003 about 2-5 mins and then hard lock happened..

1) Play for a while, and then just hard locks...(many times)
2) Sometims the screen just turn black and then must manual reboot my system

the game also report this:

***********************************
UT2003 Build UT2003_Build_[2002-09-19_17.26]

OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: GenuineIntel Unknown processor @ 2696 MHz with 511MB RAM
Video: RADEON 9700 Series (6178)

General protection fault!
***********************************

Someone (From Rage3d.com) had told me to change my AGP Setting in BIOS to AGP 4x, so I re-installed my Windows XP and installed SIS AGP Driver v1.10, now I CAN Play UT2003 about 10-30 mins (but still hard locks >_<")

I think it might be SIS 648 Chipset or ATI 9700 Driver issues or something wrong ...

here is my setting and my hardware list:

OS¡GWindows XP Profesional with SP1
Disabled write combining in (Display Props > Advanced > Troubleshooting tab)

CPU¡GIntel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.0A @ 2.0GHz @ voltage 1.625

Mainboard¡GASUS P4S8X (BIOS¡G1004-1002 beta version)

PSU¡GSevenTeam 400W plugging it into a free connector
with no other devices attached.

VGA¡GGigabyte R9700 PRO 128 MB(BIOS¡G8.003 on 2002/08/28)
@ voltage 1.6

RAM¡GKingston 512 MB 333 DDR @ voltage 2.6
H.D.¡GSeagate 80 GB x 3
Sound¡GYamaha Y744F
Monitor¡GViewSonic VG175 LCD
DirectX¡GDirectX 8.1b Installed
SIS AGP Driver¡GAGP v1.00 @ AGP 4x
ATI Driver¡G6.13.10.6178 @ 325/310 (7.77)

BIOS Setting¡GAGP Arpeture to 64 MB
Video BIOS Mode Cache - UC
Write Combine - Disabled

[legacy-Virus{xPCG}]

9700 error code in Windows XP Pro...

szAppName: Drivers.Display

szAppVer: 10024E440000021002

szModName: ati2dvag.dll

szModVer: 6.13.10.6178

Offset: B42C06EA




-----------

Anyone using XP with 6178 drivers not getting that error code after a failsafe reboot?

[legacy--|sp/\ce|-]

getting random freezes here, during gameplay and while browsing the menu's as well... system locks up competely - sound hangs + repeating, only way out is a hard reset :mad:

system specs:

AMD XP 1900+
GigaByte GA-7VRXP (KT333)
768mb DDR (PC2100)
Leadtek GF4 4400Ti
SB Live 1024
Maxtor 30gig HD
400w PSU
running WinXP Home NL
system is not overclocked - all default settings
(WinXP + all other games running very stable)

tried the following (giving NO results)

-Installed Win XP servicepack 1
-Tried NV detonators 30.xx and 40.72
-several ut2k3.ini tweaks
-lowered several ut2k3 videosettings

still have to try what openGL does, according to some previous posts here, should be running better ?!

damn, hope someone comes quick with a good solution for this problem......

[legacy-Gamerspage]

My problem continues when I removed my SB Live! and tryed software rendering.. 2/3 of my HD's were asleep, so power usage definately is not the issue (my 5V rail had a solid 4.93, 12V was 12.07)

I'm beginning to wonder if this is a bad implementation of MMX, MMX+, 3dnow! or 3dnow+..

Now to find the drivers I used to use for my voodoo (Dont believe anything on voodoofiles.com that says its dx8 - it's not. the drivers by HoE work..)

[legacy-Zanthrox]

I thought I'd mention that my system seems particularly bad running plunge single player. I can (currently) play multiplayer online all day, but that particular level makes my system very unhappy. Is there anything special about plunge? Is it trying to do fog or something when you get launched?

I used to be having the same random reboots as everyone else, but a bios upgrade, resetting to setup defaults, switching to software 3d sound, and updating to the latest video drivers have greatly improved my setup. All the detail levels are set to normal, and I'm trying to run at 800x600. (I still get reboots if I switch resolutions from inside the game..I have to edit the ini file)

When playing plunge, if I hit the jump boards I see grey crud appear on screen..if I immediately look down or at a wall or something it'll go away and I can keep playing..if I don't, the game freezes. (I still see HD access, so the system isn't totally dead..but the reset button is the only thing that brings it back)

My rig is as follows:

Athlon XP 1800+ on a Asus A7V266 w/512 megs ram
Windows XP SP1
Matrox G400 Dualhead (With older drivers I couldn't even get to the menus with dualhead enabled..) running the latest drivers (5.86.32.0)
SB Audigy
(Other misc non-gaming related hardware)

Any thoughts?

Zanthrox

[legacy-triad]

is anyone going to fix this? or ut2003 developers leaving it as it is? please i need some newsss. im going to collect my £35 back tomorow if they cant be arsed to fix it.

[legacy-ciparis]

Originally posted by chreegy
2.Now delete the Nvidia Corporation by right clicking on it and choosing Delete.

...if only it was that easy

:D

(edited slightly for humor :p forgive me, Chreegy)

[legacy-nintendo1]

Hey Epic-Team!

Could you do some sort of official statement about your status on the "Radeon 9700 SystemFreezer"?

We, or at least I, would apreciate it a lot!


Thx!

Nintendo1

[legacy-bruce_dude]

I know we've all read threads about people finding magic bullets to solve their problems, but I actually think I might be onto something. See my sig for system specs.

Here is what I've done. I had a spare hard drive laying around, so I installed taht and put a fresh Win98SE on it. I put in Det30.82 drivers, SB Audigy with latest drivers, and nothing else. UT (the original) would crash before finishing one death match - the first one with only one guy, remember that one? So, I went out and replaced my 300W power supply with a 450W monster - 30A on the 3.3V line, 40A on the 5V and 18A on the 12V. I also installed a fan in the slot just beneath my nVidia card that vents diectly out of the machine. Since I have a LianLi PC60 case, this should definitely keep things chilly in the box. I tried running again. Same crashes. Ok, probably isn't a power or cooling issue, right? Well, I cranked the AGP voltage to 1.6V and still crashed. Put it to 1.7 and I was able to finish the single player ladder in UT1. So I thought, hey, I got it. Well, not quite. I installed UT2003 and it crashes within 5 minutes playing CTF on Facing Worlds3. Well, this just proves to me that there is a combination of issues here. Unfortunately, my Asus board only allows adjusting the AGP slot to 1.7, so I can't go any higher there. I will now install the beta Detonators and see what happens. I will report my findings.

Oh, I also had to swap in my old DVD Rom drive because the new only was getting Fudged up by the copy protection. Lame, I know. Epic, just so you know, my friend downloaded it from a news group two days before I could buy this game legit here in Cali. So, do us all a favor and stop punishing those of us who actually buy your products. This lame copy protection doesn't stop those who aren't going to buy it anyway. And, as I suspected, my other friend with a standard Dell system had a crash too. DOH! It's not just us anymore...

[legacy-Bathel]

Originally posted by -|sp/\ce|-

GigaByte GA-7VRXP (KT333)


Have you check out this link. The Gigabyte 7vrxp and 7vrx have voltage problems. I had to rase the AGP and Vcore voltage to make it stable.

http://www.thetechboard.com/ga-7vrxp.htm

[legacy-sherm]

ok..........have upped the MEMORY voltage by 0.1 and the AGP voltage by 0.1 and tested for 1 hour 10 mins and for another hour and had NO lockups ........
system is ATHLON 1800XP
256 ddr 2100 ram
KT3 ultra 2 mobo with latest via drivers
geforce ti4200 128 meg agp graphics card ............with latest nvidia drivers
and running all detail at highest .....
res- 1280x1024
32 bit colour
seems to be working this time round ...
will post again after more and longer testing .(will get kids to play for hours ...lol)

[legacy-varIant]

Wow that's great that you guys are working on the video issues with the 9700 - now another question:

What are you planning to do about the consitent lag/jumpieness online that everyone (including myself) have been voicing their complaints about? I as well as others are no doubt in wonder as to why you've been disregarding our posts or neglecting to say anything for that matter. We'd like to know what your thoughts/ideas are on this issue.

[legacy-bruce_dude]

Ok, UT2003 still locked up even after the voltage change. So, I installed the nVidia Beta drivers. Now UT1 won't run anymore (in D3D or OpenGL). Also, no improvement with UT2003. So, I installed SiS AGP1.11 driver. No appreciable change.

About the possible heat issue... This card is warm, but not hot to the touch. So I doubt that's it. I could try changing some settings, but I am very confused. How could a game almost 3 years old be driving my hardware too hard? Wolfenstein doesn't cause these issues, and that is much newer - and probably pushing more polygons than UT1 does. I can even run my old voodoo5 card without any of these problems. As I see it, either I need to shove more voltage into this card (which I can't) or there is something seriously wrong with this game. Since UT and UT2003 are the only things crashing I have to imagine that the UT engine is doing something that some vid cards/chipsets/??? don't like.

Well, I'm gonna box up this game and hold onto it for another week. If I see some other good suggestions, or driver updates, or something that might indicate some progress being made, I'll try it again. I am NOT going to wipe my drive yet again. And I may not buy another Epic game again. It is an unfortunate choice, but I have a budget of 3-4 games per year, and I have to choose wisely.

Epic Team:
Please try Unreal Tournament 1 on the Radeon machine you got to crash. Let me know if you have the same results as me.

Thanks!

[legacy-Slicey]

I only just downloaded the demo and got it installed but when I hit "Play Unreal Tournament 2003 demo" I get the load up screen and then it just goes into a blank black screen, then it restarts my computer with the warning that a serious error has been fixed. I have gotten this problem one time before when I tryed to run Alias | Wavefront Maya Personal Learning Edition. The only thing I can see would be wrong is my video card. 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 with latest drivers. But if that is not my problem here is the rest of my specs:
AMD Athlon T-Bird 750 MHZ
716 SDRAM
Voodoo 5 5500 (64 MB)
etc....
( I am not overclocking anything)
Please help because this demo decides if I should buy the full game or not.

[legacy-WrathMoose]

P4 2.5 GHz
1GB Ram
GeForce Ti 4600
DirectX 8.1 (the version that ships with the game, I assume it's 8.1 and not 8.1b)

Initial Problem:
Hard lock-up anywhere from 30 seconds (with everything set to highest) to 15 minutes (with everything on normal).

Resoluton:
Changed to OpenGL, no problems. Moved everything up to Highest, no problems. Great game, sorry you (Epic) are having so many problems with hardware. Keep your chins up.

[legacy-crash822]

For users who have a Ge Force 4 ti4XXX
and use an A-Bit motherboard, i have found this works

Download the newest bios from abit-usa.com

[legacy-Shreddi]

My system runs every other game out ther perfectly. Its a 2.53 with Audigy sound and Gforce 4. Latest Drivers on everything. Runs Balltlefield 1942 and everything from Earth and Beyond to UT, Quake3 M otor City online, Wolfensteing, Medal of Honor and many more fine. ONLY UT 2003 Locks. now it is locking at the choose map page. Will there be a patch soon? any suggestions that have proven effective for sure? Thanks very much.

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by Line Bender
I think i maybe tracked down the cause of the freezing/crashing! Now it's up to you to fix it :)

But first of all, my system specs, what i've tried so far, and the exact crash symptoms. Then i'll tell u what i think causes it.

Specs :

- PIV 2.53GHz 533FSB
- MOBO : DFI NB-76 with i845G chipset
- 512MB DDR 333 RAM @ 333Hz
- Geforce 3 Ti 500
- AGP 4X enabled
- WinXP Pro
- Onboard sound : Avance AC97
- Not a damn single component is overclocked

Crash symptoms :

- Random freeze (freezeframe, right before i freeze, there this noisy "chip" sound and it freezes the screen, all i can do i hard reset, there's no black or blue screen, and no sound loops, it just goes "chip" and the frame freezes.).

....

Now here it is : WHAT CAUSES THE CRASH :

- Using the Link gun in Direct3D mode. That's it. Plain and simple. Tried it 7 times in a row on different maps, and it allways happens when i fire off the link gun, usually in primary mode. Sometimes it crashes in the menu, but using the link gun will 100% certain freeze my comp up. Totally. Doesn't matter if i run in highest or lowest setting.

Hope that helps.

EDIT : On a side note, i've read that there where last minute changes made to the link gun, maybe you guys where a bit too hasty to change things and something went wrong? Just an idea.

Don't really think so. Never had a minute's trouble with any of the weapons and have used the Link gun quite a bit--I don't run in anything except D3d--under OpenGL the renderer isn't finished and there are a lot of things that simply aren't rendered in Ogl that are in D3d.

Only problem I had at all with the game was a lockup in the intro "movie"...The game proper itself has never locked on me once. Fixed the problem with the intro movie lockup by upping my AGP voltage .1v. Never a lockup again--and play for hours each night.

[legacy-Mia-Cova]

Same prob, UT1 will not work now, hmmmmmmmmm lets see I have played it from the time that it came out untill I installed ut2003.
now it crashs all time, Ridle me this epic if it is a hardware prob like you clame, why is a game that has worked for years not working since I installed ut2003?:down: with the same error as ut2003, directx 8.1 ???? maybe. GPF

I would at the very least like to be able to paly UT1. oh but it must be my hardware right?? Thats why UT has ran perfict for years now, untill UT2003 was install.

Sorry for the tone of this post, just think ut is awesome and would like to play it, and get my 40$ worth.

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by nintendo1
Hey Epic-Team!

Could you do some sort of official statement about your status on the "Radeon 9700 SystemFreezer"?

We, or at least I, would apreciate it a lot!


Thx!

Nintendo1

No such problems here. The game proper has never locked up on me even once--nor has it booted me back to the desktop. The only problem I had was a lockup in the intro movie. I fixed that completely (tested it ten times) by upping my AGP voltage by .1v in my bios. Try it, it *might* help you (provided your bios gives you the power to regulate voltage in that manner.) Using the 7.76 Catalysts and runing in 1280x1024x32, textures maxed, detail maxed, vsync off, physics low, and averaging ~50 fps while playing 10-bot games (was playing 8-bot games and upped it.)

Good luck--lots of possible problems here--but I find nothing in the UT2 software itself to be giving me a problem. People need to check PSU's, system ram, and motherboard voltage regulation and general common sense when it comes to configuration (don't cram a $400 Radeon 9700 into a $25 KT133 motherboard, for instance--that kind of thing.)

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by Mia-Cova
Same prob, UT1 will not work now, hmmmmmmmmm lets see I have played it from the time that it came out untill I installed ut2003.
now it crashs all time, Ridle me this epic if it is a hardware prob like you clame, why is a game that has worked for years not working since I installed ut2003?:down: with the same error as ut2003, directx 8.1 ???? maybe. GPF

I would at the very least like to be able to paly UT1. oh but it must be my hardware right?? Thats why UT has ran perfict for years now, untill UT2003 was install.

Sorry for the tone of this post, just think ut is awesome and would like to play it, and get my 40$ worth.


Hmmmm....I read your post, minimized this web site and went to the desktop and just played beautifully through 3 levels of the original UT, quit the game and came back here to let you know that the installation of UT2 should have absolutely no negative impact on your current installation of UT....

UNLESS....for some reason you installed UT2 to the same folder as UT was installed in...? In that case, the installation of the second game has ruined the installation of the first game and you need to reinstall UT to it's own *separate* directory (folder.) At least, this is the only scenario under which I can imagine an install of UT2 might mess up an install of UT.

Luck....

[Daniel Vogel]

We're talking to ATI about it and I'm sure it's as high on their todo list as it is on ours :) We should have a better grasp of the situation mid- week.

I can reproduce it here on one of our Dual Athlon machines though that machine is an early AMD reference system which supposedly has a bad implementation of side band addressing. The game runs flawlessly on my Intel reference system with a Radeon 9700.

Till either ATI, your chipset vendor or we find a solution or a workaround I suggest trying the OpenGL renderer which seems to work fine for a lot of people out there.

I'll update the unreal tech page (http://unreal.epicgames.com) shortly with a link to an updated troubleshooting document.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.


Originally posted by nintendo1
Could you do some sort of official statement about your status on the "Radeon 9700 SystemFreezer"?

We, or at least I, would apreciate it a lot!

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by vogel
We're talking to ATI about it and I'm sure it's as high on their todo list as it is on ours :) We should have a better grasp of the situation mid- week.

I can reproduce it here on one of our Dual Athlon machines though that machine is an early AMD reference system which supposedly has a bad implementation of side band addressing. The game runs flawlessly on my Intel reference system with a Radeon 9700.

Till either ATI, your chipset vendor or we find a solution or a workaround I suggest trying the OpenGL renderer which seems to work fine for a lot of people out there.

I'll update the unreal tech page (http://unreal.epicgames.com) shortly with a link to an updated troubleshooting document.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

I feel fairly confident that the only way you're going to reproduce this problem is by running on a machine with skewed hardware in some fashion--I can't reproduce it--never had it, in fact. I'm delighted I've never had it (don't misunderstand)...;) Looking at a lot of these posts they run the hardware gamut from Intel to VIA to SiS (SiS seems particularly troublesome) and from the GF4 to the Radeon 9700s. I can attest to the fact that as far as I have seen the game thus far (played extensively on most maps) there seems to be nothing wrong with the software--it's perfect for me. I think that UT2 is taxing a lot of people's systems to an extent their other 3D software simply does not and in the process uncovering hardware problems that have been there all along but dormant or hidden. At any rate, it's awfully hard for me to say there's anything wrong with the software as I've yet to have a problem (except one very minor one having to do with a lockup in the opening "movie" which was fixed by a .1v hike to my AGP bus.)

The drivers I'm using--the 7.76 Catalysts--I notice enable SBA but disable FW completely. So SBA is no problem on my Athlon rig, and neither is Fast Writes as it is disabled (I would probably disable it anyway if the drivers did not.)

[legacy-Gamerspage]

SBA does seem to make some difference.. If I disable it on my voodoo the game will crash out in about 5sec after loading a map, rather than my normal 30sec-30min..

Another weird note, this DOESNT happen when I just spectate before a match begins, only when drawing characters..

I do however think this *may* have something to do with the skybox - I cannot get through plunge without the system crash in single player, and other maps have weird artifacts in the sky. :(

[Daniel Vogel]

There are some Voodoo 5 issues I'll have to look into. If possible use the OpenGL renderer which should work fine with the right set of drivers.

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.


Originally posted by Gamerspage
SBA does seem to make some difference.. If I disable it on my voodoo the game will crash out in about 5sec after loading a map, rather than my normal 30sec-30min..

Another weird note, this DOESNT happen when I just spectate before a match begins, only when drawing characters..

I do however think this *may* have something to do with the skybox - I cannot get through plunge without the system crash in single player, and other maps have weird artifacts in the sky. :(

[legacy-KDB]

This is slightly off-topic as you guys are discussing hard lockups on Radeon 9700s ATM, but does anyone else reading this thread experience constant general protection errors, rather than hard lockups/reboots? I was having lockup issues, but solved them on my AthlonXP/GF4/Audigy/WinXP rig by applying the VIA RAID performance patch. However, this has not solved the really severe problems of UT2003 crashing all the time with GPFs. I made a small compilation of the errors & UT2003.log files I am getting here (http://www.erudition.demon.co.uk/forum/), along with a copy of a post I made in another thread, which shows my methodology. Can anyone shed any light on these GPF problems I am having?

Strangely, the only game displaying these symptoms is UT2003. All my other games are fine, including Hitman 2: Silent Assasin, which I bought at the same time as UT2003. It seems to stress the GFX hardware as much as UT2003, but is absolutely 100% stable on the same machine/software setup that UT2003 constantly GPFs on. In short, I'm absolutely convinced this is a software problem. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to cause/possible fix?

Thanks,

KDB

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Vogel, Could you name those drivers? Bear in mind I'm using win XP..

Ive NEVER made a game work on XP that uses OGL without using Wicked GL so far, and Wicked GL just locks up differently than the normal MS OGL does in UT2003..

The drivers by HoE are the only ones I've found (through about 100 reboots and testing half the drivers on 3dfxfiles) that work right playing the game in d3d..

On a sidenote, I just ordered a ti4600, so hopefully this wont even matter in a few days (although I will find a home for my voodoo, and being able to play ut2k3 on it would be a nice thing)

[legacy-nintendo1]

thanks for the info vogel!

I hope you and ATi can solve the problem. I was able to play the UT2k3 Demo with my "old" GF4 MX 420. Never had any lockups or crashes. It even ran Battlefield 1942 smoothly. Then, I bought myself UT2k3 and a Hercules 3d Prophet 9700 PRO. Now I have lock ups in UT 2k3 and BF 1942. I also installed the Madden NFL 2003 Demo witch also locks up... I installed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and the Hitman 2 Demo yesterday and I had no problems at all..

So my analasys of the problem is obviously my Radeon 9700 or, witch I don't think, the UT2k3 engine.:(

I hope this helps :)

[Daniel Vogel]

Did you try memtest yet?

http://www.memtest86.com/

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.


Originally posted by KDB
This is slightly off-topic as you guys are discussing hard lockups on Radeon 9700s ATM, but does anyone else reading this thread experience constant general protection errors, rather than hard lockups/reboots? I was having lockup issues, but solved them on my AthlonXP/GF4/Audigy/WinXP rig by applying the VIA RAID performance patch. However, this has not solved the really severe problems of UT2003 crashing all the time with GPFs. I made a small compilation of the errors & UT2003.log files I am getting here (http://www.erudition.demon.co.uk/forum/), along with a copy of a post I made in another thread, which shows my methodology. Can anyone shed any light on these GPF problems I am having?

Strangely, the only game displaying these symptoms is UT2003. All my other games are fine, including Hitman 2: Silent Assasin, which I bought at the same time as UT2003. It seems to stress the GFX hardware as much as UT2003, but is absolutely 100% stable on the same machine/software setup that UT2003 constantly GPFs on. In short, I'm absolutely convinced this is a software problem. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to cause/possible fix?

Thanks,

KDB

[legacy--|sp/\ce|-]

Originally posted by Bathel
Have you check out this link. The Gigabyte 7vrxp and 7vrx have voltage problems. I had to rase the AGP and Vcore voltage to make it stable.

http://www.thetechboard.com/ga-7vrxp.htm


i've raised the Vcore voltage with +5%, and guess what :) no more crashes, i've been playing for 2 hours without lockups

thanks alot :D

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by nintendo1
So my analasys of the problem is obviously my Radeon 9700 or, witch I don't think, the UT2k3 engine.:(

I hope this helps :)

Run something that uses a 100% CPU load or perhaps run UT2k3 in a window and check your voltages. Often times this is caused by a weak PSU, which makes the 5V dip (although any of the voltages dipping would cause this)

Basically, if 5V goes below 4.75, you're probably going to have lockups..

More powerful v.card = more power.. I would recommend 400w+ for any high end system, especially athlons.

btw: Nice system, but 256mb ram?

[legacy-Haemoglobin]

Hmmm ... i wonder if i need to raise my AGP Voltage having a RADEON 9700 Pro installed.
These Boards have their own Powersupply, so is it of any use to raise AGP Voltage seperately, when these Boards don't get their Power from the AGP Slot but from their own Powersupply ???

Another Question: I have a Asus A7V133 and all i can change is the VCORE Setting, and it is anoly changeable in 0.5 Steps, not 0.1 or 0.2 as many People have posted in here, and i don't see a possibility to raise my AGP Voltage seperately - as well as i don't know if i have to raise it (see above ...)



-=Haemoglobin=-



My System
_________

AMD XP 1600 +
Asus A7V133 | KT133 Chipset | BIOS Ver.1010.01a from 09/12/2002
512 MB RAM PC133
His Excalibur Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB | Driver radeon-4-13-01-9066.exe | 7.77
Sound Blaster Live Player 1024
1x IBM HDD 60 GB
1x IBM HDD 40 GB
LG DVD-ROM DRD81608 16x/40x
Teac CDRW CD-540E 16x/40x/48
Realtek RTL8139(A/B/C/8130) PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
3,5" Standard FDD
Enermax 350W Power Supply
Logitech Optical Wheelmouse
Ultron iNet Keyboard
17" Standard Monitor | Desktop 1152x864@16Bit
DSL 768/128
Windows 98SE & Windows 2000
DirectX8.1b
Via 4in1 443

[legacy-Gamerspage]

thats .05, not .5.. Mine happens to go up in .025 steps.

AGP voltage is raised on the mobo, usually in bios.. I would love to know how a video card would have a psu of its own, if you could explain that ;)

If you cant raise AGP voltage, see if UNDERclocking the video card works, since that would basically be the same effect.

[legacy-djsparky]

Just wanted to double check that my probs are the same as everyone elses :)

So when the NVidia logo comes up when I start ut2003 it's really glitchy (flashing triangles etc), and often freezes for a while. Then when I create a profile, all seems ok, untill I try to view a chacter model..then clitchy and hangy again. Then if I start a game it's pretty much unplayable..pausing for 5 seconds at a time, glitchy gfx etc.

I tried upping my agp voltage.. at +0.1 it seemed a little better but not much..at .2, and .3 it was just as bad...

My specs

P4 - 1.9
512 ddr
Geforce4 4600ti
segate 80gig hdd
dvd, and dvdr [can't remember what they are..but they work ok :) ]
Soundblaster Audigy [as primary soundcard]
SB Live [secondary card]

Sparky

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Sparky: have you tried removing one of those sound blasters? One creative product is enough bad drivers to make things screwy, let alone 2. Another easier alternative is to disable sound in the init file.

[legacy-djsparky]

Yeah.. I meant to say in my post that I was thinking it would be one of/both of[?] the SB's that might be giving me grief... as of yet, I have not tried removing them yet though... I will give it a go tonight when I get home. Cheers

Sparky

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by Gamerspage
Run something that uses a 100% CPU load or perhaps run UT2k3 in a window and check your voltages. Often times this is caused by a weak PSU, which makes the 5V dip (although any of the voltages dipping would cause this)

Basically, if 5V goes below 4.75, you're probably going to have lockups..

More powerful v.card = more power.. I would recommend 400w+ for any high end system, especially athlons.

btw: Nice system, but 256mb ram?

he he.. thanks! well I'm gonna stock up on 512 DDR in a couple of weeks... my $$ just sorta ran out so I had to buy less ram than I wanted....:p

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by Gamerspage
thats .05, not .5.. Mine happens to go up in .025 steps.

AGP voltage is raised on the mobo, usually in bios.. I would love to know how a video card would have a psu of its own, if you could explain that ;)

If you cant raise AGP voltage, see if UNDERclocking the video card works, since that would basically be the same effect.

R9700 has some sort of special cable witch you have to plug the psu of the hdd into it.. so basically, the vidcard shares the power supply with one of your HDs...

[legacy-perforierer]

Originally posted by Incognegro
I'd steer clear from VIA chipsets if you do get another Athlon. VIA is plagued with problems and bugs thats why I ended up switching back to Intel.

My Epox Via kt 333 Mobo is the most stably system i ever had. You have to spend 10 minutes or do to adjust the bios settings, but after that its rock solid...
:up:

[legacy-partgirl]

Athlon xp1900
radeon 8500
asus motherboard
1 gig ram
sp1 update
catalyst 2.3 drivers
xp

Anyway I was looking through all the fixes and things they changed in the sp1 update and it included the directX update. I was looking through it all and it said there was a fix to do with the symptoms we are all experiencing. I thought this strange so i searched through for specifics and it said something about the HardwareTL. I set this to false in the ini file and it doesn't crash anymore!!! It used to crash between 2 secs and five mins but I played it for five hours last night and two this morning without a crash!

There are flaws in the graphics this way but at least you can play it

Please try it and let me know how if it works.

[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
DetailTextures=True
HighDetailActors=False
SuperHighDetailActors=False
UsePrecaching=True
UseTrilinear=False
AdapterNumber=-1
ReduceMouseLag=True
UseTripleBuffering=False
UseHardwareTL=false
UseHardwareVS=true
UseCubemaps=True
DesiredRefreshRate=60
UseCompressedLightmaps=True
UseStencil=False
Use16bit=False
Use16bitTextures=False
MaxPixelShaderVersion=255
UseVSync=False
LevelOfAnisotropy=1
DetailTexMipBias=0.800000
DefaultTexMipBias=-0.500000
UseNPatches=False
TesselationFactor=1.000000
CheckForOverflow=True
DecompressTextures=False
UseXBoxFSAA=false
DescFlags=0
Description=

[legacy-dustybin]

Well, your doing better than me I can't even get the game to run! I have win2k advanced server SP2 and an athlon 1400 with a asus mobo, geforce 2 MX440 and 512 ram. I'm not running any other software at all when trying (my system tray is empty). My machine is also bog standard not overclocked or anything. I'm running the 30.82 Nvidea drivers with direct x 8.1b. Both the demo and the retail game crash in exactly the same way, when you start up it switches the screen res and then gives me the error box with an error tree ending with an unsetres could not create viewport, error. I'm at a loss i've tried everything short of rebuilding the whole box. It's very frustrating as the previous game works fine, also my friend has the same setup (but a chaintech MB) and his works fine. I even went out and bought a Geforce 4 today to see if that would make a difference but it doesn't. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has had the same or a similar problem? I'll paste the exact error in here when I get home later....Simon.

--------------------------------

8/10/02 Issue resolved.................!!!

Thought I should let everyone know i've fixed the problem!_ I read the crashing FAQ which has been posted on unreal.epicgames.com_ This mentions how to change the renderer to OpenGL, and that fixed it!_ So everyone if you recieve the following error in your .log file, you know what to do...........i did think the game would perform a little better on my system though, it's very very slow....
_
Init: Input system initialized for WindowsViewport
Log: Opened viewport
Log: Enter SetRes: 640x480 Fullscreen
Init: Best-match display mode: 640x480x32@60
Log: Using back-buffer format 22(32-bit)
Log: Using depth-buffer format 77(32-bit)
Log: Creating device
Log: xD3DHelper::Init (QuadEmulation)
Init: CreateDevice failed (8007000E)
Critical: Error setting display mode: CreateDevice failed (8007000E). Please delete your UT2003.ini file.
Critical: Windows GetLastError: The operation completed successfully. (0)
Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Executing UWindowsClient::ShutdownAfterError
Critical: UD3DRenderDevice::UnSetRes
Critical: CreateDevice
Critical: UD3DRenderDevice::SetRes
Critical: UWindowsViewport::TryRenderDevice
Critical: UWindowsViewport::OpenWindow
Critical: UGameEngine::Init

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by dustybin
Well, your doing better than me I can't even get the game to run! I have win2k advanced server SP2 and an athlon 1400 with a asus mobo, geforce 2 MX440 and 512 ram. I'm not running any other software at all when trying (my system tray is empty). My machine is also bog standard not overclocked or anything. I'm running the 30.82 Nvidea drivers with direct x 8.1b. Both the demo and the retail game crash in exactly the same way, when you start up it switches the screen res and then gives me the error box with an error tree ending with an unsetres could not create viewport, error. I'm at a loss i've tried everything short of rebuilding the whole box. It's very frustrating as the previous game works fine, also my friend has the same setup (but a chaintech MB) and his works fine. I even went out and bought a Geforce 4 today to see if that would make a difference but it doesn't. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has had the same or a similar problem? I'll paste the exact error in here when I get home later....Simon.

Start the game with the UTDebugger.exe in your /System/ folder of UT2k3. Then copy paste the code it writes here... maybe vogel can help you... or create another partition and install a normal windows 2k... cuz playing on a server.. well.. no...argh.. :bulb:

[legacy-Early_bath]

What I'd like to see, once the Epic guys get their Radeon 9700 kit to work is to see if it works when they put their Geforce back in. I upgraded from Voodoo 3 3000 (16Mb) to Geforce2 MX 400 (64Mb), for obvious reasons, and went from slow and stable to less slow and crashes. Suspect it's overheating in my case but yet to try the "fan solution".

Also, has Vogel tried standing a fan next to the open case of Mark Rein's machine yet? If not why?

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by Early_bath
What I'd like to see, once the Epic guys get their Radeon 9700 kit to work is to see if it works when they put their Geforce back in. I upgraded from Voodoo 3 3000 (16Mb) to Geforce2 MX 400 (64Mb), for obvious reasons, and went from slow and stable to less slow and crashes. Suspect it's overheating in my case but yet to try the "fan solution".

Also, has Vogel tried standing a fan next to the open case of Mark Rein's machine yet? If not why?

mmmmhhh..... good idea with the fan.. gonna unscrew my casing and stick a huge fan in... :p :eek: :weird: :rolleyes: or maybe I'll integrate my pc into the fridge... then I can push the shutdown button AND get someting to eat/drink :) :cool: :p :bulb:

[legacy-Early_bath]

I was thinking of standing my machine in a bowl of water. I've heard that these water cooled motherboards can fry your brain (or something like that). Lol.;)

[legacy-mbmapit]

well guys i am another sad/mad person who can't run this game for more than half an hour. it always either freezes and sound loops making me have to manual reboot or it kicks me back to desktop with numerous error messages e.g. bug reports or driver faults. i have tried everything possible: tweaking the .ini file, tweaking the bios including the voltage, checking my ram is working, turning off sound, taking out my sondcard, turning off hardwaret&l, literally everything that has ever been posted on here and guess what???? no joy!

Please Mark Rein could you post something on here that can help, you haven't posted anything since the start of this thread and we are all eagerly awaiting a fix so that we can play what we know is a superb game. check out my rig for details.

[legacy-Line Bender]

I can run Morrowind/Mafia/Jedi Knight2 for hours on end with all the settings maxed. UT2003 sometimes freezes my comp like 10 seconds after i've started the game and i'm still in the menu. How can this be a overheating issue? How much power does the UT2003 menu require of my comp? I think this is clearly a Direct3D issue, since i can run UT2003 in OpenGL without any problems.

Please make a decent OpenGL mode, one that supports the nifty shadows and multi-layered animated textures so theres no need to fix the Direct3D. Maybe you can ask Loki to do the OpenGL patch, like he did for the original UT, he works for epic now anyways.

[legacy-myckee]

Vogel,

While I'm sure there are a few 9700 owners out there that appreciate your efforts, there are tons or 8500 users that are experiencing the same hard lock issue. Please don't forget about us in your correspondance with ATI.

Thanks :)

[legacy-bruce_dude]

Don't forget about the nVidia GeForce owners too. Could you also PLEASE test the original UT on the system that is crashing for you. When I had just UT it ran fine. When I installed UT2003, now both won't run. However, even after I GPF'd out of UT2003, I played Wolfenstein for 3 hours with no hitches (even without a reboot after UT2003 crashed). I don't think it is a heat problem. Again, if I have UT1 installed and running at 640x480 with minimal settings do you think that should make my system crash within minutes when Wolfy maxed out runs beautifully for hours?
This just doesn't make sense. I'll try the hardware T&L thing again. Maybe when Microsoft "fixed" this problem in DX8.1b they accidentally broke something else.

BTW, does anyone know of a way to increase GPU voltage beyond what the mobo bios allows? Some people have claimed a 0.3V increase solved their problems. Alas, my Asus board only support + 0.2V. :cry:

Also, do you think that UT2003 is exposing a flaw in the hardware triangle setup engine of some of these high-end cards? Also, what is the optimal setting of AGP memory aperature when I have 512MB RAM and a 128MB vid card?

[legacy-Udat]

right ive had almost every problem listed in other threads with my copy of ut 2003, initially from total system lock up crashes, gp errors, sound looping to the random freezing when playing,

I finally got UT2003 to work properly, no lock ups no glitches perfect.... played it for 6 hours srt8 last night and 4 today without a hitch

i Have the following system specs

xp1700 @ swiftech mcx462B plus mechatronics 80mm fan
512 pc2100 cas 2.5 crucial
asus a7v 266-e
samsung dvd rom
ibm 120gxp 60g
gf4 ti4400 128mDDR 3.5ns
sb live 5.1
5x80mm ystechs, 3 intake 2 xhaust (noisy but i like it)
enermax 400w psu

Windows XP Pro

heres what it took to me to get UT2003 to run as epic intended

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT


unistall UT2003, then root out any files that r left relating to it saves or config files (use windows search)

if u havent got it get WindowsXP Service Pack 1, if ure having problems obtaining it a file or 2 on kazaa might help..

Updated BIOS to asus bios version 4011

Nvidia 40.71 drivers plus coolbits addin (available from www.guru3d.com )

SBLive Driver pack from www.soundblaster.com

VIA Service Pack 440 from

http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/VIA_4IN1_V440V(a)P3.zip

i also updated my mouse and ff joystick drivers from www.logitech.com

go into your bios settings, turn ur agp aperture size up to 128 (muck around see what the best results r for ur system)

enable fast writes

turn on UCWS mode

make sure your pc is not overclocked have all settings on standard (i know i know im a die hard clocker but hey u want to play or not)

upgrade/update all drivers etc, then and ONLY then reinstall ut2003

either use the ut2003 demo .exe file or use one of the cracks listed on other threads

after doing all this it still ran with lock ups but not many or often...

i usually have my GF4 overclocked a fair bit ,, core 300 ram 650,

i set it to defaults which are 275/550, UT2003 now runs like a dream, perfect.

Also for those of u XP users who dont know that xp has about 50plus background tasks on startup that are never used, i thoroughly recommend www.blackviper.com this guy has a list of windows xp configurations, use them with care, he gives full instructions and i noticed a big gain inperformance after applying these changes

I really hope this is of some help to someone else, this game been driving me very very mad for several days.

Ive only ever found one other game which responded poorly to an overclocked system and made random lock ups, this is a game called IL2 Sturmovik, which up until now was by the THE most ram hungry CPU/GPU game I own and to be honest thats y i started mucking with the clock settings etc with ut2003.

Good luck

P.S. DEFRAG THOSE HARD DRIVES PEEPS!!!

[legacy-chreegy]

THIS GOES DIRECTLY TO MARK REIN:

one single question:
can it really be true that an Athlon XP 1800+ with an GeForce4 Ti4200(overclocked to Ti4400 Niveau) and 512MB RAM is not enough to play ut2k3 at least with everything set to "normal or high (32bit)"???????

My performance sucks!The DEMO ran much smoother.....

And especially on the map CTF-December I get freezes all the time.
whats wrong with the game????
EPIC please hurry up with the patch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND dont forget the GeForce People that are also having lockups!

best regards!

[legacy-TheIronMonkey]

Windows XP Home Edition
AMD Duron 1GHz
GeForce 2 MX 100/200
512MB RAM

I mostly have the problem of the game rebooting as soon as a level loads. Nothing what I have tried works!

Does anyone know when a patch is out?

[legacy-hogsniper]

I'm running stable with the R9700! You have got to see UT2K3 with aa/af cranked up in high rez, it Rocks! I did have problems at 1st, but had to Disable "write combining" in XP Pro. Do this by entering display properties/advanced/trouble shoot/ & uncheck the write combining box. Only problem I have now is with my Asus P4S8X mainboard. I have to run my memory @266 instead of 333. But that is a board issue & hopefully a new motherboard bios will fix that. Also I wish ATI would optimize drivers for UT2K3 soon.

good gaming,
hs

[legacy-bikeman]

The same problems.

WindowsXP Prof.
Athlon XP 1800+
MB MSI KT3 Ultra 2 with VIA KT333 Chipset
GeForce 4 TI 4600 V8460
SB-Live 1024
512 MB DDR-RAM:cry:


In other games too.

Demo of Iron Storm

[legacy-JessEclipseGS]

UT2003 does not work for me. I bought it, installed it and tried to play it but it crashed to the desktop immediately with no error message. I downloaded the No-CD crack as instructed, and that helped temporarily. I got about one hour of gameplay in. I quit the game fine, but about a half hour later my computer locked up for no reason. I rebooted, and tried to start the game again, and it locked. I rebooted again, tried to start Internet explorer to post on this forum, and it locked. I made and attempt to reboot, I got the windows options menu. I tried to boot in Safe Mode, and no that didn't work either. I couldn't get to windows. I was getting an error saying that himem.sys was missing. I rebooted again, it went into Windows Registry Checker, errored out of that saying that my registry was gone. Now I have no choice but to reformat the hard drive. I didn't even get a chance to try any of the other methods before my computer died. So now I get to lose all the info on my computer because I wanted to play some game. Amazing how UT2003, could advance so quickly in destroying my system. BTW-here are the specs:

Intel 800 Mhz Celeron
ATI Radeon 7000 Video (PCI)
AC97 Sound
Asus MB
2 20Gb HDD's
256 Mb Ram

Any ideas as to why/how my computer went from a perfectly good machine, to a pile of silicon? Also does anyone know how to recover from a error such as the "registry file is missing"?

[legacy-storm69]

i'm getting totaly fed up now, i've had this game since day of release and have not even managed to setup the damn thing up because i keep getting kicked back to the dektop. i have tried numerous attempts at the possible solutions but nothing works.
here's my rig.

Athlon xp 1800+
VIA Apollo KT266a Chipset
256DDR
Radeon 9000 Atlantis 128 DDR (Drivers fron UT2003 Installed)
Soundblaster Live 1024
40Gig Westerdigital HD
12x40spd DVD/CD
SP1 Pack.

Mark Rein once said thats UT2003 would not hit the shelves until all the bugs had been fixed, seems like he missed 1 BIG bug out.
and so we have yet another product on our shelves that is not fully functional and somehow got passed the bug fixing tests?????.

[legacy-Slice1Ti]

see next post

[legacy-Slice1Ti]

Does anyone knows what this means ?

UT2003 Build UT2003_Build_[2002-09-19_17.26]

OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: AuthenticAMD PentiumPro-class processor @ 1606 MHz with 511MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 (4072)

General protection fault!

History: ProcessNode <- ProcessNode <- RenderLevel <- FLevelSceneNode::Render <- FPlayerSceneNode::Render <- UGameEngine::Draw <- UWindowsViewport::Repaint <- UWindowsClient::Tick <- ClientTick <- UGameEngine::Tick <- UpdateWorld <- MainLoop


after 30 or 60 mins of playing i get this error
what does it mean? it's the only problem i have left, before i had strong hang-ups or reboots... but only this one remains...

no overclocking
AMD 1900+
Abit Kr7A-Raid 133
Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm
512 Mb DDR 266 Samsung
Creative Geforce 4 Ti 4400 (40.72b)
Creative Live 5.1 (latest driver)
Sony CD-rw 10x4x32
LG DVD 40x
good cooling (in game, case 32°C , CPU 41°)

WIN XP PRO
Latest Via 4in1 Driver

changed the ut2003.ini cache from 32 to 64 (helped)
no shadows = no difference
did the memory test, no errors...

its a high-end system 3dMarks= 11K.....
that's the only hang-up i have... really weird... do you Epic guy's have a solution? The game is the best, no doubt about that, just...

thanks ahead

[legacy-EdibleAutopsy]

OPENED MY CASE............STOOD MASSIVE DESK FAN NEXT TO IT BLOWING LOTS OF COOL AIR INTO THE CASE

Not one single lock up after 5+ hours continous play, whereas before it would crash after 5 mins (less if the computer had been on a while)

So ive ordered myself 2 case fans and an exaust blower :)

MY CONCLUSION........This bloody game pushes cards to the absolute max.........

LOTS OF COOLING NEEDED

300 WATT PSU
1.9 GHZ P4
768 MB PC133 RAM
geforce 4 ti 4600
soundblaster audigy player
40 GIG 7200 RPM HD
GIGABYTE COSMOS MOBO


;)

[legacy-KDB]

Originally posted by vogel
Did you try memtest yet?

http://www.memtest86.com/

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

Thanks for the reply, Daniel. Yes, I have previously run memtest when I saw it mentioned in another thread. My two generic Samsing-chipped 512Mb PC2700 CAS2.5 DIMMS checked out fine. Do you think the gpf's may be memory-related? If so, would I benefit from a little extra RAM voltage?

On a related note, would other recent resource-hungry games such as Hitman2 show up any shortcomings in the memory of my system? That game runs fine for me, although is supposedly also problematical to get working?

Thanks,

KDB

[legacy-B1ackD0g]

EdibleAutopsy, I have the same experience. My lockups were very severe. I couldn't get to a place where I could fire a shot. Once I updated all my drivers, from the bios on up, I still had a problem. I finally opened the case and pointed a regular fan at the motherboard, VOILA! everything's working like a champ. Not only UT2003, but other games that I occasionally had problems with.

This game will point out any problems you have. Old drivers or bad cooling. I've learned that if you want to run a top of the line game on your machine, you should have a machine that's up to the task and configured correctly.

Now that it's running, I have to say. WOW! This game is great!

[legacy-chreegy]

this thing's so weird!!!!! freezes came back....just like they were following me!
so I totally formatted my machine and made a fresh WinXP Pro install! without SP1!!! and used again the 40.72 drivers....
I used the VIA 4.42v drivers. AND i unchecked this "write combining" under the troubleshooting tab.

And wow Now it runs fine in all resolutions and settings IN ALL LEVELS......this thing is so strange.......for some people here raising up currency helps......for the next new drivers.......then special options in the driver menus do the job......or even massive cooling efforts.......but what is the real reason for these errors???before most of us hadn't have any probs! but then UT2003 appeard....LOL

I'm gettin' very interested in what exactly the reasons are.......we will see...

[legacy-chreegy]

I had the freezes(lock ups) regularly and I didnt install any EXTRA cooling but I have solved the problem too....so i think that is something more complex.....who knows who's right....so fu***** what....

[legacy-Mikeyyy7676]

UT2003 Build UT2003_Build_[2002-09-19_17.26]

OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: AuthenticAMD PentiumPro-class processor @ 1800 MHz with 767MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (3082)

Assertion failed: Actor->ColLocation == Actor->ColLocation [File:UnOctree.cpp] [Line: 1614]

History: FCollisionOctree::RemoveActor <- ULevel::DestroyActor <- (FlakChunk DM-Antalus.FlakChunk) <- UObject::ProcessEvent <- (FlakChunk DM-Antalus.FlakChunk, Function Engine.Actor.FellOutOfWorld) <- AActor::physFalling <- AActor::performPhysics <- AActor::Tick <- TickAllActors <- ULevel::Tick <- (NetMode=0) <- TickLevel <- UGameEngine::Tick <- UpdateWorld <- MainLoop




Above is my citical error message. Any ideas?

[legacy-Line Bender]

Maybe this'll help :

HOW I FIXED MY CRASH/FREEZE PROBLEM :

Now this is important, since it's never been mentioned before, all i did to fix my crash/freeze problem, is setting my memory from 333Hz to 266Hz in the bios under "advanced chipset features".
I've been running UT2003 for several hours with no lockups whatsoever. I ran Face3, BR-Slaughterhouse, Phobos2, Inferno for quite lengthy times with almost all the settings maxed and no problems whatsoever, aside from the usual hickup now and then at the start of maps.

So all of you who are running your memory at 333Hz (especially you SiS648/i845G MOBO owners) should give this a try.

Pro's : No more lock-ups

Con's : Severe performance hit. The difference between running your memory at 333Hz and 266Hz is rather un-neglectable. I took a 3Dmark 2001 SE test and i've noticed a score drop from 9600 to 9400 benchmarks. Sure that's still a great score, but hey, FPS is life, right? And i paid for a system that can run DDR333Hz, so goddammit i will run it at that frequency!

Also, what i don't get is, why does UT2003 run well with 333Hz in OpenGL? And why don't i have any problems running other games in 333Hz mode?

The only thing that can cause this problem is Direct3D. So please, get cracking on either a decent OpenGL renderer, or fix the Direct3D renderer. Thanks a lot in advance!

Hope this helps anyone!

[legacy-Javage]

I think it was heat on my system just as Daniel said. Took the side panels off the case and I have no more lockups.

xp1900+ w/ one of those swiftech copper base aluminum pin heatsinks (don't know model number)
Soltek sl-drv4
Radeon 8500dv
SB Live 5.1 platinum
2 harddrives and 2 cd/dvd drives
Lian-Li aluminum case with 3 case fans

It's a real mess in the mid-tower case. I'll organize the cables sometime and see if I can run the game with the case on.

[legacy-mbmapit]

ok guys no one will like me for this and i'm sure some peeps will not believe me but here is how i got ut2003 to work on my rig today at 3pm: i went to a store called homebase (i'm in the uk by the way) and paid £11.99 for a normal desk top fan (40cm fan to be exact). i took off the side of my lian li case and positioned the fan as close to the interior as i could and put it on full. it makes one h3ll of a noise but anyway. i loaded up the game and i was able to play it for 5 hours solid, which gave me time to complete the single player mode. i then thought i'd test to see if it really could handle the stress and played a bot match in slaughter house with max number of bots and it played keeping a solid 70+ fps (even in intense situations). after that i played the tokaraforest level same settings etc and it crashed after ten minutes. i switched off my system let it cool and then attempted the same and it worked. so if you want a quick fix for the problems you are having my advice is get a house hold fan and cool your system. my system temp before i had the fan was 38 degrees centigrade it is now 29-30 and the game works perfectly. this is a great fix until mark rein etc pull their fingers out and come up with a long term fix. now if you'll all excuse me i'm off for some intense online action. hope it all works out for you.

[legacy-jewd]

Well, I found out I had a bad stick of RAM in my comp. So, that cleared up some of the crashes I've been experiencing. UT2k3 runs fine under opengl now! However, none of my directx games run anymore. I still think that DX8.1 might be a problem, but that is certainly not Epic's fault. I'm not quite sure what do do about those other games, 'cept maybe reformat for the 5th time and re-install windows now that the bad stick of RAM is out of my box. Not sure, any advice would be appreciated.

-jewd

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by Line Bender
Maybe this'll help :

HOW I FIXED MY CRASH/FREEZE PROBLEM :

Now this is important, since it's never been mentioned before, all i did to fix my crash/freeze problem, is setting my memory from 333Hz to 266Hz in the bios under "advanced chipset features".
I've been running UT2003 for several hours with no lockups whatsoever. I ran Face3, BR-Slaughterhouse, Phobos2, Inferno for quite lengthy times with almost all the settings maxed and no problems whatsoever, aside from the usual hickup now and then at the start of maps.


...And this means: 1. You have bad ram or, 2. You need a larger PSU.

[legacy-Line Bender]

My PSU is 340W, is that too low?

And how would it be bad ram if it runs any other game out there just fine @ 333?

[legacy-setsuna]

Ok, I may have a solution but I will try it out further tonight. Owners of the ASUS P4S8X motherboards should upgrade to version 1004, just released today. Online, there is also a floating version of the SIS 1.12 AGP drivers but they are not certified, so use them at your own risk. If you want to take a chance, set your AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6, though this allowed me to play the game longer, it ultimately froze in the end. (even after 2 hours, my cpu and systen run below 35C so there is no overheating). By the way win2k, win2ksp1, 2, or 3, winxp, and winxpsp1 all end with the same results.

There is some sort of OPENGL issue, because Warcraft III won't run unless your set the application path to include the -opengl string, very odd. I've spent 48 hours fighting with my system testing every game I own and here are the results.

Your pretty much $crewed if you run:
1. Neverwinter Nights (choppy frames, even with reforce turned on), no grass animation, and no shiny water). BIOWARE is aware of the issue.
2. Warcraft III, freezes upon starting a game.
3. Morrowind III, freezes 5 minutes into the game, much like UT2003, common issue, more than likely.
4. And of course UT2003 lock ups.

On the other hand, MOH, and RTCW work fine. 3dmark2001se worked for two hours straight (loop).

Conclusion, well the ATI RADEON is new, using new technology and so is the SIS648 chipset. ATI knows of the issues and is replacing cards to owners whose systems won't post. There is some weird bug with the SIS648 agp drivers and ATI's catalyst drivers. People can fiddle with their BIOS but there really isn't a magical config, it's sort of hit or miss. I've decided to sit tight and wait til there is a new driver update and new agp drivers. The card isn't broken nor are the mainboards, just incompatibilities that come with having something new.

[legacy-bruce_dude]

setsuna,
Thanks for the update. I have a P4S8X as well and I have the 1004.002 beta bios driver. I will try the non-beta version. Also, where can I find that AGP driver update? It's worth a shot. I have a Ti4600 so my problems may not be directly related, but I will try the same things and report back. I wish Asus/SiS wouldn't release mobo's without testing them with vid cards that they themselves manufacture!

BTW, do you have Write Combining turned on? I have my AGP set to 1.7V, so far no frying, but it hasn't helped all that much either. Please, keep posting if you find something new...

bruce_dude

[legacy-setsuna]

Those of you concerned that you may have a bad stick RAM, don't do anything until you download memtest86 at http://www.memtest86.com. The program is free and boots off a floppy this will tell you whether or not your ram has errors in it. Test one stick at a time first then test it with all your ram. My system ran a couple of hours and I still did not come up with one single error.

My rig for those interested (if you got your system to work with the same rig please let me know how?)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASUS P4S8X BIOS 1004
1024 SAMSUNG DDR333 RAM
2.53 P4
ATI RADEON 9700 with latest Catalyst Drivers
40 GIG ATA 133 and RAID 0 with two 20gig drives (RAID is currently disabled for testing purposes)
Sound Blaster Live Platinum (card removed as well for testing)
Sony 52X
And that's all.

[legacy-setsuna]

If you have the beta 1004 driver, try the new BIOS update. THis is not the beta. Regarding my settings in BIOS:

AGP Aperture set to 256 (with 1024 mb of RAM this is not an issue)

AUTO for AGP voltage, I hate messing with this. I tried all three settings and weird stuff happened.

USWC for caching. I tried UC and had the same issues. Apparently if your MOBO boots with USWC turned on, then there is no problem. If it doesn't go back to UC. Same results though either way.

FASTWRITE enabled

Everything else though is defaulted. I did disable onboard sound and the onboard floppy controller and disabled my serial ports. I've been reading newsgroups galore and everyone has a different setting and I've tried them ALL! No luck so I set everything to optimal figuring that the system should support it and with 7 fans in the darn case, there is definitely not a cooling issue.

The AGP 1.12 drivers are currently unvailable. Here is the URL I found but I keep getting a unauthorized error. http://www.savagenews.com/?show=2449. Again, use them at your own risk, they are unofficial and I haven't tried them myself. But ATI tech support says that it has solved some issues.

[legacy-tweakt]

Here's an interesting bit:

The Plunge level always crashes when playing in the tournament. But I can play it in Instant Action just fine. I've tried a ton of the changes mentioned here to no avail.

The crash starts with some gray pixelated walls forming in my line of sight, then the whole system halts.

Sucks quite a bit as I can't advance up the ladder, but at least I can play individual levels all I want. I played for about 30 minutes without any problems, so I doubt its a heat/power problem.

[legacy-setsuna]

That sucks, I tried the new BIOS for the ASUS P4S8X and the game froze yet again.

Problem areas - When you play single player mode and create a new character, the intro movie starts. It used to freeze halfway through the movie but that works now.

Now, this is were the fun starts. The first level runs beautifully at 1024 X 768 and 1280 X 1024 No issues what so ever. But when the second level loads it freezes at the loading screen.

When the system booted back up I get the same error everyone is complaining about that an error occured and that the ATI drivers were the cause.

It's back to the drawing boards for me.

By the way, my AGP is set to 8X and my 3d marks are 13800.

[legacy-chris23]

First off, thanks to everyone for their suggestions. If only the Epic engineers would be as helpful (1 post?!)...

That being said, it is absolutely ridiculous that people should need to hassle with hardware, purchase extra fans, adjust BIOS settings - My God, some people have even reformatted their HD's and reinstalled the OS! I paid $50 dollars for a game that WILL NOT RUN MORE THAN 5 MINUTES! I work in software, I GET PAID to make sure apps work - If Epic wants to SEND ME $50, I'll be happy to open my machine, reformat the HD, reinstal Win, etc etc.

I'd like to believe that this is a problem with the Radeon 9700, but Q3 runs flawlessly. As do my other games. Even if it were a prob with ATI, Epic should have figured this out before shipping. I've seen a few hundred posts now from people who have the same exact problem. UNACCEPTABLE! Software manufacturers need to be held to a higher standard than this. If you really want to be test monkeys for Epic, go for it, but it seems to only encourage this behavior.

I for one will not be playing UT2003 until a solid patch is available, and I'll think twice before buying another game from Epic.

[legacy-SonX|ta]

Hi Guys, i had lock up problem too, but not anymore. I solved my problem, just istalled Windows2000 AMD fix registry and game works! No corrupted graphics in on-line browser and lock ups anymore! thanks Epic for great game!

[legacy-setsuna]

I have to agree with Chris, however, we wanted the game now so i guess we get what we ask for. Anyways, for those who wanted the link to the SIS AGP1.12 drivers here it is http://zebra.tky.hut.fi/%7Ejanne/ajurit/SiS%20AGP%201.12.zip. If this doesn't work the web page is http://www.detonators.net/.

AGAIN USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! Neither I or the people who own the site are responsible if your system crashes. I am going to try it now and will post with results asap. By the way, Chris is right about all games running the quake egine, no problems whatsoever. RTCW looks awesome especially with TRUEFORM set to BEST!

[legacy-setsuna]

The link to the actual file doesn't work. The genius they have as a webmaster inserted spaces in between the words so I got %20 between the url. However the web page does have the link on it. Just scroll halfway down the page and you'll find it.

[legacy-setsuna]

OK, ATI can ram it up their you know what. I tried the new SIS 648 drivers for the AGP (version 1.12) and the game went through 3 rounds and on the fourth halfway through it froze. Wahoo! I'm calling tommorrow to give them hell. Another 4 hours wasted.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

I seriously doubt this is the fault of ATi.. People are having this problem on via/sis/etc, intel/amd with a lot of vid cards..

The majority of these people have no problem in other games, although some of them do need to get larger PSU's, improve cooling, etc most likely.

Let's be honest, it's the GAME. Dont blame ATi, BLAME EPIC. Everyone knows damn well that game should have been thoroughly tested on ATi cards, and, if a problem persisted a workaround should have been developed.. Welcome to the reality of programming.. If something is screwy, find a way to make it work.

Just my .02

[legacy-setsuna]

Ok, ok, it's not ATI's fault. I just said that because their smart @$$ tech support technician swore up and down that applying these patches would fix the problem. Your right, it's not ATI's issue, in fact the motherboards manufacturers changed the specs for the agp 8x slot last minute hence all the recent bios revisions. 2 in less than a month, problem don't you think.

I don't blame Epic either because everyone has deadlines and the game was released one month after the Radeon 9700. By the way, check out Tomshardware, sorry fellas with the VIA chipsets, those are a nightmare to begin with. SIS isn't much better. Who would have guessed that there would be so many issues, especially since there was such a demand for the game and the card.

Here's what I found out and I am sorry if it seems like I am dominating this BB. I just feel that I've spent enough hours on this that I would hate others to needlessly waste their life away trying to figure out the problem.

Anyways, the new bios AND the new agp drivers worked like a charm solving warcraft III. It works now, wahoo, and it's smooooth! UT still crashes, my guess is that Epic is working on it. Morrowind, I assume will still crash but I will test it tommorrow. Later!

[legacy-tweakt]

My system is crashing with my Matrox G400, and the NVidia people are having crashes too, so its not limited to ATI.

Its still a good game, seems to be more reliable than lots of other games I've tried. I just hope Epic does something quick.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Who gives a damn about 8x, you wont notice any difference from it and 2x most likely anyways.. It just sounds good, pure marketing - Just like ATA133..

[legacy-jevex]

The solution, as I came to it for the NVidia problems, is posted in the main area. The short version is that this is not a UT2k3 problem, but a problem with the NVidia graphics drivers. Downgrade to version 2311 of the drivers and OpenGL and D3D games will work fine, including UT2k3. The drivers can be gotten at ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/23.11/

[legacy-Gamerspage]

That leads me to believe that the game is utilizing a feature which was avaliable in [nvidia] drivers after that version that causes issues on several video cards...

[legacy-velvetpoet]

Heres a solution for sis 648 boards, if your run smartgart (download rage3d install and go into the tweak utilities) and turn off your agp write and read and have agp 1.12 drivers installed d3d games should stop crashing. There seems to be some kind of conflict with the agp read and write. It will lower your performance slightly but it will stop the crashing. Hopefully motherboard bios updates or future drivers will be able to make the agp read and write stable. If youve tried everything else try turning off your agp read and write. Ive been spreading the word around and it seems to be working.

After you turn them off if you run dxdiag you will notice agp texture exceleration is disabled this might be something that direct x uses and opengl doesnt explaining why opengl doenst crash. Dont disable the agp texture exceleration manually it will give you garbled graphics in game just turn of agp read and write through smartgart

[legacy-glock21]

Originally posted by jevex
The solution, as I came to it for the NVidia problems, is posted in the main area. The short version is that this is not a UT2k3 problem, but a problem with the NVidia graphics drivers. Downgrade to version 2311 of the drivers and OpenGL and D3D games will work fine, including UT2k3. The drivers can be gotten at ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/23.11/

Sweet!

Thank you jevex!!

I can confirm your fix on a Geforce3.

I have been trying everything under the sun listed on this forum since Friday night. Downgrading to 23.11 did it. I will note that I used detonatordestroyer from guru3d.com to make sure the old Nvidia drivers were flushed from the system before installing.

System Specs:

Abit KT7A-RAID Rev 1.3
AMD Athlon 1600+
512MB
MSI-StarForce Geforce3 with 64MB DDR
Soundblaster Live 5.1
Win98SE



:cool:

[legacy-setsuna]

Still a no go. Tried it and the game froze upon loading a level. It doesn't freeze anymore during gameply which is great! It did that like crazy before. I went back to having a normal set up and installed the 1.11 drivers and the new ASUS mobo update solved 90% of the problems. Earlier people mentioned an issue with the security on the CD. Since the freezing is occuring upon loading a level, maybe that's it. However, when the system rebooted I yet again got the ATI error.

[Mark Rein]

It seems a lot of the lockup problems (not all), that don't appear to be some sort of over heating or voltage problems, are occuring around AMD processors. I'm going to talk with AMD tomorrow and see what they can do to help us with trouble shooting the various chip sets that use AMD processors.

I'll also talk with Nvidia and see what they can do to help. Both companies should have labs in which they have all kinds of different motherboard/bios/chipsets/cpu/OS/graphics cards combinations on which they can troubleshoot.

BTW I took a different system home to do more testing. AMD send an Athlon 2800+ with an Nvidia Nforce2 motherboard and an ATI 9700 in it and so far it has been 100% rock solid. Nice machine, BTW :)

Another revelation: A friend of mine who reported the same lockup problems with UT2003 had originally said that the problems only occured with UT2003. But he now is saying that he found that if he played Battlefiend 1942 for an extended period the same lock-up problem appears.

If other games are doing this too then that's going to help our cause with the CPU/motherboard/graphics vendors to find workarounds. It is inevitable that as time marches ion then you folks (and me on my Dual Athlon) having these lock-up problems are going to find more and more games that won't run on your systems.

So, while this is as frustrating to you as it is to us, please be patient while we try to find workarounds and solutions that will pay off for you now and in the future.

BTW, check out this link:
http://community.sierra.com/WebX?230@239.QFj3bC1GduL.1@.ef9a812

This guy ran UT2003 for 12 hours straight but NOLF2 crashes his system. I really think it was just dumb luck that he had 12 hours straight of UT2003 because this looks like the same random kind of lock up we're seeing reported here.

[legacy-Slicey]

Originally posted by tweakt
Here's an interesting bit:

The Plunge level always crashes when playing in the tournament. But I can play it in Instant Action just fine. I've tried a ton of the changes mentioned here to no avail.
This is the one and only problem I am having at the moment and I am just a tad over the minimum requirments w/ a 750 mhz cpu. I don't have any glitching at all and no lockups except here, I get into the plunge level and within 5 seconds I am frozen.

[legacy-Virus{xPCG}]

As shown in my sig, my new pc is up an running, bar being unable to install drivers for my soundcard :(

On positive news, Ive just had a quick session in Antalus against 5 bots on 1024x768 with mostly 'highest' settings (physics on high) with an average framerate of 45 (with mouselag reduction active) from the initial CD drivers for my 9700 :D

Its made a huge difference going to 512MB of XMS3000 at most aggressive timings from 256MB of generic SDRAM. Using Cacheman, Ive increased my disk cache to 64MB and upped read-ahead for both my CD drive and HDD and my fixed swapfile has yet to hold any data :)

In terms of tweaking UT2003, I enabled tripple buffering in D3D (which gave lockups on older system) and turned cachesizemegs upto 64.

If it wasnt for the sound problem, I'd be a very happy shopper... As it is, Im mildly content with my upgrade ;)

[legacy-gravioli]

I just wanted to post my system specs because I am having no lockups whatsoever. Actually, I did have one lockup, but it was before the game loaded when the CD check is done (i.e. when your mouse pointer turns into a spinning CD icon). My CD drive just stopped working, but I think this is a known problem with the multi-beam TrueX Kenwood CD-ROMs. Anyway, here is my specs.

Windows XP Home SP1
P4 1.6A Nortwood @ 2.13GHz
ECS P4S5A w/ latest BIOS (SiS 645 chipset base MB)
512MB DDR333
Radeon 9700 Pro (6178 drivers)
Philips Acoustic Edge (1.89 drivers)
40GB & 60GB Western Digital drives
HP dvd200i DVD+RW
Kenwood 52x CD-ROM
330W Antec Truepower PSU

I was certain that I would have lockups considering my MB is basically one of the cheapest P4 MB you can buy, however things work great.

BTW, I have all details cranked running at 1024x768 with 2xAA and 8x Aniso.

[legacy-Prizm]

Originally posted by setsuna
Ok, I may have a solution but I will try it out further tonight. Owners of the ASUS P4S8X motherboards should upgrade to version 1004, just released today. Online, there is also a floating version of the SIS 1.12 AGP drivers but they are not certified, so use them at your own risk. If you want to take a chance, set your AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6, though this allowed me to play the game longer, it ultimately froze in the end. (even after 2 hours, my cpu and systen run below 35C so there is no overheating). By the way win2k, win2ksp1, 2, or 3, winxp, and winxpsp1 all end with the same results.

There is some sort of OPENGL issue, because Warcraft III won't run unless your set the application path to include the -opengl string, very odd. I've spent 48 hours fighting with my system testing every game I own and here are the results.

Your pretty much $crewed if you run:
1. Neverwinter Nights (choppy frames, even with reforce turned on), no grass animation, and no shiny water). BIOWARE is aware of the issue.
2. Warcraft III, freezes upon starting a game.
3. Morrowind III, freezes 5 minutes into the game, much like UT2003, common issue, more than likely.
4. And of course UT2003 lock ups.

On the other hand, MOH, and RTCW work fine. 3dmark2001se worked for two hours straight (loop).

Conclusion, well the ATI RADEON is new, using new technology and so is the SIS648 chipset. ATI knows of the issues and is replacing cards to owners whose systems won't post. There is some weird bug with the SIS648 agp drivers and ATI's catalyst drivers. People can fiddle with their BIOS but there really isn't a magical config, it's sort of hit or miss. I've decided to sit tight and wait til there is a new driver update and new agp drivers. The card isn't broken nor are the mainboards, just incompatibilities that come with having something new.

Seems like we have the have the same problem with the games that you mentioned. The only difference is the mobo, I'm using P4PB 400 by VIA. Right now, the only temporary solution is open the side of the case, place a fan in front of the video card, and it worked. However, after 45 minutes to an hour pf playing UT2003, my PC reboots by itself. I think the problem lies on the excessive heat generated by R9700 card and the unpolished drivers released by ATI. And notice also that the mobo BIOS detects it as AGP8X, but when you check the display properties, the AGP bus setting is just AGP 2X..

And the other probable lock up reason maybe is the copy protection scheme in the CD, it's my first lock up/system hang during the installation.

Just my 2 cents..

[legacy-Gamerspage]

you mean to tell me 34C under 100% load was overheating?

[legacy-Prizm]

Originally posted by Gamerspage
you mean to tell me 34C under 100% load was overheating?

Is that a response to which question?

CPU shouldn't be overheating if you have a good heatsink/fan, I never have problem with my CPU overheating.

[legacy-Junpei!]

Log: 34611.0ms Unloading: Package UWeb
Log: 34611.0ms Unloading: Package Crosshairs
Log: 34611.0ms Unloading: Package MenuEffects
Log: 34611.1ms Unloading: Package SinglePlayerThumbs
Log: Unbound to ALAudio.dll
Exit: OpenAL Audio subsystem shut down.
Log: 34738.8ms Unloading: Package HumanoidArchitecture
Log: 34738.9ms Unloading: Package AlleriaTerrain
Log: 34740.7ms Unloading: Package PlayerPictures
Log: 34747.6ms Unloading: Package MapThumbnails
Log: (Karma): Terminating Karma for Level.
Log: 34763.2ms Unloading: Package HumanFemaleA
Log: 34763.3ms Unloading: Package BarrensArchitecture
Log: 34763.4ms Unloading: Package CheckerFX
Log: 34764.0ms Unloading: Package HumanMaleA
Log: 34764.8ms Unloading: Package BarrensArchitecture-epic
Log: 34764.9ms Unloading: Package gooseFX
Log: 34765.0ms Unloading: Package BarrensTerrain
Log: 34765.1ms Unloading: Package DM-Serpentine
Log: 34765.9ms Unloading: Package BarrenHardware-epic
Log: 34766.0ms Unloading: Package BarrenHardware
Log: 34766.1ms Unloading: Package BarrensHardwareBrush
Log: 34766.2ms Unloading: Package Egypt_techmeshes_Epic
Log: 34766.2ms Unloading: Package AnubisStatic
Log: 34766.3ms Unloading: Package AnubisTextures
Log: 34766.4ms Unloading: Package DavesTextures
Log: Garbage: objects: 26328->0; refs: 336934
Exit: Object subsystem successfully closed.
Exit: Exiting.
Log: Waiting for file streaming thread to finish...
Init: CPU FP precision changed from 53 to 24-bit
Uninitialized: Name subsystem shut down
Uninitialized: Memory Allocation Status
Uninitialized: Curr Memory 0.605M / 5.828M
Uninitialized: Peak Memory 133.238M / 135.324M
Uninitialized: Allocs 6173 Current / 2078989 Total
Uninitialized: Log file closed, 10/07/02 22:20:39

That is part of my crash log.... I dont think crap should be unloading and Karma should be shutting down ( though I dont know I am not a tech guy) Plz someone from epic or tell me what to do. Or just say it is a problem with the game and fix it, I am willing to do anything I can and have tried almost all suggestions in this thread.

[legacy-CyberM@CS]

Hi you Guys...

..have the same Lock-Up Problems as you too, after I installed the UT...I tried out serveral "Solutiones" mentioned in that board here, but it doesn´t work...

...and you EPIC-Guys: After I installed the Game, even my good old Counter-Strike is not working any more, same Lock-Up-Problems, even if I am playing that game every day since 2 years for about 3-5 hours...I really have to laugh cause especially that old game don´t need any of my resources really when you look at my PC-Configuration in my sig...I could play Battlefield, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and many other games on my PC too, but since I installed the UT2003 I am not able to play any of these games...not even when I deinstall the game...

So don´t give people the feeling, that it is to blame on the hardware...really...I am configurating PC´s for other people since years, have my own TechSupport Forum etc., and I know that it is the Game who is too blame...you won´t tell me, that just people who have technical knowledge should be able to play the game or ? When I read, what people are doing here, to get the game to work (mostly without any success) then I have to say that this is a very sad thing and you EPIC-Guys are also instructing the people to do that even if you know, that it is really a problem of the game...did you ever think about the "normal" people who are just happy when they are able to turn their computer on ?? what about these people who don´t have technical knowledge ? Are these persons not allowed to play that game because they don´t know how to help themselves ? It is YOUR thing to get this game to work and bring a Patch out...sorry to say that.

The Game makes problems on every kind of configuration, doesn´t matter if it is an AMD/Intel CPU, or an VIA, Intel, SIS CHipset...or an ATI/Geforce or whatever card...IT DOESN´T MATTER ! The people aren´t getting this game to work, even if they have a totally fresh installed system...yeah it is the hardware...*laugh* !

Sorry but I am getting really pi**ed because it seems as nothing is really happening by EPIC, now they are talking to NVIDIA/ATI/AMD etc...even if it is just their game, that makes problems...why aren´t other new games making these problems ?

SO DO SOMETHING ! AND PLEASE A LITTLE BIT FASTER !

Greetz,
CyberM@CS from Germany

[legacy-REL!c2K]

Reinstalled Mandrake 9, SRC NVidia drivers, disabled
automounts, manually reinstalled UT 2003 CDs by;
(as ROOT)

$mount -t iso9660 /dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom
$export SETUP_CDROM=/mnt/cdrom
$Installation would prompt for the next CD
$umount /mnt/cdrom

Repeated this process for all 3 CDs, until the game installed
correctly. Reenabled automount. Client runs 5x5 now :)

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by Prizm
Is that a response to which question?

CPU shouldn't be overheating if you have a good heatsink/fan, I never have problem with my CPU overheating.

no, was a response to
"It seems a lot of the lockup problems (not all), that don't appear to be some sort of over heating or voltage problems, are occuring around AMD processors. I'm going to talk with AMD tomorrow and see what they can do to help us with trouble shooting the various chip sets that use AMD processors. "

considering it did it to me while running half the components I usually do with the cpu at a massive underclock, its not voltage or temp... Plunge appears to be the worst map at this time

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by Mark Rein
It seems a lot of the lockup problems (not all), that don't appear to be some sort of over heating or voltage problems, are occuring around AMD processors. I'm going to talk with AMD tomorrow and see what they can do to help us with trouble shooting the various chip sets that use AMD processors.

I'll also talk with Nvidia and see what they can do to help. Both companies should have labs in which they have all kinds of different motherboard/bios/chipsets/cpu/OS/graphics cards combinations on which they can troubleshoot.

BTW I took a different system home to do more testing. AMD send an Athlon 2800+ with an Nvidia Nforce2 motherboard and an ATI 9700 in it and so far it has been 100% rock solid. Nice machine, BTW :)

Another revelation: A friend of mine who reported the same lockup problems with UT2003 had originally said that the problems only occured with UT2003. But he now is saying that he found that if he played Battlefiend 1942 for an extended period the same lock-up problem appears.

If other games are doing this too then that's going to help our cause with the CPU/motherboard/graphics vendors to find workarounds. It is inevitable that as time marches ion then you folks (and me on my Dual Athlon) having these lock-up problems are going to find more and more games that won't run on your systems.

So, while this is as frustrating to you as it is to us, please be patient while we try to find workarounds and solutions that will pay off for you now and in the future.

BTW, check out this link:
http://community.sierra.com/WebX?230@239.QFj3bC1GduL.1@.ef9a812

This guy ran UT2003 for 12 hours straight but NOLF2 crashes his system. I really think it was just dumb luck that he had 12 hours straight of UT2003 because this looks like the same random kind of lock up we're seeing reported here.

Ok.. The following games lock up my system: *updated*


Unreal Tournamen 2003 (full and demo)
Madden NFL2003 (Demo)
NHL 2003 (Demo)
Battlefield 1942
NOLF2 (just once.. never locked up since)
Mafia


I hope this helps you guys over @ epic!

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by setsuna

Conclusion, well the ATI RADEON is new, using new technology and so is the SIS648 chipset. ATI knows of the issues and is replacing cards to owners whose systems won't post. There is some weird bug with the SIS648 agp drivers and ATI's catalyst drivers. People can fiddle with their BIOS but there really isn't a magical config, it's sort of hit or miss. I've decided to sit tight and wait til there is a new driver update and new agp drivers. The card isn't broken nor are the mainboards, just incompatibilities that come with having something new. [/B]

I can assure you it isn't the Radeon 9700, and most likely not your SiS chipset, either (although I can't be as sure about your chipset as I am about the Radeon.) Most likely this is a bios issue relating to your motherboard which will, eventually, get fixed.

I run the Radeon with my system and I don't have lockups, freezes or crashes. On my own I've run the Radeon with over 30 3D games, most of them D3d but several OpenGL--they all run great and OpenGL runs no better than D3d--I have zero problems with D3d games.

UT2 runs flawlessly on my system and has since the first day I installed it. Frankly, if Mark Reign had never confessed to not having tested the game on a 9700 prior to shipping it, I would never have guessed that to be the case.

What appears to be the case right now with new motherboards (I am not a member of this group) is that their bios's are configuring aggressive settings relative to AGP texturing which are too much for the Radeon. This is a motherboard bios fault--not a Radeon fault--so you can expect to see similar problems with other cards (I notice no lack of Intel chipset-nVidia GFx owners reporting lockups and crashes in this forum, too, often centering around recently released motherboards.) The OpenGL games on the Radeon do not appear to be doing any AGP texturing but instead are texturing directly out of the card's local memory, whereas D3d's default with the Radeon appears to be AGP texturing, even though the card has 128 megs of local ram. But, this is the reason, we think (I and some fellows wading through this), that people with newer motherboards and Radeon 9700s are reporting the odd condition of OpenGl games working but D3d games locking up fairly consistently. Such lockups are exactly congruent with this type of over-aggressive bios timing setup for the operation of the AGP bus while texturing.

A current work around that many Radeon users are employing at present is to use the ATI "smart gart" utility to shut down reads and writes over AGP--which effectively turns off AGP texturing for D3d (it is better they are reporting to use Smart Gart to turn off AGP texturing than to use the DX diag control panel to do it. But after you use Smart Gart to shut down AGP texturing that change is then reflected in the DX diag panel as AGP texturing is turned off. I'm not really sure whether this shuts down AGP entirely and reverts the system to PCI 66, or whether it only shuts down AGP texturing and leaves the system set at the original AGP (really sort of irrelevant as this is a work around.)

Anyway, having accomplished this users are now saying D3d games are running perfectly fine for them in motherboards which just this morning refused to run them--including D3d UT2. Apparently then, the central problem with the current batch of new motherboards hitting the market has to do with bios updates which are needed to correct these motherboards' problems with AGP texturing (which is endemic to D3d, but apparently not utilized much at all under OpenGL--at least by the ATI Radeon drivers.)

I have to stress here that this only concerns those people with recently released (in the last few weeks) motherboards which are having trouble with the Radeon 9700. My own motherboard, as I said earlier, does not fit into this group--I bought it earlier this year (see sig) and it has functioned flawlessly with the 9700 and UT2 since the first day I installed each of them--no problems with my configuration at all.

Hope this helps but it's very late and I'm falling asleep typing this--but apparently this advice should help a number of people, I should think.

[legacy-perforierer]

An important fix for AMD / Via users:

A lot of motherboards have problems with IRQ sharing. If you have the soundcard, graphiccard or raidcontroller sharing THE SAME IRQ, this could be one of the problems.
Do the following: go to the bios of your motherboard. Disable the serial ports and the parallel port. This gives you three free IRQs. Reboot. Now the card and controllers doesent share the same IRQs.
You can also take a look at your Mobo handbook. There you often find a "INT table". Soundcards should have their own INT, like Raidcontrollers. Stick them in a PCI port with no sharing INT.

perf

[legacy-chreegy]

For everyone that still hasnt solved his problems try this:
go to http://www.guru3d.com and download under
downloads - videocard drivers - nvidia drivers the fix tool:
"Detonator 30.xx to 40.41 fix".

give it a try.....it wipes out old 30.xx files that may cause probs in combination with the 40.xx drivers!

[legacy-CyberM@CS]

@perforierer:

The things you told about the IRQ-Sharing are very interesting, but these things are normally sort out BEFORE you build your computer by setting the cards on the Slots that are generelly not sharing their IRQ´s. So this is a nice hint, but doesn´t help the people who never had these problems cause they are planning their systems very well...so in my case: No IRQ-Sharing between graphics/sounds <-- which should be NEVER shared...;)

And my MSI-Board is even older than yours so it can´t be just the generelly settings or ?

Greetz,
CyberM@CS

[legacy-Early_bath]

At last mine works :D I've been struggling for days but, using the info from this thread, and by trying each possible solution one by one I've finally got the game to run for over 30mins. I think it was upgrading to Nvidia 40.72 that clinched it for me (used detonator destroyer to clear down previous).

Spec:
AMD Duron 950Mhz (not overclocked)
Volcano 7 fan (chilly at 7000rpm)
Abit KT7A Mobo (latest Via drivers 4.43 I think)
192 Mb SDRam (Memchecked for 1hr, no problem)
Geforce2 MX 400 (64Mb) AGP, moved my PCI cards as far away as possible to improve cooling. Latest Nvidia drivers.
Creative Soundblaster 16.

I'm not bragging (look at my spec :rolleyes: ) but I'm trying to say, stick with it, I was getting well p****d off but I got there in the end. Now all I've got to do is get it to perform better without reintroducing bugs.

Thanks Epic for your efforts in this.:up:

[legacy-Shreddi]

The 4.72 Detonator Drivers came out yesterday and they did work for me. There are times in the game where it would freez for about a second but then it continues and works fine. Good luck everyone.

[legacy-nintendo1]

hm.. I updated every (!!) system componente of my pc.. and I mean it... now, I get to play a decent 3-4 rounds untill it locks up... But there is another problem now: My game allways crashes in the beginning of the SP campaign @ the map Lost faith. It either freezes on the beginning or in the large room with the two waterfalls. Damn.. can't even finish the damn sp campaign...

[legacy-EsHrA]

Hey Mark,

I installed ut2k3 again as you suggested without DX8...

see my ''Watch OUT, ut2k3 does mess up your system !!!'' post...

well....it didnt work, ut2k3 did not even get through the
profile intro...same freezing...

but i noticed something else...

i always do tests when installing new drivers, so i checked
the direct draw and direct 3d tests in direct x...

direct draw went ok but the direct3d test showed some strange things,
normally the cube with texture rotates very smooth but now with directx8.1b the cube rotates like crazy....i mean, it rotates but at an insane framerate...hmm...

older directx version never did this, so....more and more it seems a dirext8.1b bug...

anyway....just letting you know....


Cheers,

-EsH-


ps. hope i can play soon :)

[legacy-Slice1Ti]

this was my problem...

UT2003 Build UT2003_Build_[2002-09-19_17.26]

OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: AuthenticAMD PentiumPro-class processor @ 1606 MHz with 511MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 (4072)

General protection fault!

History: ProcessNode <- ProcessNode <- RenderLevel <- FLevelSceneNode::Render <- FPlayerSceneNode::Render <- UGameEngine:raw <- UWindowsViewport::Repaint <- UWindowsClient::Tick <- ClientTick <- UGameEngine::Tick <- UpdateWorld <- MainLoop


after 30 or 60 mins of playing i would get this error
what does it mean? it was the only problem i had left, before i had strong hang-ups or reboots... but now...

no overclocking
AMD 1900+
Coolermaster HHC 001 (noisie SOB but hey...)
Abit Kr7A-Raid 133
Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm
512 Mb DDR 266 Samsung
Creative Geforce 4 Ti 4400 (40.72b)
Creative Live 5.1 (latest driver)
Sony CD-rw 10x4x32
LG DVD 40x
good cooling (in game, case 32°C , CPU 41°)
(idle, case 29°C , CPU 37,5 °C)
WIN XP PRO (no SP1)
Latest Via 4in1 Driver

changed the ut2003.ini cache from 32 to 64 (helped)
did the memory test, no errors...

2 possible solutions, one fixed my lock-ups (details at highest and 1024x768, 32bit)

so what i did and fixed the problem, i opened the gate of my case from the pci slot under the agp slot so the GPU gets fresh air...
!!! COOLING IS NEEDED FOR THIS GAME !!!

or

as someone said in his post, people who have Abit motherboards flash the bios with the latest...
maybe it works for other mobo's to...

i did all of the above and no more lock-ups since...

thanks to all of you who had these incredible ideas that helped to fix my prob...
thanks to Epic for such an amazing game...
it's beyond belief, it's unreal

ODK / Slice1Ti

[legacy-HossCologneGER]

:(
Yesterday i bought the full version of UT2k3. http://smilies.uniquehardware.co.uk/contrib/blackeye/AR15firing.gif After starting the game it crashed after 20 to 30 seconds back on desktop like the same problem by many other users. I have the following system config:

Intel P4A 1,8 GHz
Gigabyte GA-8IRXP Motherboard i845e Chipset
512 MB DDR-Ram (2x Infineon 128 MB + 1 x Kingston 256 MB)
PNY GeForce 4 TI 4400 128 MB DDR
Creative SB Live! Player 1024
2 x 60 GB, 2 x 40 GB, 2 x 30 GB HDD
Adaptec U2W-SCSI Raid-Controller
Pioneer SCSI DVD-Rom
Panasonic DVD-Ram
TEAC CD-R 8x
Toshiba CD-Rom
ADSL 768/128

WinXP Pro with the latest drivers

Monitor: Nokia 445Xi Plus 21" CRT

-------------------------------------------

:weird: :weird: :weird:

And here's the thing i'm wondering:

And my second PC i installed UT2k3 and i works damn good.

System Config:

Dual Intel P3 800/133MHz FSB
Gigabyte GA6-VXDC7 Via Apollo Pro A Chipset
384 MB SD-Ram
ELSA GeForce 2 Ultra 64 MB DDR
Adaptec U2W-SCSI Controller
2 x 4,5 GB IBM SCSI HDD, 1 x 9 GB SCSI IBM HDD
Creative SB Live!
Pioneer IDE DVD-Rom
Realtech NIC RTL8139 Network Card

Win2000 Pro SP2 with VIA4in1 driver Ver. 4.38
Soundcard Driver 5.0.2184.1 Date 12/11/1999 Signature: Microsoft Windows 2000 Publisher

Peacock 17" CRT

:cool: You see that my second system isn't up to date with the drivers and btw it works damn good. Even UT2k3 is running perfectly.

:bulb: On my P4 system i got UT2k3 running by starting it with the 'udebugger.exe' in the system directory in the UT2k3 folder. :bulb:

:cry: I think it very necessary that the bug has to be found and a patch for this bug should be released very soon.

This afternoon i'll try to install SP1 for WinXP in hope that this would fix my problem.

Greets

[legacy-WormHole]

Here's an interesting situation, though not a fix:

We've tried everything we know to get UT2K3 to run on the following system:

Gigabyte 81HXP
P 2.4 (not oc'd)
Visiontek 4600ti
Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
512mb PC1066 RDRAM
yada, yada, yada...

fresh drivers, various reformats and reinstalls, etc.

One thing I did note was that everytime I began rebuilding the system, the 4600ti would install at irq 11. But no matter what I try to prevent it, it moves to irq 16, freeing up irq 11, which remains free throughout the rest of the install.

There's no provision in the bios to assign a fixed irq to the agp slot (due to ACPI).

Anyone know how I might be able to assign irq 11 to this video card?

Drowning on Long Island...

--WH

[legacy-TheIronMonkey]

I am one of the people the other guy described as the ones who are unable to tweak or mess with their hardware/BIOS/ .ini files, and all I can say is that I am disgusted with Epic (or whoever else is involved with creating the game).

This thread ( and forum ) is dominated almost entirely by help from the gaming public, and anything from Epic is actually very unhelpful (check out that Mark Rein guys last post here - very long but actually says very little ie. how close they are to a solution or when a patch is released. Oh by the way Mark, I'm very happy that your machine is 100% rock solid *intense sarcasm* because mine isn't due to your game)!

These people on the forums have spent hours and loads of £££'s to try and rectify your companies shoddy workmanship! And they will recieve nothing from the countless millions you'll earn off the back of the name alone.

By the way Early Bath (?) your system looks similar to mine so i may try to try and get that driver update, although I don't know if your problem is the same as mine ( rebooting seconds into a level).

P.S. I saw more professionally made games on the Commodore 64 than this!

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by TheIronMonkey
I am one of the people the other guy described as the ones who are unable to tweak or mess with their hardware/BIOS/ .ini files, and all I can say is that I am disgusted with Epic (or whoever else is involved with creating the game).

This thread ( and forum ) is dominated almost entirely by help from the gaming public, and anything from Epic is actually very unhelpful (check out that Mark Rein guys last post here - very long but actually says very little ie. how close they are to a solution or when a patch is released. Oh by the way Mark, I'm very happy that your machine is 100% rock solid *intense sarcasm* because mine isn't due to your game)!

These people on the forums have spent hours and loads of £££'s to try and rectify your companies shoddy workmanship! And they will recieve nothing from the countless millions you'll earn off the back of the name alone.

By the way Early Bath (?) your system looks similar to mine so i may try to try and get that driver update, although I don't know if your problem is the same as mine ( rebooting seconds into a level).

P.S. I saw more professionally made games on the Commodore 64 than this!

You're a bit harsh @ Epic! It's probably Microsofts fault.. most people here use WIN XP PRO/Homo.. eh home... and they just recently release a SP for Win XP in which altered some stuff in DX 8.1! That might be the problem.. One thing they fixed was something about Hardware T&L! So turnig off HW T&L helped a lot of people.. maybe MS made even more changes than they don't want to tell you... DAMN!! IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek: :weird: :eek:

[legacy-*BBC|Phranctoas]

Well i pretty much have the same pc as slice1Ti. I had the leaked beta and of course the demo. They both worked flawlessly. I install the full retail version, and i cant get more then 10 min into it before it either crashed to desktop with a similar(if not same) error as everyone else, or comp simply restarts. I had similar probs a while back (jk2 and sof2) when i used to install microsofts updates for xp. To fix that i just restored my comp to its previous setting.
I figured that the service pack was the cause for all these errors so i reformated.
Well the prob still happens. Now i cant even get the demo to work again. It does the same as the full version. I have in the 40.71 drivers.

so my current status is.
xp with service pack again (unfortunately need it)

latest nvidia drivers 40.71

and now none of my games work. they all do the same as ut2k3.

Im not sure how epic can say this is the fault of hardware. My other games worked before i installed ut2k3.

I can honestly say that i dont have a fraction of the tech knowledge of a lot of theses peeps pissed in this forum so im worried bout having to do soemthing rather then simply installing a much needed patch to make all these probs go away.


can someone please explain how to change it to opengl instead of directx. Ive heard ppl mention this and i figured id give it a try until soemthings worked out.

[legacy-nintendo1]

Originally posted by *BBC|Phranctoas
Well i pretty much have the same pc as slice1Ti. I had the leaked beta and of course the demo. They both worked flawlessly. I install the full retail version, and i cant get more then 10 min into it before it either crashed to desktop with a similar(if not same) error as everyone else, or comp simply restarts. I had similar probs a while back (jk2 and sof2) when i used to install microsofts updates for xp. To fix that i just restored my comp to its previous setting.
I figured that the service pack was the cause for all these errors so i reformated.
Well the prob still happens. Now i cant even get the demo to work again. It does the same as the full version. I have in the 40.71 drivers.

so my current status is.
xp with service pack again (unfortunately need it)

latest nvidia drivers 40.71

and now none of my games work. they all do the same as ut2k3.

Im not sure how epic can say this is the fault of hardware. My other games worked before i installed ut2k3.

I can honestly say that i dont have a fraction of the tech knowledge of a lot of theses peeps pissed in this forum so im worried bout having to do soemthing rather then simply installing a much needed patch to make all these probs go away.


can someone please explain how to change it to opengl instead of directx. Ive heard ppl mention this and i figured id give it a try until soemthings worked out.

look for the following text in your ut2003.ini (located in the utfolder\system)

RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

now change the lines to this:

;RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

got it?

then save and voila, you've switched to openGl!

[legacy-thelostboy]

so, i tried everything, switched the config for to days, installed cooling fans, bios update, opengl, new & old drivers and so on......

but my ut still doesn't work, now i can do only one thing, wait for a patch, so please EPIC, release a patch because i am a great ut fan and want to play the game longer than 5 minutes!!!

[legacy-*BBC|Phranctoas]

thx nintendo..im going to update to 40.72beta drivers first n see what happens there, and if all else fails ill switch to opengl.

[legacy-Samulayo]

Seems I am not the only one....

My spec:

AthlonXP 1900+
MSI Nforce mobo
768 DDR RAM
SB player 1024
CLabs GF3 Ti200 (CL drivers 30.82)
WinXP Home

Freshly reinstalled everything prior to installing UT2003, updated all drivers (as far as I know) etc... CPU and system temp seems perfectly normal (at least, no different to what it has ever been)

All settings turned down (to give max FPS:D), decals and shadows etc set to low/lowest/off

When I run single player mode or instant action, I only get the occasional lock-up (seems totally random). If I try online play, I seem to lock-up within 5 to 10 mins, sometimes quicker, every single time.
I have played online with a friend hosting, playing 2v2 and got no problems. Seems to me to be when there is a lot of action going on, yet my system is fine with a local 10 player DM game.

[legacy-TheIronMonkey]

I decided to be brave and edit the .ini file to openGL and it worked!

Granted I've only played for about 5 minutes, but that is about 4 minutes 57 seconds longer than I've played previously.

I'll come back soon with either some good news or bad news (hope it doesnt crash!)

I still want that patch though

[legacy-nintendo1]

my pleasure! :D

Hope you can play even longer than 5 minutes :p

Well.. now it just should work for me too... then I'd be happy... :(

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by EsHrA
direct draw went ok but the direct3d test showed some strange things,
normally the cube with texture rotates very smooth but now with directx8.1b the cube rotates like crazy....i mean, it rotates but at an insane framerate...hmm...

Heh, first thing I noticed when I installed SP1.. It exceeds the v-sync on mine and gets tearing

[legacy-bruce_dude]

To TheIronMonkey:
While I agree that all of us are extremely frustrated with our lack of gaming time with this new installment of Unreal, let's face the facts. Here is what we software developers have to deal with (and yes I used to write for C64 too, so I know what I'm talking about):
Here are the possible configs that need to be handled:
Roughly 30 mainstream motherboards
25 processors (types and speeds)
25 commonly used vid cards
25 sound cards
About 5 memory configurations
6 OS's
- Not to mention different NICs, modems, etc...
This comes out to roughly 14,062,500 possible configuations.

Now, let's look at the C64:
1 motherboard
1 processor
1 video chip
1 sound chip
1 memory config
1 OS
Gee, that's 1 total number of possible configurations. Yes, there were fastloaders and mem expanders, but they were either ignored, or wouldn't work. I had plenty of EA games for my C64 that said if you have a fast loader, take it out as the copy protection scheme will make it fail...
Also, when the C-128 and the 1571 drive came out, I found that many of my games simply wouldn't run at all. Not just crud games either. I remember having difficulties with Ultima.

So, let's cut Epic a little slack. It appears our problems may be DirectX related. These new vid cards are using features new to DX8.1 and therefore may not have been completely tested by nVidia, ATI, SiS, Via, etc. If it is a DirectX problem, then fine, Microsoft will fix it eventually. If it is an Unreal Engine issue, then Epic will also get on that. Dont forget, they tied almost 2 years of development budget into this game. They HAVE to make that money back, or there will be no Unreal Tourny 3. So, it is their obligation to either fix the problem or to at least tell us what the problem is. Sit tight and relax. Remember, DirectX was created so that software vendors didn't have to waste time writing specific drivers for each of their products. Do you remember the good ol' DOS days when you had to pick your specifc video processor from a list of supported chips? Let's see, do I have a Tseng Labs ET4000 or an S3968, hmmm...

EPIC,
Please post daily updates as to your progress. I am interesting in hearing what you find out. And, if it is possible, please contact nVidia and SiS and see if there is a similar situation to what Via had.

[legacy-Line Bender]

Has anyone else tried lowering their memory frequency from 333Hz to 266Hz (like i suggested in a previous post)? Just curious to see if it works for anyone else. This worked like a charm for me.

People with SiS motherboards running their memory at 333 especially should try this.

[legacy-iiDragnSlayerii]

Hey here are my specs..right now i have everything runnin on normal. I used to have highest everythin on the demo. If anyone has a make similar to mine, please tell me what ur specs are so i can enjoy both online and single w/ the best graphics and performance possible...gracias

[legacy-merse]

Greetings,

I have had major lock up problems with my new Gigabyte board / Radeon 9700 - not just in games but in XP Pro as well. I tried many drivers and most of the suggestions on here but to no avail.

Looking at the ATi site I found a troubleshooting section which made some suggestions, one of which was to run the AGP Aperture size at 64Mb.

I did this and have now got a perfectly stable system! How chuffed am I? :)

Hope that helps, be even more chuffed if that fixes somebody else's problem as I know how frustrating this problem is!

Regards,

merse

[legacy-IceMatrix]

Line bender:

I have tryed lowering my fsb from 133/133 (proc/ram) to 100/100, and that does stop my prob. I have 2100 ddr ram (Samsung), and have only felt this problem on the Americas Army, now this as well. The game runs much slower at first, untill it gets everything loaded, and there is still a perfomance drop, but lowering the speed does work for me for around an hour.


Bruce Dude:

I could not agree with you more. Just by reading the posts you understand that Unreal is talking with ATI's top, and AMD's top. I think maybe even Nvidia. Now that is Unreal. I was and am dissapointed in my comuter for not handeling the game, but I understand all the bugs that have to be worked out. I am not sure if it is a DirectX thing only though. I have a radeon 8500 and when I use OpenGL it crashes after about 20 minutes. I salute Unreal, keep up the hard work!

[legacy-setsuna]

I tried the Rage3d tweak and it still freezes. BTW, that fixed screwed up my textures in Neverwinter nights. I uninstalled rage3d. My lockups are only occuring when the game loads a level.

[legacy-EdibleAutopsy]

After realising that UT2003 would run flawlessly with my side panel removed and a desktop fan pushed up real close. (5 hours solid on a few occasions without a single lock)
I went out and bought

1 exaust blower and 2 60mm case fans

fixed all the fans up , and now the inside of my machine is like a windy day.........

GUESS WHAT !!!!! LOCK UPS EVERY FEW MINS

this game makes my graphics card heat up soooo much, that the only solution is to stand a massive desktop fan next to my comp.

SORT IT OUT EPIC.............

ENERMAX 430 WATT PSU (FAN RUNNING AT 3,000 RPM
P4 1.9 GHZ
768 MB PC133 RAM
ASUS GEFORCE 4 TI4600
CREATIVE SOUNDBLASTER AUDIGY PLAYER
60 GB 7200 RPM HD
2X 60MM CASE FANS
1X EXAUST BLOWER

i WASNT HAVING ANY OVERHEATING PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER, EVEN BEFORE I ADDED THE 3 FANS, ONLY THIS GAME CAUSES MASSIVE OVERHEATING THAT IS ONLY CUREBLE BY USING A DESKTOP FAN AND OPENING MY CASE UP.......

ACCEPTABLE ? I THINK NOT EPIC

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by Line Bender
Has anyone else tried lowering their memory frequency from 333Hz to 266Hz (like i suggested in a previous post)? Just curious to see if it works for anyone else. This worked like a charm for me.

People with SiS motherboards running their memory at 333 especially should try this.

Which as I said before, means you either have bad ram or an insufficient PSU.. The other possibility is that the ram isnt PC2700, so by running it at those frequencies you're doing a rather large overclock..

The game crashes on me just the same with my ram running at 200MHz as it does with it running at 300MHz...

My CPU runs at 100% 24/7 regardless, I did sisoft's memory benchmark 50times over in the burn in wizard, guess what, its FINE with my normal FSB OC of 150MHz (CPU: 1800MHz, CPU goes from athlon 1900+ to 2200+; Ram: 300MHz [DDR])

Same goes for my voodoo - I've run the game with it at everthing from 130MHz to 190MHz, makies no difference what-so-ever.. My computer locks up differently when the vid card overheats ;) [which doesnt happen until 195MHz+ on my voodoo]

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by EdibleAutopsy
After realising that UT2003 would run flawlessly with my side panel removed and a desktop fan pushed up real close. (5 hours solid on a few occasions without a single lock)
I went out and bought

1 exaust blower and 2 60mm case fans

fixed all the fans up , and now the inside of my machine is like a windy day.........

GUESS WHAT !!!!! LOCK UPS EVERY FEW MINS

this game makes my graphics card heat up soooo much, that the only solution is to stand a massive desktop fan next to my comp.

SORT IT OUT EPIC.............


That is NOT Epic's fault, that is your own.. Fan setup and placement is important, since, if done wrong you just get turbulence and make the problem worse. One thing that generally helps, take the slot covers off extra 5.25" bays..

If your video card is running too hot, UNDERCLOCK IT. The factory clock speeds are designed for the standard cooling setup in which that card will be placed - Some people could very easily overclock cards to extreme levels; while, for others, this could be the highest frequency the card could run at. In your case, you dont have sufficient cooling for the hardware which you have purchased - this has NOTHING to do with Epic..

If you have anyone to blame about that, it's yourself.

[legacy-EdibleAutopsy]

How can it be my system ?

no other games cause my system to overheat whatsoever.
I know about correct airflow , and i can assure you I have VERY good cooling

Nothing in my system is overclocked , everything runs perfect and COOL.

then i play unreal tourney2003 and it locks up every couple ov minutes............unless i use my desktop fan with the side panel off...

this game makes my system overheat........

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Meaning you really have never stressed the system before, I dont think using your amazing 350MHz RAMDAC in 2d is gonna make anything overheat, and did you ever consider that maybe these other games are running at high enough framerates you've been cutoff by v-sync, thus causing the card to run cooler?..

Running this game is like running your CPU at 100%, doing ram benchmarks and running something that uses your vid cards GPU to the max... SOMETHING YOU DONT DO BROWSING.. Obviously things are not running perfect and cool, or that fan wouldnt do ****.

I've played the desktop fan cooling game myself - it sucks.. Buy a good case and cool it right, and you'll never have this problem.

My system is air-cooled and runs fine with a massive overclock and a constant cpu utilization(24/7) of 100% - NOTHING requires me to put a desktop fan to my system.

On another note, what are your temps?
With an OC at 1800MHz (stock is 1600) my Athlon craps out at 52C.. Stock speeds it never crapped out, highest temp to my knowledge was 64C [stock fan in a very hot room; has a V7+ on it now]

[legacy-Mikeyyy7676]

Welcome to my problem :). Isnt this just a happy thread with all the freezing and errors?

My Problem:
UT2003 Build UT2003_Build_[2002-09-19_17.26]

OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: AuthenticAMD PentiumPro-class processor @ 703 MHz with 767MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (3087)

Assertion failed: Actor->ColLocation == Actor->ColLocation [File:UnOctree.cpp] [Line: 1614]

History: FCollisionOctree::RemoveActor <- ULevel::SpawnActor <- (SniperRiflePickup) <- UObject::ProcessEvent <- (xPawn DM-TokaraForest.xPawn, Function Engine.Pawn.FellOutOfWorld) <- APawn::performPhysics <- AActor::Tick <- TickAllActors <- ULevel::Tick <- (NetMode=0) <- TickLevel <- UGameEngine::Tick <- UpdateWorld <- MainLoop

Hmmmm Like i know what all of that means. I know a lot of you will look at my Processor and tell me tahts the problem, but when i run the game (up to 15minutes) at a time i get superb quality with no lag. So i ask this, is this a problem with a my video card, something i need to download, or my processor?

By the way, i have been kicked to the desktop and given the above critical error, and ive also had the freezing system.

Ive tried the following":
1. Downloading new AGP Drivers for XP
2. PowerStipe and underclocking my card to the lowest setting
3. Playing in safemod
4. Downloding VIA 4in1
5. Reinstalling...

I think thats it. Hmmm Got any ideas? A Quick fix maybe.

[legacy-setsuna]

Just got a chance to install Tribes 2. The guys at Epic may be interested in this little bit of info, but Tribes two does not smooth out the textures on the main hud. In fact all the gradients are blocky. Apparently this occurs when opengl is turned on and in Direct3d everything looks smooth but poor framerates. This is definitely an opengl/direct3d issue for those on ATI Radeon cards. At least that's what i'v encountered. On my other machine,UT2003 and Tribes look perfect and the machine has an Elsa Gladiac.

This isn't an Epic problem, apparently. there are little bugs with almost everygame. WCIII was solved with the BIOS update to the P4S8X mobo, and NWN works fine as well, with the occasional refresh issue.

BTW a lot of people are attrib. the problem to heat. This is probably not the case. My apartment is an icebox (65 degress!) and I am running 7 fans and one on the side panel of my case blowing air onto the RADEON 9700. And guess what, same prob!

If you want to risk a static discharge or blowing something into your case, go right ahead and put a industrial fan next to your mobo, but is a $50 game worth a $400 vid card and $150 mobo??? I really hope you at least put your system on a UPC, imagine a power spike caused by plugging that fan on the same outlet as your machine, BOOM! (BTW this is just a joke!)

[legacy-Gamerspage]

If that fan causes that big of a powerspike, then we're all just gonna blow everything up when our AC's turn on, or WASHER AND DRYER, or any other large appliance that uses enough power to dim the lights in every room of your house - something a fan does not do.

Most "industrial fans" are grounded btw.

[legacy-setsuna]

Just got this from ATI. ATI 9700 users experiencing crashes or system lockups in:
Battlefield 1942
Mafia
The Thing

Go to http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4081.html and download the patch. Hopefully this should solve UT as well.

[legacy-setsuna]

Gamerspage,
Can't take a joke can you...lol. Someone here does know what they're talking about. Your right about the fans, I just pointed that out because so many people think that is the solution to their problems. The RADEON does run hot, but not hot enough that putting a fan next to it would do anything. In fact, a properly cooled system would actually get hotter if you removed the side panel because of no circulation.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

You're correct - there are a lot of people here whos problems ARENT heat, but quite a few of them arent anything involving this game either.. Many have insufficient PSU's, crappy cooling or various other issues NOT related in any way to a bug in UT2k3..

My issues with my voodoo are quite obviously SOMETHING that has to do with the game, since I've never had any issues with a DX game and basically, if I can get an OGL game to start, its fine (UT2k3 doesnt like me in OGL - although that didnt come as a suprise; It was a chance, just not a good one)

on a side note, I have managed to confuse systems from the power my stereos (yes, plural) draw when powering all my speakers at loud volumes ;p

[legacy-setsuna]

I understand now. That does sound like a game glitch then.

Apparently there are a combo of factors. I've been building systems for 4 years now so I think I do have an idea if my system is improperly cooled or configured improperly. In fact, I made sure to add a 420 watt power supply and tested the voltage on the connectors to make sure there wasn't any faulty wiring. So I have to agree that there is a software glitch vs. a hardware one.

But the fact remains that the users running RADEON 9700s on the new boards are having issues and not jsut UT but other games as well. So there is some sort of driver/software issue going on. In the end all I care about is fraggin people in UT.

BTW, I didn't catch that last sentence until I posted this message. You DO have a sense of humor, LOL =0)

[legacy-Gamerspage]

I build systems myself also ( http://www.gamerspage.com/products.asp ); but it's always amazing how many people you see amazed when their POS 250-300w PSU blows up, or people who expect these top performers to be iceboxes:rolleyes:

You'd really be amazed how much lights flicker when you have the ability to put out around 1400watts continuous of music, hehe.. Havent managed to flip the 15amp breaker on that surge suppressor yet, so far so good :D

[legacy-Digital Tea]

Originally posted by bruce_dude
To TheIronMonkey:
While I agree that all of us are extremely frustrated with our lack of gaming time with this new installment of Unreal, let's face the facts. Here is what we software developers have to deal with

I disagree. I work on software for a living too and this kind of lack of config testing is unprofessional. I don't expect extensive testing on all the different platform configs, but just like any other good software maker, Epic should determine which platforms they are going to support and publish that list.

Why do you think that Windows has a hardware support list? Because they have decided which systems are typical and they test those configs.

I also don't expect software companies to put out completely bug free code, but this seems ridicules. This thread alone has 230 some posts about peopel not getting the game to run on their system. That just seems sloppy.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Originally posted by Digital Tea
I also don't expect software companies to put out completely bug free code, but this seems ridicules. This thread alone has 230 some posts about peopel not getting the game to run on their system. That just seems sloppy.

Exactly, not to mention that the Radeon 9700 should be tested with any new game, THOROUGHLY, just like the GF4's.

[legacy-setsuna]

Nice to know that I'm not the only one responsible for the Power crisis. hehehe

On a side note, those new ATI drivers, worked for 6 battles and on the 7th it froze the moment I shot the flak grenade at two bots. Back to square one. But the game did run longer.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

Well, thats an improvement.. I seem to have a problem with the skyboxes - they appear to be cause of my problems, which is why I cant get through plunge without a crash.

hehehe.. What power crisis =p (Palo Verde nuclear power plant isn't too far away, Phoenix doesnt have power issues :p )

[legacy-Rice-Rocketeer]

That ATI fix is a month old, I think...and if you have the 7.77 in-house non-Catalyst drivers (I forget the link, just look for 7.77 Radeon 9700 drivers in Google), then this fix is incorporated into it. I am lucky to run 1 map before a crash.

Athlon XP 2100+
Soltek KT333 SL75-DRV5 Motherboard
512 MB PC2700 Samsung DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Soundblaster Audigy
Enermax 350 W PSU
MSI 16X/48X DVD-ROM
MSI 48X/16X/48X CD-RW
80 GB Caviar HDD

[legacy-setsuna]

gamerspage- I 'm a CA resident and my average power bill for my apt is $200. I AM THE POWER CRISIS, mwahahaha

By the way, clarification for Tribes players. The RADEON's opengl drivers are fast, but they suck in blending. The Direct 3d drivers rock blending colors, but suck in game performance. I'm noticing that the games having issues depend on OpenGL. I would like to test this in UT, how can I set UT2003 to direct3D. I don't have a setting for this in the settings tab?

[legacy-setsuna]

Sorry but Rice is right. The guys at ATI are as lost as we are. That e-mail was sent an hour ago recommending the patch for the fix. I didn't even notice the date on the patch. The patch however is the 7.77 patch you are referring to.

[legacy-Gamerspage]

It runs in d3d by default..

open System\UT2003.ini

RenderDevice=D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice

Comment D3D, uncomment OGL..

[legacy-setsuna]

Scratch the opengl issue then. Thanks for the info.

[legacy-Borg72]

Hey guys,
I was troubleshooting my lockup problem for two days now. I build my own systems and I am pretty much educated on configuration/cooling. Im gona skip all my troubleshooting efforts, and get to the main story. Im sure they all sound the same anyhow. Hehe.
So here I am pulling my hair our for two days now over this lockup problem. Let me go back a week... Last week I got a huge virus that was infecting my windows files by the day (160 files a day or everytime I restarted to be exact) So I decided to purchase a new Western Digital WD800JB hard drive...for all you computer nuts out there, these are the fastest IDE hard drives to date with the 8mb cache. GOOD ASS DRIVE. Anyhow I install my fresh new drive, windows xp, do my overclocking blah, blah blah, and more blah so then I finally get aroudn to installing my games. In goes UT2003, first time I run it, it locks up about 5min in. Same symptoms we all are seeing. I'm driving myself insane trying to figure this out... it ran fine on my virus infected drive. So at this point I am extremly pissed the *%#@ off.
Here is where I get to the part about how I found out what was causing my problem (and whoever else is having this problem should make sure you are properly cooled)
After I installed my HD I left my side panel off. Your saying "so what" but being the huge overclocker that I am I have two 120MM fans blowing some mass air on that panel so its makes a big difference in my case. I had my side panel under my desk and today I just got tired of kicking it so I threw it back in place ran UNREAL and BOOM no more lock ups. I have been buggin for 2 days and its because I looked passed one of the most basic things. YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE YOUR COOLED RIGHT IF YOU OVERCLOCK YOUR GPU. :o) I should know better. Since then I have ran 23 benchmarks in UT2003 at various settings and I am still crash free. Thought I would share that with you guys. I have been looking here for my answer and it was right under my nose uhhh feet. :o)
P out,
Börg

[legacy-Gamerspage]

...and what have we learned from this? People ignore the fact that 50% of the posts here are because of insuffiecient cooling..

btw, WD's 80GB isnt the "fastest".. WD*00JB is, since they range from 40GB to 200GB, JB being the series with 8mb buffer @ 7200rpm (BB is 2MB @ 7200rpm)

[legacy-Borg72]

Originally posted by Gamerspage

btw, WD's 80GB isnt the "fastest".. WD*00JB is, since they range from 40GB to 200GB, JB being the series with 8mb buffer @ 7200rpm (BB is 2MB @ 7200rpm)

"these are the fastest IDE hard drives to date with the 8mb cache"-Börg

Ummmm Gamerspage that is what I was referring to. THE JB SERIES. Just to clear that up...

And yes cooling is the first thing I should have checked, but I guess you can say it just slipped my mind.

Börg

[legacy-dj_madda]

I had problems when loading Face 3 and the second Bombing Run mission on the single player mode.

I have solved this problem by deleting the Profile and creating another exactly the same, but completing the missions in a different order and it solved the problem.

This is worth a look.

dj_madda

[legacy-WaltC]

Originally posted by TheIronMonkey
I am one of the people the other guy described as the ones who are unable to tweak or mess with their hardware/BIOS/ .ini files, and all I can say is that I am disgusted with Epic (or whoever else is involved with creating the game).

This thread ( and forum ) is dominated almost entirely by help from the gaming public, and anything from Epic is actually very unhelpful (check out that Mark Rein guys last post here - very long but actually says very little ie. how close they are to a solution or when a patch is released. Oh by the way Mark, I'm very happy that your machine is 100% rock solid *intense sarcasm* because mine isn't due to your game)!

These people on the forums have spent hours and loads of £££'s to try and rectify your companies shoddy workmanship! And they will recieve nothing from the countless millions you'll earn off the back of the name alone.

By the way Early Bath (?) your system looks similar to mine so i may try to try and get that driver update, although I don't know if your problem is the same as mine ( rebooting seconds into a level).

P.S. I saw more professionally made games on the Commodore 64 than this!


I'll bite and then I am retiring from this "forum" and "thread" permanently.

I realize this is falling on deaf, unbelieving ears for the most part, but as I've said twice already in two previous posts--I'm not having any trouble whatsoever with UT2K3--none-nada-zero-zippo. The game is running flawlessly on my system and has ever since I installed it. I've even written out a solution the guys on the ATI forum have figured out that fixes the problems people are having with their Radeon 9700's in some systems with D3d games--including the D3d version of UT2K3--what's happening is all pretty simple and it has literally nothing to do with UT2K3--if it did I'd be having problems right along with some of you--and NOBODY would be running this game in a stable fashion. BUT I AM--PLENTY OF PEOPLE ARE--it's fun, I'm having a blast with it--and therefore I KNOW the Epic software's not to blame--Microsoft is not to blame--who's to blame is YOU PEOPLE and the sorry, sorry state your systems are in.

So what does that tell YOU? It tells you that there are precious few bugs in this software and that you better start looking somewhere else--namely, you better start looking at your own computer systems because that's where the problem is--not with Epic and not with UT2K3 and not with Microsoft or the President or Congress or General Motors. These problems have OPERATOR ERROR written all over them.

You want to tell me--since you're so certain that Epic has released a truly crappy piece of software just for the fun and games of tormenting you--you want to tell me how it is then that I've managed to install UT2K3 and it HASN"T MESSED UP A SINGLE PROGRAM ON MY SYSTEM? IT HASN"T INTERFERED WITH A SINGLE ONE? How come it trashed your system if it didn't trash mine? How come it runs GREAT with no problems in my system but you can barely get it to run for ten minutes at a time???

We're running the same software, aren't we? So the difference is in the systems we're installing them to--and that's it. Come on, use your HEAD for something besides a toupee! READ my two earlier posts--with heavy emphasis on the second one becasue that's the one in which some REAL SOLUTIONS are made apparent as well as some REAL DEFINITIONS as to the general type of problems you people are having with this game.

The fact is that if YOU CAN"T TROUBLESHOOT YOUR OWN HOME COMPUTER WELL ENOUGH TO FIX IT--YOU ARE IN A POSITION TO ADVISE EPIC ABOUT NOTHING. Let that sink in.

I know, I know--you'd rather discount what I'm saying because to follow what I'm saying might require you to exercise that gray matter between your ears and WE CAN"T HAVE THAT, CAN WE? No, Epic's got to use your brain for you and fix your problems for your or else you're just having nothing to do with them or their software, right????

SOME OF YOU could be having legitimate errors in your configurations (none of WHICH IS EPIC'S FAULT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM)--and it was to YOU that I addressed my two posts--one a very lengthy one--the second one fairly brief and outlining the situation that's occuring with Radeon 9700's and a lot of D3d games--which sounds very much like the same kinds of problems you're having with UT2K3 even though you don't have Radeons.

The main thing you folks need to wash right out of your brains is the notion that everybody's having problems with UT2K3 because that's just not the truth whatsoever--it's not anywhere near the truth. There are *lots* of people just like me who aren't having these kinds of problems with UT2--who, like me--aren't having *any* problems with UT2K3. As long as you believe otherwise, however, forget about solving anything--it's not gonna' happen for you guys.

Once you accept the fact that the problem lies within your own hardware and software configurations where it has always been dormant just WAITING on you to load up an application like UT2K3 which pushes your hardware against the wall and doesn't leave any room for hardware configuration problems to hide--once you realize and accept that then you'll be well on your way to FIXING your own boxes and getting them into decent enough shape so that you can successfully run the next balls-to-wall 3D game that comes down the pike. Or do you all want to repeat all of this with DOOM III when it gets released?

One more time: UT2K3 installed perfectly for me--like a breeze--no tinkering, no geeking no NOTHING out of the ordinary was required to install it. It never EVEN CAME CLOSE to overwriting any other install on my system--not even close. I still have the original UT installed and guess what? It runs perfectly too even after I installed UT2K3. SO IF YOUR SYSTEM HAS BEEN HOSED AFTER YOU INSTALLED UT2K3--DON"T LOOK AT EPIC--LOOK IN A MIRROR. (Heh-Heh)...;)

Ah, hell, I can't keep a straight face....;) YOu guys crack me up--reading the majority of the posts out here is like reading about Romper Room or Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans instructing kiddies how to properly use the toilet.

Like I said--I've seen some forums in my day but never one to match the incredible colossal stupidity that's running rampant in this one. JEEEEZ!...;)

What the...aw, you aren't going to understand my second post any better than you understood the first one. But I'll try one last time and then I'm hanging it up: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH UT2K3--NOTHING! LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE RUNNING IT WITH NO TROUBLE AT ALL AND OUTSIDE OF THIS FORUM I"VE YET TO READ ONE SINGLE REPORT OF THE GAME'S INSTALL WIPING OUT ANYTHING ELSE ON ANYONE'S SYSTEM. Heh-Heh--YOU GUYS DON"T REALIZE HOW UNIQUE YOU ARE, DO YOU?

MANY OF YOU ARE HAVING VERY SEVERE PROBLEMS, HOWEVER, WITH YOUR OWN COMPUTER SYSTEMS. UT2K3 HAS SIMPLY BEEN THE CATALYST WHICH HAS ALLOWED YOU TO SEE WHAT HORRIFIC SHAPE YOUR SYSTEMS ARE IN--UT2K3 HAS DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO MAKE YOUR SYSTEMS THAT WAY. THEY WERE THAT WAY BEFORE YOU EVER INSTALLED THE GAME.

UT2k3 is an extremely resource-intensive game which will push your system to the edge and test every component you've got, especially when you run it with max detail at max resolutions. YOU DON"T HAVE ANOTHER GAME THAT WILL DO THE SAME THING BECAUSE ANOTHER IN THIS CLASS OF RESOURCE USERS HAS YET TO BE PUBLISHED. Therefore it should come as no surprise whatever that your system runs these lesser games but chokes and death rattles on UT2K3.

READ MY SECOND POST AND I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND THE THRUST OF IT. NOT EVERYBODY HAS RADEON's OF COURSE, BUT THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES REGARDING THE AGP BUS AND D3D and AGP TEXTURING are THE SAME NO MATTER WHAT 3D CARD YOU HAVE. USE THIS INFORMATION AND START LOOKING FOR THE PROBLEMS IN YOUR SYSTEMS. IF you don't, and you scoff at this, like I said you can prepare for a repeat performance when the next game of UT2K3's resource-using scope is released and you buy it. AND THEN WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BLAME?

Suffice it to say that if UT2K3 was the horrific bug fest many of you have said that it is--people like me would not be having the very pleasant, trouble-free experiences with it that we are. Nope, we'd all be having just as ratty and stinky a time as you are...;) (I can't keep the straight face much longer.) But we're not, and so THAT should TELL YOU to start looking elsewhere from Epic for a solution to your problems--because they are all in your UT2K3 box at home--and God help you all if you don't wake up and realize that.

Wake up guys and be grownups. You bought your computer--be man enough to learn how the damn thing works at least to a basic degree. There's only so much wee-wee shaking Epic can do for you--they aren't going to change your diapers, too. Epic's responsible for the software it writes, YOU are responsible for the state of your computer at home. YOU. Not Epic. Not Microsoft. YOU. If you can't hack it then sell the damn thing and buy a console. Whatever...(although based on what I've read in some of these posts a console is probably still going to be too complex.) But you can at least try--TRY to learn some basic stuff about your hardware. Believe me you'll be a lot happier for it in the end.

Now GOOD NIGHT--I'm ready to hit the sack. Maybe some of you can pull out the old tape recorder and load up that subliminal "THINK" tape you bought at K-Mart and go to sleep listening to it and tomorrow awaken refreshed and...intelligent and mature. Best of luck.

WaltC

[legacy-CyberM@CS]

@WaltC:

The only thing I can read out of your Post is the fact, that you are very intolerant...from your point of view just people with technical knowledge are allowed to play that game because the other ones can´t help themselves...this opinion makes you look extremely stupid..sorry to say that.

Don´t think that I am belonging to that group of users cause I am not, I am working for IT-Company and have experiences with hardware configurations since a couple of years.

It is not acceptable, when a game makes nearly most of computer crash in that bad way, when every other actual game is running just fine. You cannot just blame it on the users, because here are also a lot of people, who have very good technical knowledge...but you are god, I forgot...I feel very sorry for you just because you feel like this because you are belonging to the lucky ones having no trouble with this game..for what reason ever.

An why do you thinks are suddenly other games not running any more like Counter-Strike after installing UT2003, even if you deinstall the game..same Lockups and crashes..how do you explain that ? Because very suddenly this old game is pushing the hardware so much ? LOOOL...I feel so very sorry for you..your opinion is so sad, that I am nearly to laugh my ass off...so UT seem to make some software problems or anyway mess up your system...

Go on talking **** WaltC, that is what you are good at as you showed with your posts to all of us.

CyberM@CS

[legacy-Gamerspage]

There's a point thats been in my head this whole time - While there do seem to be quite legitamate problems in this game with a combination of certain cards, a lot of people here have really common issues with their systems; the main thing being they have no idea when it comes to power supplies and cooling.

While your specific config may work great with the game, obviously it's not the only one; BUT - There are a lot with issues, mainly involving the new ATi cards. My voodoo seems to dislike the game, but since they support the good old voodoo 3 (and perhaps tested?) a 4/5 should work.

I would at least be somewhat happier if I were told a way to disable the skybox, which, so far has appeared to be my problem (Some levs the sky flickers - looking at this tends to cause the world to fall apart - not good).

So, basically.. It comes down to simple points.. If underclocking your ram fixes it, IT'S NOT THE DAMN GAME. If putting a fan next to the computer, it's obviously your cooling.. People should watch their voltages.. Try simple FSB underclocks and underclock your vid card - if this helps in ANY way, it's likely your computer's setup.

I'm not even going to begin when it comes to software.. This ranges from "spyware" causing issues with everything to a bad install of your OS..

Just bear in mind, there are a lot of issues here involving this game that truely are legitamite problems.. Beta testing should have been more extensive on the game with the ATi cards - The fact that it wasn't tested on them was a suprise to me.

[legacy-nintendo1]

Could you give us some sort of status updadte on how far you've comn with a solution to the lock-up/freezing/what ever problem? And hows the status of the patch?


Thanks!

Nintendo1 aka Asskicker

[legacy-Fenrir(AVA)]

Yeah what nintendo1 said....

[legacy-[es7'Necra0s]]

indeed...what nintendo said/asked....

also could you ppl stop flaming eachother cuz it works or dont work?? This is a forum to HELP ppl not to flame ppl :) i know a lot of you aint older then 12 but in a few years you'll be an adult but still gives you the right to act like one allready at this age. stop laming and flaming and start helping...