No Solutions AT ALL to my Game crashes. PLEASE HELP B4 I de-Install & throw in Bin!

[Phakt]

Please help, Ive owned Unreal Tournament 3 since march and had MAJOR problems with it runnin on my PC. I can load up through all the Intros, watch the movies, but when i begin a level, the game will run for a few minutes perfectly, then my WHOLE system freezes, COMPLETELY locks up. NO Blue screens, NO windows has encountered a problem messages etc, just the last UT screen, frozen on my Screen and the only way to restart my pc is by manually powering down. I'd been in contact with Midway support and dutifully went through the whole laborious process of downloading the latest drivers, applying patches, going into the Unreal game folder and modifying the INI files etc, all to have absolutely no effect. I'd own a Dell Vostro 400, its a dualcore E6550 (2x2.33gHz) with 2gb Ram, an Nvidia Geforce 8600gt video card and at the time of of first install it had Realtek audio, all well above the minimum syst requirements, so I deinstalled the game & put the game crashes down to the OS that had been previously installed. So to come up to date, last week i finally got around to Backing up my files so i could reformat with XP Pro, Service Pack 3, and reinstalled all my Music Apps with no probs.
I then decided to have another go at getting UT3 installed and working properly as i felt more comfortable doing so and would have a better shot.
So i installed this morning and am having EXACTLY the same problems. Except now, i'm not even able to play a full game through. The difference between then and now is that I have an M-Audio delta 1010LT soundcard, with all the latest drivers and the realtek one disabled.
I've tried booting with the -nosound extension on the shortcut, same problem. So I'm assuming form that that my soundcard is irrelevant to the problem.
I have gone through the INI fixes, disabled AL, got rid o fthe PhysX biz ness etc. I have spent my entire day going through threads and following ALL instructions, and have ended up here, slowly losing faith in Epic games, and having LOST all faith In Midway.
The reason i say that no one seems to have had the same problem as me is that i haven't had a single Blue screen message in regard to this, NO error messages, no windows has encountered a problem etc.
I LOVE UNREAL TOURNAMENT, have been obsessed since the Original incarnation, but this is SERIOUSLY doing my bloody head in.

[Phakt]

Also to add, I've updated all drivers for my video card and have also De-Installed AVG anti virus. Obviously CCleaned immediately after and rebooted before i attempted to run the game again.

[Visceral]

Remove ALL sound drivers from windows using the control panel. Don't just use the -nosound option. Give that a shot to see if the lock up is sound related. Make sure you've turned OFF the onboard sound in BIOS and that the soundcard is uninstalled via control panel. This would finally rule in or out if it's sound related (probably not). Other than that, I think there's just not much you can do about it other than trying another video card.

Edit: It's also possible it's memory related, but that usually gives you a blue screen.

[Haley[ACS]]

For the memory test - download a Ubuntu Linux Live CD, boot it and perform the Memory test. After that you'll know if it' s memory related.

IMHO you rather have a hardware issue here ...

[Phakt]

Hey, i SINCERELY appreciate you taking the time out to reply to my question, i really do, but it seems that the "bug" or whatever it is has defeated me and I'm just gonna uninstall the game, remove all traces of it from my system and just buy the **** thing in 360 format. I use my PC for Music (I'm a music producer, so i shouldn't really be attempting to use it for gaming anyways) and this whole 6 month long escapade has just got to the point where its making too many changes to the way my system operates, without actually sorting my experience out.
I, again, thankyou for taking the time out to help me and I won't be giving up on Unreal 3, i LOVE it TOO MUCH, just i never thought that runnin a game on a pc could be so **** difficult. There's a good reason why Microsoft made the Xbox, LOL.
Peace peeps.

[oldkawman1]

Hey, i SINCERELY appreciate you taking the time out to reply to my question, i really do, but it seems that the "bug" or whatever it is has defeated me and I'm just gonna uninstall the game, remove all traces of it from my system and just buy the **** thing in 360 format. I use my PC for Music (I'm a music producer, so i shouldn't really be attempting to use it for gaming anyways) and this whole 6 month long escapade has just got to the point where its making too many changes to the way my system operates, without actually sorting my experience out.
I, again, thankyou for taking the time out to help me and I won't be giving up on Unreal 3, i LOVE it TOO MUCH, just i never thought that runnin a game on a pc could be so **** difficult. There's a good reason why Microsoft made the Xbox, LOL.
Peace peeps.

You can try this. Buy a new hard drive, install the new drive, unplug your old one, install your windows on it and the game, nothing else. If this works, your old windows system was the problem. If this does not work, your hardware is at fault. You can always plug in your old drive and have a dual boot setup.

[Moo Cowliber]

what power supply???
You've got a pretty powerful system but what PSU do you have??

[Phakt]

Hey, came on and seen how much you guys are still trying to help me, i REALLY appreciate it. THing is, my Pc has been running all my other software fine, i got about ALOT of music software on it and i havent had a single problem with any of my DAWs or the software itself.
I ain't a hardcore PC gamer like you guys, i just wanted Unreal 3 on my PC as a natural break from HOURS of making beats, so to go through some of your suggestions seems like utter madness, LOL, given i've just gone through all this after a complete re-format. it'd mean Re-installing approximately 150 Music apps and programs just to find out that the game may not work anyhow.
just gonna bring me XBox into me studio, set up a lil TV to play it on, Voila! Unreal 3 in me studio.
I understand that i can't really hold Epic and Midway at fault over this, it must be so bloody hard to design a game that is gonna run on an Infinite amount of different machines and provide provision for any faults on ANY number of machines.
Again, i really appreciate you guys taking the time out to offer your suggestions, and once i'm all set up on the ol Xboxeroo, i look forward to having my *** kicked by you Elite.
Peace peeps.
DJ Phakt.

[Phakt]

Hey, came on and seen how much you guys are still trying to help me, i REALLY appreciate it. THing is, my Pc has been running all my other software fine, i got about ALOT of music software on it and i havent had a single problem with any of my DAWs or the software itself.
I ain't a hardcore PC gamer like you guys, i just wanted Unreal 3 on my PC as a natural break from HOURS of making beats, so to go through some of your suggestions seems like utter madness, LOL, given i've just gone through all this after a complete re-format. it'd mean Re-installing approximately 150 Music apps and programs just to find out that the game may not work anyhow.
just gonna bring me XBox into me studio, set up a lil TV to play it on, Voila! Unreal 3 in me studio.
I understand that i can't really hold Epic and Midway at fault over this, it must be so bloody hard to design a game that is gonna run on an Infinite amount of different machines and provide provision for any faults on ANY number of machines.
Again, i really appreciate you guys taking the time out to offer your suggestions, and once i'm all set up on the ol Xboxeroo, i look forward to having my *** kicked by you Elite.
Peace peeps.
DJ Phakt.