Game Crashing

[Titus]

I'm having some pretty computer problems with mostly my games.

We got a new computer, P4 2.4ghz, GF4 MX440, 533 front bus, DVD/CD/Floppy Drives, Ethernet card (10/100mps). So with all that, none of the three+ games I play work.

Everquest does two different things, first when I get to the character select screen the computer freezes, Ctrl+alt+del does not work. So once I restart the computer and boot EQ back up, I can actually get into the game, but when I move around for like 5 seconds the WHOLE computer crashes... the unit reboots without warning, without errors.

Starcraft works relatively fine, however every other game it seems the thing just randomly crashes to the desktop and everything still works fine after that except for what is mentioned.
But now it has gotten even better! Whenever I'm at the Server selection screen it gives me a nice message Cannot Initiate Domain Server or something. Now I can't even enter b.net

And Morrowind, one the greatest RPG's (or so the box says), gets all funky with me. Everything runs fine until I enter the game and start playing. Then the Background turns green and some objects show up blinking (cargo nets and faces) but everything else goes away.

Any ideas as to why this is?

[pam123]

You sound like a guy with driver problems.
Where'd you get this computer at?

[Nuclear Krusader]

Hi there and welcome to the PC Mech forums! :)

What temps are you getting? Seems like an overheating problem to me.

[Titus]

Alright, the last couple of days we have been trying to get a hold of some drivers. After hours of searching we are finally totally updated on each and every driver (so I hope). We got a temperature reading tool and it does not go over 130ishF.

We got the computer who is mass making these types and as far as we know he's done a good job at making it. So with that being said, we are assuming the motherboard is working correctly (as it seems it is), but... we changed the Video Card out and put in a GF2. Everything was still the exact same, no changes in the performance at all. Then we put the GF4 back in and took the RAM and moved it to the other slot. When we did that, the computer did not even start up. So we changed it back to the original slot and it worked the same as before. At the moment, I'm trying to borrow a RAM stick from a friend (DDR) and see if his works on the comp. Do you guys think the RAM is the problem?

[Blakhart]

Ave, son of Flavius Vespasianus... (greetings, Titus, son of Vespasianus, patron of the Flavian line, imperator of the whole habitable earth...heh)
Have you tried a different driver, say one like the 3082? I would not use a 4xxx series driver on any gf2/mx card.
Also, some games (NOLF is one, America's Army is another) will not run without a dx8 agp card, no mx or gf2 class card is dx8, they are in actuality a dx7 only card. A gf4mx card is really a gf2, not anything like a gf4ti at all.
What os are you using?

[Titus]

Actually, my last name is Titus for your info. People (mostly guys) call me Titus all the time.:)

I did not know that GF2 or GF4MX does not run on DX8. However, EverQuest (I think this is true) requires that you use DX8.1. I remember when Luclin came out how I had to do a lot of things to the GF2 to get it going, I thought it was just the other components of the computer screwing up, not my video card.

[Blakhart]

They run on dx8 but are not dx8 compliant, meaning programable shaders and such. I do not know if that is the reason you are having game probs, you may try to ensure that the screen resolution is the same as desktop, and set the games to low details and so on to start.

Ave, Imperator!

[glc]

No reason for EQ not to run on a GF2 or a GF4 MX. It won't run *great* but it will run smoothly.

[shifty]

I have America's Army on one of my machines.The video card is a Radeon 7500,a 4x agp.Runs perfect.It's the demo though.Maybe the full version is different.

[shifty]

I didn't know there where games out that would only run on a 8x agp.Doesn't make any sense if you want to sell a lot of games.

[FantasySoul]

Hi Titus,
I think I've encounter the same situation before,the part Morrowind blinking or some graphic problem..
THis always happen when the AGP4X was enabled...and darn it almost all games uses D3D or OGL crashes about few minutes of play...Well this happen with my darn mobo.I don't know whether your board was having the same prob too..but try setting to AGP2X in BIOS for a test...:)
Just a suggestion:)

[Titus]

Whelp, we finally fixed it. Turned out as mentioned above, it was set on AGP4x, put it down to 2 and put in 2 sticks of 256 RAM... works like a charm now. Thanks for all the help, I need to check out this site more often now :D

[zlot]

i got this problem to but when i follow what the dude up there said to fix it i found a AGP8X enabled in bios insted of a AGP4X my cpusage to my comp go to 100 when playing counter-strike thats just a taste of a game it do it on and crash now and then
but not a day go pass when i go on everquest and in 2 - 10 mins it crash and some times it wont even crash it will restart by it self and some time i get bad 3d action on all of the games very bad


I have a AMD Althon 2500 512 DDR ram intergraided geforce4 mx 440 windows xp home edtion