Help, none of my games work!!

[kamin]

Thanks for your fast reply HollyBerri...

My sound card seem to be working fine, I don't recall having any problem with it, except sometimes I hear a crackling background noise when I play the techdemo (maybe it's normal?) but my MP3's play just fine.
How can I make my sound card use IRQ 9 for Windows and MIDI settings?

The games I'm having problems with:
- NHL 2000: the game starts, I see the video sequence perfectly and get to the menu; when I start a game, it crashes and I get back to the desktop.
- Atlantis II: same as NHL but sometimes it freezes and I have to do a reset because nothing works (not even ctrl-alt-del).

My system is:
P-III 500 Mhz
128 Mb Ram
Mother board: Gigabyte GA-6VXE
17" Viewpoint Monitor
- I have the 5.30 drivers for the G400
DX7

Can the monitor have any cause in my card not working right? When you select you monitor in the monitor settings for the Matrox, mine is not listed...

Thanks.

[space7]

Just some question. Quand tu démarre ton ordi esqu'il te dit qu'il manque quelque chose en .dll. Avant d'installer PD 5.30 esque tu a désinstallé l'ancienne versioné Esque tu a testé DX7.0 avec les testes pour voir si tout fonctionné.

[kamin]

Space7:
-no .dll missing (pas de .dll manquant)
-Uninstalled the old drivers with Matrox instructions (Enlevé l'ancienne version avec la méthode Matrox...)
-DX7: no errors except it doesn't recognize de g400 drivers in the display tab (mais les tests fonctionnent).

Kamin.

[space7]

When you installed windows the last time ?Maybe it's time to reinstalled. Parfois the problem is magicely fini

[This message has been edited by space7 (edited 21 November 1999).]

[kamin]

I bought a new PC 2 weeks ago so I started from fresh, still I formatted my hard disk once since then...Tabarnac!

[HollyBerri]

I wonder what you have running in your system tray (and invisibly on startup)... it almost sounds as if you might be running out of resources (yes, I know, you've got lots of memory, so do I-- it doesn't seem to matter to Windows...) because of some program that is hogging memory.


So:[list=1]
[*]What is running in your system tray?[*]Use the System Configuration Utility (in the "Tools" Menu of the System Information program) to see what's running from the registry on startup. Try unchecking anything that may have come from a program that you uninstalled, or that is not really needed to run all the time.[*]if either or both games can run from the hard drive, try running them in Safe Mode (this won't work if they need the CD), and see what happens... Safe Mode runs minimal drivers and no startup items, so you'd have the most possible resources available.[*]have you had any system configuration changes recently? New parts? New software? Have you had the G400 running and it just started giving problems with these games, or did you just install it now? As an upgrade? If so, from what? And your system has NO other problems but for this???[/list=a]

Yet more info, please...

----------------------
Holly

[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 21 November 1999).]

[kamin]

Ok here's what's running in my system tray:
- Gravis gamepad pro control center
- Norton anti-virus auto-protect
- Norton Program scheduler
- Matrox Quick Desk
- GetRight Monitor
- Panorama 32 (wallpaper changer)
- ICQ
- Creativemixer (volume control)

I don't see anything useless running on startup:
GetRight Monitor
Panorama 32
Microsoft Recherche accélérée
Norton Program Scheduler
Mirabilis ICQ
TaskMonitor
SystemTray
LoadPowerProfile
CreativeMixer
GrIP Control Center
Norton Auto-Protect
Matrox Powerdesk

Unfortunatly none of these run only from the hard drive (I could download the NHL demo and
try running it).

I have no other problems than this one. It's a new PC I bought 2 weeks ago, every thing is new in it except for the CD-Rom and my game pads...! I got the g400 with the PC and it never worked well...at first the techdemo wasn't even working. With help from someone here I was able to resolve that problem (see the old thread "Big time problem, please help!" in this forum).

Kamin

[HollyBerri]

Oh, honey, get rid of Find Fast!!!!! (I know enough French to recognize that when I see it... ) I think you can actually uninstall it from 'Add /Remove Programs' in the Control Panel.

It's a <u>notorious</u> resource hog... it may not solve all your problems, but it will definitely help.

------------------
Holly

[kamin]

Help, none of my games work!!

Hey guys, I need help again...

None of my games and I don't know what to do anymore. I even updated my mother board and monitor drivers... no success!

Here's my list of IRQS maybe there's something wrong there:

0 Horloge système
1 Clavier standard 101/102 touches ou Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Contrôleur d'interruptions programmable
3 Port de communication (COM2)
4 Port de communication (COM1)
5 Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI 128
5 IRQ Holder pour PCI Steering
6 Contrôleur de lecteur de disquette standard
7 Port imprimante (LPT1)
8 Horloge système CMOS/temps réel
9 (libre)
10 Realtek RTL8029 Ethernet Adapter and Compatibles
10 IRQ Holder pour PCI Steering
11 IRQ Holder pour PCI Steering
11 Matrox Millennium G400 - English
12 Port souris compatible PS/2
13 Coprocesseur arithmétique
14 Primary Bus Master IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller (Ultra DMA)
15 Secondary Bus Master IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller (Ultra DMA)

I also noticed something strange, I don't have acces to change many things in the PNP/PCI config in the Bios although in my user's manual I should have. I can only see the first 3 lines... all the *IRQ-... assigned to : ... are not available???

Thanks,
Kamin.

[HollyBerri]

Hi, kamin... sorry you're having a hard time...

My French is less than perfect, but I think all your IRQ settings are fine... except your sound card seems to be missing some settings. As I'm familiar with it, PCI sound cards use IRQ 5 for DOS SoundBlaster emulation and (usually) IRQ 9 or so for the Windows and MIDI settings, which yours is not doing. Does your sound work OK? It is more than possible that games are crashing on loading because they are not finding a sound card.

We need more details than "none of my games work" . There's a big difference between a crash that stalls at the splash screen, a crash that drops you back to Windows (but Windows works fine), and a crash that requires you to Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the program and puts you back on a rainbow-striped desktop with black icons.

When you try to start a game, what happens? Does the same thing happen no matter what game, or do different games crash different ways? Are you only playing Win95/98 games, or some DOS games? If DOS games, in a DOS Box under Windows, or in DOS Mode (a good idea, but hard to get working right)?

We alsoo need to know what motherboard and CPU you have in your machine, and any other internal cards. I can see the Soundblaster, and the Ethernet adapter... anything else that might not be showing up?

The reason (most likely) that you can't change the PnP/PCI settings in your BIOS is because the 1st line, "Resources controlled by", is set to Auto. Change this setting to "manual" and you'll see the list.

-----------------
Holly

[kamin]

I disabled Find Fast, no change... Anything else I can do?

[HollyBerri]

It seems that, if you're having no problems but for those 2 specific games, that it might be an issue specifically with those games... which would be better asked in the Gaming forum. Not that we don't love you here in Hardware... it just sounds like you might need a specialist...

-------------------
Holly

[ALBPM]

Disable all the Norton's applications and then try your games.

Paul

[kamin]

Thanks guys, I'll try disabling everything but systray and explorer... if that doesn't work I'll go to the gaming forum. The problem is I already posted there and every reply I get tells me that the game works perfectly with the card and they didn't have any setup to change??

See ya!

[Gurm]

Kamin,

A first step:

Using CTRL-ALT-DEL, pop up the running programs box. One by one, choose "end task" for all of them EXCEPT "explorer" and "systray". Then try running the game. This eliminates the possibility of it being a conflict with tray programs.

- Ash

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

This signature is not Copyright by anyone. Especially not some guy named Steve. Yeah. That's it. Please don't kill me, Holly.