GTA San Andreas PC-version, extremely buggy and crash-happy [Archive]

Frank N. O.

06-24-2005, 04:20 PM

Am I the only one with this problem?
I'm really sick atm, and couldn't sleep so I played onwards and then, again, when saving first the mouse-pointer didn't work so I used the keys then when it said game saved OK to continue, it froze and I had to press reset, again. XP made a disc-check and said some allocationstring was too long so it had been shortend, and the name was in the C:/Documents and ........something/something/......../something/GTA folder and it was the number save I had. And then when it finished loading and I started it again, the saved game was not listed. I've lost hours of play and some very frustrating missions. Before that, the sound has been scrambled. The voices weren't played when the should (I have the subtitles on so I could see it), some times the sound-effects on the voices were different (like in a cave or sound-proof room or something, appearently the game has a live sound-equalizer or something and it changes the samples live), vehicle sounds disappeared, slight graphical glitch seen once in the game as well.

I'm really beginning to be tired of this. Vice City was just like this after I updated my XP SP1 upgrade (from 98) to SP2 and while I dislike violence I can ignore it since it's just a game, luckily I can tell the difference, and the driving and listening to music was awesome, after all I'm a child of the 80's so it was cool in Vice City :cool:

I've also noticed that several other programs don't run well before I close them down completely and restart them. And installing new hardware like a HP 3-in-1 unit was horrible because XP insists on install everything itself and using their own import programs, like for scans and import of pictures from a digital camera. Btw Vice City has something that XP thinks is a hardware insall so every single time I start up, it comes with: install new hardware, search for drivers? And of course two big yellow questionmarks in the system-list. And I still can't start my new made saves in Vice City but the old ones still work.

For the record I started with an AMiga 500 in 1989 and that thing worked well, it's like with cars, things are getting too darn complex despite the goal allegedly is to make things simpler, and in life they oversimplify things that for the sake of people is actually complicated and requires more specific attention.

Ok this has turned out to be a little of rant but I think there are some questions in there. Not quite sure, as said I'm sick and in pain and now the one thing that could help remove focus on it is not working. Lotus Challenge made in 2003 is another thing, and no problems worked there because it's after the game starts to boot up, and XP never allows it to go that far and my brother has a full install XP SP2 DK and it works on there, nuts.
Btw, I can't search GTA forums since I have problems reaching several sites including GTAForums or whatever it's called, and besides I'm not at all involved with the GTA community so I don't know where to start besides where I searched already with no result.

Frank

Oh yeah, the list:
Windows XP SP1 2002-edition DK upgrade from Windows 98 (1998-version) internet updated to SP2.
Running ZoneAlarm firewall and AVG AntiVirus freeware-versions.
Intel P4 3.0GHz LGA775, 800MHz FSB, in-a-box with cooler
Asus P5P800 mb, 800MHz FSB
2x512MB Kingston RAM Selected and set to dual-mode enabling 1GB of 800MHZ FSB
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 Pro Ultimate Edition 128mb AGPx8 (pipe cooled)
Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
Chill 510W ultra-silent high-power PSU with large single fan
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 tower with 12mm exhuast fan underneat the PSU and 8mm intake fan on the lower front.
Seagate Barracude hdd 80gb (not S-ATA, probably E-IDE maybe?)
Asus DVD-ROM
Pioneer Slot-In 36x CD-ROM (from 1998)
No floppy
Philips 107S 17" CRT monitor
Genius keyboard with shortcuts
Logitech optical corded mouse, plugged into the PS2-port.

06-24-2005, 08:18 PM

Becuase you'e updated to SP2, that will disrupt everything, any service pack upgrade is recommeneded to be done on a fresh install as it has a tendancy to stuff everything up....

I never had a problem with VC myself, even with my old GF2 MX400 card, with this new 9700Pro I'll def be able to play the game, so that isn't the major problem.

Hope you get better soon though Frank!

FeZ

06-24-2005, 11:24 PM

Hey Frank

I have no clue what your problem might be, maybe some dodgy hardware.

I have no problem with mousepointer or savegames in SA. I had no such problem with VC even after upgrading to XP SP2.

Only bug I can confirm is the soundeffect (not the radio) sometimes disapearing. Usually when it is raining and night. I checked gtaforums (which works fine for me) and people with an older SB Live seem to have that problem and preassuring Rockstar for a patch.

Oh and my Sidewinder wheel still does not work as it does not recognice the pedals, same problem as in GTA3 and VC.

Other than that the game is fantastic and so "politically incorrect" )=)

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 03:25 AM

Thanks for the quick and helpful replies guys :) And btw My headache is in idle atm and I'm not coughing much atm, but it's far from over though.

VQ, I reinstalled XP on a formated C-drive just 1 month ago and updated completely, after installing the latest anti-virus and firewall installations I downloaded before formatting the drive and only after that did I install the games and such.

Frank: Yeah, I can't use my wheels or other analogue units either :( The DFP wheel is working ok though, however the brake-pedal assembly sounds to have developed a problem.

With this, and the Lotus Challenge situation I'm beginning to wonder if the XP upgrade from Windows 98 is at all a good thing. I can buy a OEM full install Windows XP Home Edition DK SP2 with a cheap piece of hardware or such so I can get it cheap and I'm wondering if I should do it. Btw do you think it would be a problem to get a UK/US version instead of a DK version when I prefer english computer language and just need danish keyboard setting?

Another thing I'm wondering is if my relatively old Radeon 9600 should be replaced with a nVidia card instead? It sounds like it's more compatible, as long as I can find a AGPx8 version instead of PCI-E. Does anyone know what nVidia graphics-card is comparable with my 128mb Radeon 9600 Pro Ultimate Edition?

Btw my Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit was brand-new just arrived on the market when I bought it together with the CPU, MB, RAM and PSU so that's strange. The PC apart from the graphicscard was bought october 21st 2004 so I can't see how it can be considered old, unless you mean the other Live! cards before the 24-bit version.

Would it be a thing to get a S-ATA hdd instead of the std. ATA I have hdd as well? Could that be the problem in terms of data-transfer now there's such a big use of a virtual memory on PC's. And would a Western Digital Raptor 10K RPM hdd be better than the 7200 RPM Seagate S-ATA one?

Greetings
Frank

06-25-2005, 04:40 AM

Don't upgrade your card yet Frank, you knwo you can dual boot 98 and XP-Pro, but you need to install 98 first, it works well, so when you want to play games you run 98, and when you want Xp you run that, and have a shared drive (so partition the hdd into say, 10gb for 98, 15gb for software for XP and then the rest being another partition to install the games into which would be shared and other files.)

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 04:46 AM

Dual-boot won't work for me for several reasons, two good ones being: My 98 games won't accept my graphicscard and soundcard etc. and I can't re-partion the drive since I lost my CD-burner last year so I can't back-up the gigabytes of game add-ons and car-videos. I just formatted the C-drive that's it. I got almost all parts of my first IBM-type PC from 1998 so it'll be re-assembled next month with either the Matrox G100/Voodoo2 card-combo or the later GeForce 2 MX AGPx1 card which the old 98 games like a lot better than the Radeon and the 24-bit sound-card.

Frank

FeZ

06-25-2005, 05:48 AM

Hello again,

I was suspecting "older" SB Live cards as I also have that problem on a very old one and people reporting that same errors on gtaforums also always mentioned old SB live cards. So if yours is new then its a general SB Live issue and should be easily fixed by Rockstar.

If I were you I would not replace the Radeon ATM. The 9600 should be able to run GTA SA at full details without much troubles, or am I wrong. Dont be fooled by the "Build for Nvidia" logo at the startup, thats just marketing BS. I have seen at many games, and all run as good (or bad) on ATI.

I also would not upgrade the harddrive just for more speed. I run the game on a ~5 year old and compared with todays drives rather slow 12ms drive and I dont think a faster harddrive will boost your games much. Or are you saying that your system is constantly swapping to the harddrive ? Then there may be some other problem all together.

So if I understand you right you have just an Upgrade XP version ? So when doing a fresh install you do install Win98 first and then run the Upgrade to XP.
Should not really be a problem, but IIRC you can do a clean install from the Upgrade CD without installing 98 first.

Oh and another thing. In GTA3 and VC whenever you would cross over to a new part of the map it would pause for some seconds to load the new part of the map which was quite annoying. In SA it does not do that even with a map that must be at least twice as big as VC was. ATM I am doing the car export mission and driving all over that huge map to find all that cars &(

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 06:03 AM

Well It wasn't just the buildt for-logo, but also the graphical glitches I get in several games despite all those effects and shader versions listed. For instance with trees in several games made with transparency I get a transparent section of the solid model behind it, as I did in VC as well I think but also there must be other problems too.

Yes I thought I re-installed from the upgrade too, and then inserted the Windows 98 during the install but this time I couldn't get the cd to boot so I did a minimal 98 install and directly upgraded to xp without installing any programs or new drivers. But if it works then why am I having all these problems like no-one else is having?? For running WinAmp or Yahoo Messenger in the background? Or the Asus Probe checking the temperatures, or the creative volume thing I can't seem to switch off from the load-list? I haven't had these problems with other programs.

And if there's nothing wrong with the upgrade then why can my brother run Lotus Challenge on a older PC with a new full install XP Home DK SP2 and I can't? It's not that old a game and it gets cancelled by XP as soon as I touch the icon, absolutely nothing like this is mentioned on the bug-lists on any sites. And no-one else has the big problems with VC loads mentioned above either, and a 3GHz computer that lags in FS2004 is nuts, especially since it didn't get more laggy when I switched from low-res clouds to full high-quality 3D clouds. That tells me something isn't working right. On earlier computers I've had low fps, but still smoothness. Now I have 2-3x the fps, but it's choppy and sometimes skips forward in time as if something was blocking it and then it sped up to catch up.

Why doesn't anything work reliable anymore?

Frank

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 06:13 AM

I've taken a screengrab of the processes runing atm in XP. I have a download of the McLaren F1 F1C mod running, or more likely frozen, and WinAmp running, as well as Asus Probe, Creative something, MS messenger for some reason since I don't have it installed, maybe it's for the email, and inactive Yahoo Messenger + AVG Anti-virus and Zone Alarm firewall. Are there any other things there I can switch off, or that I should switch off before installing and/or running a game

Hmmm, why the heck does the cursor skip a line now? I can't get anything to sit under the former line no matter what I try. And why doesn't my delete key work here anymore again? This is getting nuts!! Why the heck are things breaking down in front of my eyes??? 2 things, normal life. 5 things, ok. But I'm in the double digits now, and it's primary things. With my luck it's probably "just" something in the new forum software settings window I've overlooked I didn't understand the name of. All these functions, meant to be easier but me with 16+ years of computer use experience don't get them.

Frank

Chaul

06-25-2005, 06:55 AM

You may try and identify the processes here for example:

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

What caught my eye was CTSVCCDA.EXE - "With modern CD-ROM drives (36-speed and above) this task is of no use to any system, so we recommend you disable it...". "If you have just upgraded from Win9x/ME to Windows 2000/XP, this task (converted to a service during the upgrade) will give you endless error messages."

From my own experience my system got extremely crash happy a month after installation when the AGP video card had somehow lift off the socket. It was just hanging by one corner. Miraculous, I could still get it to boot, lol. But it would crash as soon as I tried to run, say, the media player. I fixed that and now the system is rock solid.

What I think.. it could be a driver problem or some other software problem. It might also be a good idea to scan the hard drive for viruses and defrag. Or try reinstalling some of the drivers. (yes, the usual response to hardware/software problems...)

I have the same hard drive as you but with SATA connectors, no serious problems there yet. But with the occasional crashes, the BSOD takes forever to clear because it writes an image of the 1GB RAM state to the hard drive..

Tuukka

Chaul

06-25-2005, 07:10 AM

I should add that I don't have the game but I didn't think it was this particular games fault.. but who knows. The problem with PCs is that the games have to scale to a wide range of performance levels and with certain hardware and software combinations there will be problems..

Current SATA drives don't give much of an edge over ATA drives and you might still have to get two converters. One for the serial connector and one for power if your PSU does not have a SATA connector. I don't think it's worth it right now.

FeZ

06-25-2005, 07:54 AM

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 07:58 AM

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I tried restarting from Grove street, the 3rd save I had where the 4th was ruined by XP. I closed WinAmp, the CD process and two processes starting with HP which very well could be HP 3-in-1 software that I don't need running in the background until I use the unit. The first mission in the Whetlands went ok but as you can see on the attached screenshot then things are very black. I already have brightness in the game settings on full but it didn't make much difference. When it's night in SA I need to set the old monitor on full 100% burn and I don't like that. Does anyone know if a flat-screen monitor with a high contrast and light rating could be more sharper? To add to this I've noticed that after viewing a DVD Movie on my tv then I need to increase brightness and contrast on the PC monitor just to get close to what I can see on the tv. I just checked the reciept, the monitor was bought december 6th year 2000 so it's a bit on the old side.

Edit: Oops, I pulled another Ryan. The screenshot.

Frank

chris

06-25-2005, 08:05 AM

Thats alot of tasks you have running.

You can also check
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

to get some more details what that processes are.

I know I used Asusprobe before but I dont remember if I removed it because of some trouble it gave me or because it is rather useless.

Another idea, could it be that your system/videocard is running hot ?
I just "repaired" my wifes system by cleaning half a kg of fluff out of the various system fans :eek:

I have even more tasks running than Frank N.O. :eek: The idea of cleaning the fans is a good idea. I had to replace the ones in the front of my case recently, they were too old, and basically stuffed. Replaced with 2 Sunon 80mm Maglev fans. Also cleaned out the dust from the power supply, and other fans (er, we need a coughing emoticon).

One other thing to do, is if your graphics card allows it, you might be able to adjust the gamma correction from within the driver software.

IMO, flat-panel LCD displays are not worth their added expense. A quality CRT will likely be the same price (or cheaper maybe), and should give superior performance.

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 08:11 AM

Ok better start a new post since Fez posted inbetween the former post and edit.

To save upload space I'll type over the AsusProbe results now
CPU Tempreature = 48C / 118F
MB Temperature = 40C / 104F
CPU Fan = 3479
+12V = 12,091
+5V = 5,248
+3,3V = 3,328
VCore = 1,4
Regarding a loose card then I don't know about that since I haven't checked it, nor am I skilled enough to do that proporly but my brother is comming over to my birthday and he can check it since he's really good at such electronic details.

Yes I think it's a lot of processes too, but I don't know how to disable the ones I don't need, such as the MS program that notes how many times I use a program or when I haven't used it for a while and colours the name yellow in the start-menu :rolleyes:

I'll take a look at that site for each name and see what I can find. Hopefully there's something about removing them from the start as well. It used to be in one of the cfg-files but I'm sure they've changed that and buried it somewhere deep down in the Documents and settings files. I still don't understand why there are 3-4 user-files when I'm the only user on the computer. Waste of space and energy.

Frank

Chaul

06-25-2005, 08:15 AM

I believe the ATI drivers have a gamma setting somewhere in there. You could try that if it works for you.. I found something about color profiles here:

http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_5.html

But that I don't know anything about because I have not had big problems with brightness in the games I play... And the monitor was bought some time during the last Millenia. ^_^

I have 55 processes running after reboot, eheh. :help:

The prices of LCD displays should be coming down soon and the technology is still developing in leaps.

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 10:06 AM

I tried the program settings but they didn't work in the game, just windows :(

I can't see anything even in the daytime when I drive into shadows.

Frank

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 10:13 AM

Hmm, this is stupid, now I can't edit my own message since the typing window doesn't show the cursor :(

I wanted to add that I looked at CRT monitors and found a 19" Philips with anti-glare, high contrast filter and other stuff that can run 1280x1024 @ 85Hz vs the 60 of this 17" 107S, and it can go much higher than 1280 too, unlike this one. Another one was a Samsung SyncMaster, both with around 0.20/0.21mm dot pitch and a low price of around 1500 DKK (a normal game here costs around 350-400 DKK for comparisom since the USD's value is skyrocketing now over the Euro to which the DKK is locked to so that would be hard to compare with).

I'll try to check for IE updates and clear out all cookies, both automatically and then manually to make sure it's not that giving the IE typing problems. First off I'll try to look at the forum user panel settings as well.

Frank

Smokey!

06-25-2005, 11:24 AM

I know whats wrong with the sound. Its the eax file which are a very new (beta) version. In order to solve a lot of problems you should replace it with the 3.0.6.6 version (attached). Place it in your GTA SA folder. It might also be a good idea to visit www.gtaforums.com.

Frank N. O.

06-25-2005, 11:41 AM

Ah right, there was one thing I'd forgotten, the sound settings. I've heard EAX several places but don't know what I should choose, also since I use std. headphones (well not std., Sennheiser HD500) instead of surround-sound speakers in the std. output plug (light green on this card, second from the right).

I'll try the new drivers, thank you very much Smokey :) This is one of the good things about RacerPlanet, it shows the good sides to bringing different people together, this way you have several oppinions and experiences that gives a much greater chance of success :)

Well the GTA forum seems up atm so I'll take a look, and then in the sound settings. I wonder if I should call up TDC (my ISP) and ask just how good their connection is working atm since I really don't think it's as good as the old cable-tv one, and that was just half the speed.

Btw the old dll was 184kb and was dated january 6th 2004. I'll try the next few missions to come back to my original progress and try to tell what was changed.

Greetings
Frank

FeZ

06-25-2005, 12:51 PM

Thanks for that file Smokey, gonna try it now.

Frank you can set the Game Gamma in the ATI driver, but it is a bit complicated.

1. You need the driver with the old Control Panel and not the new flashy Control Center. The settings are there in that Control Center but they dont work as they should. Also that Contol Center seems like some resource hog (at least it was when I tried it).

2.
http://mitglied.lycos.de/xrfez/Pics/pic_01.jpg

Not sure if the settings you select here are actually required, but click the "Hotkeys" button

3.
http://mitglied.lycos.de/xrfez/Pics/pic_02.jpg

Then select the combinations of buttons for increase gamma and brightness or whatever you like. Be aware that ALT-F1 & ALT-F2 may not be the best choices for GTA as these buttons trigger the replay.
Most importantly untick the "disable hotkeys" thingie.

Now you can increase these parameters from within your games.

Believe me it works I use(d) it for PU, WR and also for GTA SA as my monitor is also very dark.

EDIT: Why the heck is the [IMG] tags turned off now :confused:

Smokey!

06-25-2005, 01:14 PM

Some people have also had improvements to their sound by selecting "headspeakers" in their windows setup, but the eax file solved my problems :) .

Justin Martin

06-25-2005, 02:08 PM

Btw do you think it would be a problem to get a UK/US version instead of a DK version when I prefer english computer language and just need danish keyboard setting?

That shouldn't be a problem, my US copy of XP has a Danish keyboard layout listed in the keyboard settings. I use an English keyboard, of course, but I have Windows set so I can toggle between English and Spanish keyboard layouts.

06-25-2005, 04:41 PM

Running MP3 programs while playing games is never good, that's why GTA has the option to use your own MP3 radiostation, you just place shortucts of the music you want to listen to in the folder and it plays em.

Frank N. O.

06-26-2005, 01:19 AM

Justin: Thank you very much for that info, that's good to know. Since my first several computers had english menus only (Amigas only had window-style GUI and no dos-screens like Windows) then it's more natural for me to work with a computer with english menus. I just need the danish keyboard to write æøå and have my usual position of the special characters. Furthermore most programs have english language files so it would fit better I think.

VQ: Actually I listen to internet-radio, comedy-stations like Nbox Comedy or Khaha.com or Defcon Radio usually. It's what keeps my spirits up usually, although only the stand-up, I dislike the stupid shows like Michael Groff, Sunday Services with Rick and Spencer and the prank calls and such.

Smokey! I'll try it, thanks.

Fez: I'll try looking again at the menus, thanks. However I've noticed a strange graphics-bug getting bigger now. The shadows are so dark they almost make the road-polygons disappear. When you get near they go from pitch-black and then flicker and then you get the texture. The shadows in the graphics-engine are not very practically made. The difference between light and shadow-areas even in daylight is extreme and exagerated grossly.

Btw, today I'm again feeling a little better than last day so after the horrible friday giving the all-time low from the start of my illness last saturday I'm hopefully on the way back to normal health for me. I really hope so also for my mom needs to get to the doctor on the mainland tuesday and we need food and such. I also need to get to the bank to try and get that money transfer figured out for those Shields glasses since looking around again showed no suitable glasses in the shops.

Frank

FeZ

06-26-2005, 01:50 AM

Just found that SA performance review.

http://www.tcmagazine.net/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=154

Its just amazing how strong the old ATI 9800 is still going compared to the ultra expensive new cards. Oh yeah and "Build for Nvidia" my azz :p

Frank N. O.

06-26-2005, 02:17 AM

Wow, not bad. It seems that at least in this selection the nVidias can't compete with the ATI cards. Btw, the keyboard hotkeys worked but the roads and other dark places are still black until you get near them. One thing though, in the test it said Mip Mapping on, is it just me or shouldn't that be off for maximum image quality? I do that in FS at least since it blurs up the textures and thereby looses sharpness.

Oh darn, now the delete key and enter to get new line doesn't work again and I already cleared out all cookies from last time.

Greetings

Frank

chris

06-26-2005, 03:09 AM

Mip Mapping improves performance, reduces visual quality.

Frank N. O.

06-26-2005, 05:12 AM

Thanks Chris, that's what I thought too, but after reading the GPU test with all settings on high but mipmap on I got unsure.

Well after arriving in San Fierro again, finally, I took a ride on a 600cc bike and in rain-storm that was so strong I had problems seeing anything but classic tv-snow on the screen the sound went again :(

It hasn't crashed yet, but I'll do a manual copy of the savegames in the documents folder and just hope they are the only needed save files.

Using the hotkeys for the 3D the colours are now washed out and I think I know why the road-sections and other planes are black, it's the graphics-engine that's just made to be that dark so probably not a driver-fault :(

Anyway I did enjoy some of it (btw in case you're wondering about the line-spaces, yes my enter and delete keys again don't work here, for some reason. I did look thrue the forum profile settings but didn't find anything I could identify to cause this problem, especially when it some times hasn't been here). Some of the things in SA I love is mainly the music, such as a long forgotten classic like L7 "Pretend We're Dead" and classic Ozzy and other rock tunes :HB:
Ok this is funny, as you can see now after clicking the smilies windows in the WYSIWYG reply-window now both enter and delete work again. That reminds me that one thing I did forget to check was IE updates. I'll do that now, just in case.

It's in a map like this I'd love to have a online rpg/adventure-game without the violence and shooting, but at least I can abstract from this now I don't have anything better.

Greetings
Frank

06-26-2005, 08:16 AM

People do multigta on 3 and VC, there is ones with just stunt's it's awsome fun!

Read that comparison, my card is faster in benchmarks then a 9800 in everything so that means I have a very good chance of GTA SA working well.

And that would definetly lag the computer, running an audio strem...

Frank N. O.

06-26-2005, 10:18 AM

Oh yeah right, I actually did play MTA VC with some of the guys from here. The new SA MTA video looks like they are clearly making progress there too.

Too bad, the game crashed again. Luckily no game was lost this time since I was quitting since I fell of a cliff but then it froze in the menu.

I'm now at the first model-flying mission (fixed wing). 1 question: Has the programmer of that physics-model ever been closer to real flying than Blue Max on the Commodore 64? Even a Airbus 380 reacts more precisely than this thing and this is a small plane, really small, like barely 1 meter wingspan. And when you have use W to keep the throttle up, how do you comfortably push left control to fire? And you have steer up and down with the arrow keys. If I had this on a joystick then I could handle it, but of course I can't figure out a way to configure it, in fact it looks like no analogue control is possible. Bummer.

Frank

LuC!FeR

06-26-2005, 02:02 PM

GTA:SA is not a sim... the planes fly with some realism, just like the cars drive with some realism ;). comparing/imagining that GTA:SA is something like M$ flight sim is not an option as it's like comparing outrun to F1C 99-02 or GTR :).

Secondly, a lot of people seem to be suffering the crashing problems with the PC version of SA. They will get fixed eventually... As for your control issues, I would recomend buying a PS2 controller and a USB adapter as SA & Vice city support them and TBH, they were the controller that the game was designed around in the begining. Then you won't have a problem with flying and driving etc. I used to switch between mouse control for running around and PS controller for everything else :)

Frank N. O.

06-26-2005, 02:12 PM

I know it's not a sim, but with those keycombos and the way you have to use them it's like trying to drive a car by accelerating with the center pedal, braking with the right pedal and changing gears with the steeringwheel for me. Did I mention this plane can reverse!?
Actually the helicopters in Vice City were excellent (after I moved the controls that is). No idea yet how these fly. The game now freesez the character (first Woozie mission) so I'm loading up the GTAForums to check it out.

Speaking of joypads, is there a converter for a XBox controller instead? I tried the PS2 controller when looking for a game console and the controller for the Xbox was part of the reason I chose that instead of the PS2.

Frank

LuC!FeR

06-26-2005, 02:36 PM

probably is one for the Xbox controller, must admit, not looked though. Hehe, I know the planes will reverse on the ground... I've yet to see one fly backwards though. but seeing as you can't tow the planes with anything, I guess you have to do the logical thing and let them reverse on the ground :).

Oh, and something I love about GTA:SA... you can hook up tractor units and trailers again... hours of fun :)

06-26-2005, 06:38 PM

I managedto get a PS2 style joypad for PC, with force feedback and all, it's a good controller.

Awsome, semi-trailers here I come!

Perzonally I use W,A,S,D for the movement of the people instead of forward left right back, and I use the keypad for the helicoptor/Airplane controls, it works alright.

FeZ

06-27-2005, 01:39 AM

@ Smokey: That eax.dll fixed my soundproblems, played for some hours without the soundeffects muting -^

@ Frank: I was wondering what driver for your soundcard you use ?
I use the one from soundblaster.com and not the Windows default, maybe that has something to do with your ongoing problems.

Even I who hates the flying missions in GTA managed to do them (so far :D ) Its all about changing your controller settings before entering a plane Which is a bit of a pain, would be better if it would have separate controller setup for planes and not just vehicles in general.

Frank N. O.

06-27-2005, 10:37 AM

I now found out something from the GTA forum and it seems to be my problem too. The rain is when the sounds/voices disappear (with the occasional return for a brieft time).

There are still times where I can't see 50meters ahead of me even with the 3D brightness maxed out totally, which also gives me some washed out colours, even before trying to raise the contrast. A shame. Especially since other people also complained about black road-sections which sounded, and looked from the screenshots to be almost if not completely identical to my issues.

I bought a Logitech Dual something joypad and it didn't fit my hands at all. I got cramps in all my fingers after barely 2 minutes actual playing time, my hands are just not as small as a childs anymore. It's being returned since I was in pain after those 2 minutes and that's no fun.

At least the joystick allowed me to have reasonable control of the biplane, but having to map rudder to the buttons on what was a functional Logitech Force 3D joystick was confusing especially since the cameras never locked, and in fact several complained about the camera-angles in GTA about that slow turning when walking or driving fast and need to look forward.

Oh well, by parking in a different angle I got the Swoozie mission done so that was nice.

Edit: Sorry Frank, forgot the driver question. I think it's the one from my CD but it is really a pain that MS always bullies it's own drivers in for everything isn't it? Who cares about a media-player or net-browser when everything from a joystick to a scanner don't get permission to use it's own puporse-made programs. To get the 3-in-1 software to be correctly installed the easy and still good start-up manual underlined that I shouldn't plug the unit in before a certain step of the software install and it doesn't take much imagination to figure out it was because it needed to make sure MS wouldn't ruin the driver install.

Frank

Smokey!

06-27-2005, 10:38 AM

Ha ha Frank, yeah some of those keyboards setups just seems insane! If you go to a gym and have CJ learn new moves you have to push the arrow keys AND press ENTER+LCTRL+SOMETHING I FORGOT in order to use them. Its ridicoulus.

I havnt read the whole thread but If you have a ATi card drivers could indeed be a problem as you can´t just overwrite the old ones when you want to install some new ones. Also even though people say one should use the latest drivers, thats proberly not the best for performance. I have a 9800SE and I use the 3.7 drivers as these where the ones that performed best in 3DMark 2003 and 3Dmark 05. I tested all drivers from 3.1 to 4.1 I think it was (Official, Omega and D.N.A). Took one helluva time but i got 25% more performance over the newest drivers at that where availible at the time. Its a long time since I did the test so I cant really remember how you get rid of the former drivers in order to install new ones, but I could research it, if you feel it could be a help to you.

EDIT: If the modelplane mission you are talking about is "Supply lines" then there is a special topic about it on gtaforums as many PS2 people seemed to have problems with it Supply lines (http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=154331)

EDIT2: Found a description of how you remove the drivers manually and as can be seen it is not an easy task, but there should be programs out there to help. Its not for the actual drivers, but it should be something similar to this. The important thing is that the driver are completely removed before installing a new one, including clearing the registry key.

1. Go into the Control Panel and under the ADD/REMOVE SOFTWARE icon uninstall the ATI MultiMedia software and/or the ATI DVD software.

2. Uninstall the ATI drivers also found in the Add/Remove section. Once removed, it will prompt you to reboot....do so.

3. When returning to windows, the NEW HARDWARE FOUND wizard will come up and will tell you that it has found a new VGA card and will prompt you for drivers. Hit CANCEL!

4. Now, go to START - SEARCH - FOR FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for all files and folders using the filename ati*.*
This search will normally give you 3 to 4 files found in your c:/windows directory and subdirectories (including the Windows/System directory). Select these files and erase them. Now go to your Recycle Bin and Empty your bin.

5. Next...time to go to your Registry. Go to START -- RUN -- regedit

Here go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SYSTEM -- ControlSet001 -- Control -- Video . Here there should be 4 entries. 3 of them are default Windows XP entries and the 4th one is put in by the ATI drivers. Expand each one by one until you see ATI entries. Once found, erase the entire key.

Now repeat the same step above for the ControlSet002 key and the CurrentControlSet Key. Normally, whenever you erase a key in the ControlSet001, XP automatically deletes it in the CurrentControlSet section too. So if the ATI key is not found in the CurrentControlSet section, don't worry about it.
Once all keys are deleted, proceed to the next step.

6. While still in the registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SOFTWARE section. Here you should find an ATI Technologies key. Select it and delete it. In that same section, look for an Installed Options key. Expand it and there you should find another ATI Technologies key. Select it and erase it.

7. Still in the registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -- Software and there you should find another ATI technologies key. Select it and erase it. Once all this is done, close the registry. the registry is now clean.

8. Close all windows and reboot.

9. When in windows after the reboot the NEW HARDWARE FOUND WIZARD will pop up again. Cancel that. Now find the new ATI drivers that you have downloaded and extracted and run the SETUP file. Once complete, reboot and you are done. You may want to reinstall your ATI MMC software and DVD software if you use them.

Frank N. O.

06-27-2005, 10:51 AM

Hey Smokey. Lol sounds funny. I thought the excercise alone was nuts enough, it reminded me of the old Commodore 64/Amiga 500 sports-games where you had to run by HAMMERING the buttons on the keyboard or the joystick (which was digital not analogue btw and only had 1 seperate button-output even if it had more than 1 physical button). I never did get around to training fight moves, especially not after the disaster called True Crimes Streets of LA.

I must say though that while there sadly are a lot of bugs then they at least do have crammed a LOT of features into this game. Basketball, BMW-riding/stunts, articulated roadtrains with truck-driver missions, racing-game, sniper-shooting and stealth, sailing, swimming, a real retro-classic: shoot while being driven around (and this so far is both on a bike and a car and there were more than 1 surprise there during the run!), playing with toys, bodybuilding, changing looks etc. etc.

I can only imagine just how much work was needed to make this though, or what kind of pressure the people were under from the money-holders so I'm sad to report all these bugs. Plus as it's been said, it's actually a PS2 only game then converted to the PC and that could mean some big problems not worth to solve.

Ok I'm still a bit under the weather so I'll stop here now, sorry if something here isn't finished.

Edit: Right, the drivers: 6.14.10.6525 Date: 22-03-2005 from ATI (producer, but they are signed by Microsoft comp. something Publisher like the audio one). The sound drivers are from Creative and dated: 04-06-2004.

Frank