video problem with Unreal Tourney GOTY

[dataDude]

I have a recently upgraded system to an Athlon64 with a Radeon 9700 128 and I've been trying to play Unreal Tournament GOTY using the graphics accelerator drivers for that card. When I put the settings at 32 bit video and custom resolution for the window with the card-specific drivers, I'll start the game and all I can do is move in a single direction and suddenly the game is stuck in that direction and the system freezes like that, forcing me to manual reboot the PC. The action in the game is still going on, I can still be killed and everything, but Windows will not accept any more input. The only ways I can play the game is by using UT software drivers with 32-bit vid or by using hardware acceleration at 16-bit (both methods slow down gameplay and cut down the graphic quality). Can anyone provide any good answer to this?

System specs:
Athlon64 3200
1.5 GB RAM
120 GB HDD
Chaintech mobo

[Snod Blatter]

Have you tried both Direct3D and OpenGL modes?

[dataDude]

Direct3D yes (it's default and is the driver that's involved in the problem), and OpenGL yes (I just now tried it), and OpenGL just froze the system faster than Direct3D. Any other ideas?

By the way, when this first happened I figured there may be some kind of corruption in the video drivers, so I tried reinstalling the cg accelerator driver and tried reinstalling UT. Still no go. Before I upgraded the system, everything worked fine, but I was using a regular Athlon XP proc & mobo.

[Snod Blatter]

Have you tried older drivers? (Assuming you're using brand new ones right now)

[RazorDX]

Are you using ATI's drivers or the card manufacturer's drivers?

[dataDude]

I don't understand why I would need to get older drivers when I'm using a newer motherboard and I've been using the same drivers with this newer system setup as I did with the older system.

The drivers themselves I've been forced to download from ATI's web site. Whenever I use the CD I got with the device, I always get a corruption error (bad CD).

[Snod Blatter]

Older drivers may be more optimised for your card... The newer ones get optimised for the newest cards (like X800's and such) and this can sometimes introduce bugs for older cards and often significantly kills performance of older cards, too.

Hmm what else... How about having a go with this?

[dataDude]

Wow, the site that that link leads to discusses a bunch things I'm not familiar with and I'm not sure that I should be messing around with such deep settings when I'm not even sure what the exact cause of my problem is. I'm really not sure if my video card could be considered "old". I know you said "older", but like I said, with my older system (I kept the video card for both systems) I had no problems with the game and found the whole experience quickly addicting. The only thing that has truly changed between back then and now are different proc and mobo... maybe the different chipset or chipset software could be causing it?

Oh, one other thing is that before I upgraded, I put my PC settings and programs in just the way I like them and then I backed that system's settings and programs up to my server using Windows XP's built-in utility. I never did update the newer system to match with anything in the new system (though I did make sure not to install "system-specific" drivers on it before doing so, to make it more compatible with other systems I might load it on in the future). I'm curious to know if that could be part of the issue too.

[dataDude]

Just now I tried lowering the framerate by 3 and this time the game continued for about 5 minutes before the system froze up. Does that help at all?

[Snod Blatter]

Originally Posted by dataDude Just now I tried lowering the framerate by 3 and this time the game continued for about 5 minutes before the system froze up. Does that help at all?

Lowering the framerate? I don't understand. Do you mean the "Keep framerate above such ans such" option? (I can't remember the exact wording). If so, that should be set to 0.

I hate to say it, but your card is quite old... it's still a damn fine piece of kit, and its about twice as fast as my Ti4200, but it is considered old. I have no idea what the best drivers are for the 9700 though... If I knew, I'd tell you

Just to make sure, you have got the latest chipset drivers, right?

[dataDude]

Sorry, I had neglected to mention that the default framerate I had been using was 28. When using 28, the video would crash within about 10-20 seconds of play. When I lowered the framerate I got an extra 5 minutes outta the game.

I'm pretty sure the motherboard drivers are new. The motherboard is only about a couple of months old and I had received the driver CD with it.

Wouldn't your video card work with UT GOTY, even though it's considered old?

(By the way, by UT video software, I meant the "Software Rendering" option where it says it's compatible with all video cards.)

[fudtone]

Are you over clocking? It sounds like faulty hardware of some sort.

[Snod Blatter]

Originally Posted by dataDude Sorry, I had neglected to mention that the default framerate I had been using was 28. When using 28, the video would crash within about 10-20 seconds of play. When I lowered the framerate I got an extra 5 minutes outta the game. I'm pretty sure the motherboard drivers are new. The motherboard is only about a couple of months old and I had received the driver CD with it. Wouldn't your video card work with UT GOTY, even though it's considered old? (By the way, by UT video software, I meant the "Software Rendering" option where it says it's compatible with all video cards.)

Yes, my card works wonderfully, but I'm also using ancient 42.30a detonator drivers with it.

I personally don't play UT on that card though... I use my VooDoo2's and play it in Glide.

I'm not having a go at you for running an old card... it's newer than pretty much anything I own... I just think you may benefit from some drivers that are optimised for your card and not an X800 or whatever.

This is a weird problem though... what about if you run it in 9x compatibility mode (assuming you run XP)?

[dataDude]

No, I'm not overclocking. I usually don't even like to overclock anything on my PC.

I think the main problem may be with the chipset. The video drivers I downloaded from ATI specifically mentioned this video card. I'm still working things out though. Somewhere, there's bound to be an answer.