Crash on splash screen; kernel32.dll

[FuzionInfinity]

Well, I'm experiencing a crash at the splash screen since the new patch that was released. I may have been experiencing it earlier, but I had stopped playing the game some time ago. It however did work, completely smoothly with no error when I was trying it, probably 3 or 4 months ago - until I finally gave it another try today. When the game begins to start, it hangs at the splash screen for a few moments, then I get an error that looks like this :





I have reproduced the error 15 times now by simply attempting to start the game. I searched around without avail to a solution to this problem, it was mentioned on here a few times but it was mostly for the demo, and the fixes suggested failed to work. (Something about changing a setting in an *.ini file, which I changed, tried, failed, changed back, and failed again.)

I'm trying to run the game (According to the *.ini file) at 1680x1050.

My system Specs:

(2x) Nvidia 8800 GT
AMD Athalon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
3 Gigabytes of RAM (although it only uses 2.5 or 2.8, as I'm on a 32 bit operating system)
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music Sound Card

My video drivers are the latest as of today (4/7/2009), my directX Dirvers are the latest as of today, and my sound card drives are latest as of today, and my BIOS are fully updated aswell. I basically ran down the whole list of everything I could possibly update, and updated it.

I've tried running the game through both Steam and just through windows, the game crashes with a clean vanilla installation, and a patched version.

I'm not sure if we're already aware of this problem, or a solution has already been found..or if no one even knows about it.. so.. That's why I'm posting this up, in hopes that my problem can be solved and I can start playing with my buddies again.

[Nawrot]

Delete (or backup somewhere) UT3 ini files, let game create fresh ones, see if you have same crash. Set all nvidia fancy stuff to minimal.

If it still crashes, try to swap memory modules, before doing so remove tshirt and touch some metal pipe to remove static charges from your body. And unplug computer , not for your safety but in case of electrical potential difference.

IF that ini and swappping do not work. Check cpu temperature, and other things like that. Go back to old driver that worked with game.

But i an betting on one of 2 things: some settings in ini or in nvidia driver make game crash, so reset both to default.

or hardware is faulty

[FuzionInfinity]

Delete (or backup somewhere) UT3 ini files, let game create fresh ones, see if you have same crash. Set all nvidia fancy stuff to minimal.

If it still crashes, try to swap memory modules, before doing so remove tshirt and touch some metal pipe to remove static charges from your body. And unplug computer , not for your safety but in case of electrical potential difference.

IF that ini and swappping do not work. Check cpu temperature, and other things like that. Go back to old driver that worked with game.

But i an betting on one of 2 things: some settings in ini or in nvidia driver make game crash, so reset both to default.

or hardware is faulty

I had already tried deleting the entire UT folder and letting it recreate already, so we can strike that off the list of possibilities.

My CPU temperature holds steady at 38-46 Degrees Celsius in games like Crysis, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 4, no clue for UT3, as I can't get past the splash screen

What do you mean.. Fancy Nvidia stuff? :S

Can you elaborate in swapping memory modules? Like changing the slots they're in? Because I'm using all my memory slots, there's nowhere I can move them.


I sincerely doubt (well, mostly hope) that my hardware isn't faulty, i don't see why i'd be able to play any other games at all if the hardware was bad. But I'm not a huge computer expert either.

I'm going to try rolling back my drivers and I'll tell you what happens.

[FuzionInfinity]

Okay, well I tried using the following drivers (all without sucess)

175.19 WHQL
178.13 WHQL
174.74 Beta
175.16 WHQL
180.48 WHQL
182.50 WHQL

I couldn't find any older drivers in my downloads on my system, and I couldn't find a proper archive of drivers on the internet. If anyone could point me to some even older drivers for me to download and try, that would be appreciated.

On a side note, I went and installed some of my other games using the same engine as UT3.. The uh, What, Unreal 3 Engine?

I tried out Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, which started, and played smoothly, I played for about 45 minutes with no hang ups, or crashes of any sort.. and I also tried out Bioshock with a similar experience. Not sure if that'll help with the investigation for the solution or not.

[FuzionInfinity]

Well, I fixed it. :-|

I went and installed the latest drivers from Tweakforce.com, rebooted, and it started working.. *scratches head*

Thanks tweakforce!

>_>