NFSPU and GeForce 3 problem

[John]

I have windows XP with AMD Athlon 1400 DDR and GeForce 3 card. I read all the messages on this board plus other boards regarding XP problems and solutions. I have tried everything but game still crashes. I wonder problem is my GeForce 3 card? Because I have windows 98 installed on other drive. I can't even start the game!!!
Is anybody else with GeForce 3 cards having same problem.
Thank you in advance.

[jtace]

Does it crash every time you load the game? only on certain tracks? Depending on the answer there are a few things to try...

[Alrik]

If you use a multiboot configuration for XP/98 chances are drivers and other things are leaking across...i had that problem myself so i'm strickly on XP now.

I have an AMD1333 and a geforce 3 so the setup seems pretty close.....only problem i'm having is that i can't alt-tab out of the game.

We'll try to help you out but first give us some more info to work by...display drivers ect ect are always uselfull to mention...further more what exactly hapens when it "crashes" and when doe sit happen?

[John]

Game loads perfectly and I choose quickrace on any track any car
and start the race. Race starts ok but during a lap computer reboots.
Sometimes only throws me back to windows but most of the time system just restarts.
I am not sure I am using multiboot configuration or not.

GeForce 3 Driver version: 5.1.2001.0

Thank you for your replies and help.

[[XR]SUE52]

Hi John

I use Windows XP with a GForce3 and had a few problems a little while back but touch wood all seems well now. The main fix seemed to be a change of drivers we went back a couple of revisions and I am now using version 6.13.10.2311 known as 23.11 XP complained about them not being QA qualified or something but if you force the install then all is ok.
My desktop setting is 1024x768 at 32 bit
Antiailiasing at 2X
Direct 3D settings are Enable Fog Table, 32 MB for PCI and best image quality, Vertical sync mode always off, render no more then 3 frames, Texel alignment at 3.

Open GL setting Vertical sync always off.

Set page file to 256MB (This is for 512MB of memory)

I run PU game resolution at 800x600 16 or 32 bit
Sky off
Headlamps to projection

I hope this helps and lok forward to seeing you online


[XR]SUE

[Alrik]

If i am not mistaking the drivers for your geforce are the standard drivers that come with winXP or not?

Updating them with the nvidia detonator drivers could help, i spend quite a lot of time testing various drivers for all sorts of things so also for the Vid card:D .
My biggest beef with the detonatorXP drivers is the fact that they have a "forced" maximum refreshrate of 60Hz, one could disable vertical sync but i almost always end up with poorer video quality.
The god thing though is that there is a program that lets you set the monitor to it's maximum refresh rates for every single resolution/color depth. The program is called NVrefreshfix and shoudl be easily found using a search engine like Google.

Now for the proper drivers: Nvidia recently released new "official" detonator drivers but the refreshrate fix doesn't work with it so i don't want that....the latest/best detonator drivers for winXP that are still compatible with the refreshfix are the 27.20 detonatorXP bbeta drivers. I have had no problems with any of the games i play (and they are plenty) so i would recommend those for other ppl at least to try them.
The correct drivers can be dowloaded here (http://www.3dchipset.com/drivers/beta/nvidia/series2xx.shtml) (just to save you the trouble of finding them i looked up the correct link :D ) Just click on the proper folder icon for the 27.20 drivers for winXP.

If ya need any help with installing those driver/program there should be a readme/helpfile...if not ya can always ask it here ;-).

That would at least give you good drivers/nice video quality so that should be the problem (anymore).

Now the part of your computer rebooting by itself sound to me like the pagefile is set wrong(memory leak?).
I have not expierienced this myself (mine is set to 768 minimum and 1500 maximum on a seperate partition and works great) but i have read quite a lot about the problem and it seems you''ll need to experiment with different pagefile setting or even turning it off to see if that helps.

Again if your not sure how to just ask (specific) questions and we'll keep trying to help :D )

Ow BTW the thing i wrote about the dets/refreshfix might be interesting for the rest of you incase ya didn't know about it yet....i especially liek the refreshratefix....vid quality improves dramatically!!

[[XR]SUE52]

Thanks for the tips Alrik, I couldn't find the 27:20 but 27:70 also seem to do the trick. Now to try that NVrefreshfix, although mine seems to be ok showing as 85 Hz.

Best wishes and happy Easter

Sue

[John]

Thank you very much everybody for the replies and help. Unfortunately after trying everything, I have to give up. I tried all different drivers and setups without luck. Computer restarts everytime during a race.
It is so annoying, because so many people playing the game without problem or solving the problem one way or the other.
Once again thank you all.

[Remko]

Sorry to hear that. =[ You say that you have windows 98 installed on another drive, did you try installing it there so that we know it's an XP-related issue?

The only other thing I can think of is to try and not have too many programs running in the background when you are playing the game, but I'd sooner expect the PC to lock up than what you described.
Just to make sure: it does happen on all tracks, right? Not just Normandie?

[John]

Yes I have tried to install to my other drive with win 98. I couldn't even start the game on that drive.
I don't run anything else in the background. I did't even try Normandie yet. I normally test on Cote D'Azur.
I think the proplem is somewhere in graphics card's settings?

[Alrik]

Can you tell us how you installed the 2 OS's? Cause i really get the idea that something went wrong there and that there is a leak between them at least driver wise that's causing the problem. I had that problem once and i think that was the only time my computer took the habbit of rebooting itself.

Did you install them on the same HDD/partition or different ones.....in which order did you install them and that sort of thing

[John]

I have installed XP first to one hard disk and then Win98 to other hard disk. I have 2 hard disks 40 GB each.

After you said it might be a leak between two operations systems. I have formatted both hard disks and reinstalled windows XP only.

I reinstalled the game with XP's original driver and while I was setting up options, computer reboot itself again!!!!!!!!!!!

[Alrik]

Damn that sound pretty serious, i really wish i could help but i think this is ove rmy head....i can just hope someone else is able to help you but on a clean install the same prob sounds like either i BIOS problem or hardware related....i'll check around with my m8's to see if they know anything that can help.....

PS: did ya try turning off the page file? it seems some ppl have trouble with it with winXP (not me)

[Alrik]

Hmm i just thought of this: this might be a good time to state your comp specs: CPU, memory, and that sort of thing...never too much info ya know....

[John]

AMD Athlon 1.40 Ghz, 512 Mb Ram, GeForce 3 Graph. card, on board sound, 2 40 GB hard disk.

And yes I turned page file off, tried 128, 256, 512 all combinations.

[John]

Sorry forgot: Gigabyte GA 7DX motherboard.
and thank you very much for your help.

[Alrik]

As far as i know the most common cause for such "auto" reboots is vid drivers but i assume you tried a number of different ones?

Oh well you di da fresh install of winXP right? so besides winXP which things did you install? one of them is bound to be the problem or it is BIOS/hardware.....so if you know exactly which drivers/programs you installed you can check them to see if one of them is causing the problems...

That's the thing with comp....ya gotta keep narrowing down the possible causes till ya find the prob....