UT, glide-emu and D3D

[fiddlerboy]

Ok, here a couple o' questions:

1. Whatever happened to the glide emulator/wrapper? It is written in the frame on the left, but when I click on it, it downloads the resolution manager. They aren't the same thing, are they? I also can't find on MURC anywhere. I'd like to try it out!
Or did 3dfx put the smack down on those things, like I thought I heard they were going to do?

2. Unreal Tournament is nice and pretty in d3d (too bad I can't use openGL, cuz I'm learning to program in it, and "hands-on experience" would be nice ;-), but it always runs in a window with d3d.
I un-installed and re-installed UT, but it still runs only in a window, and that only in d3d. Software is ok, but not nearly as pretty or fast, and openGL is just un-playable (or does it catch up with itself after a long cache at the begining and stuttering for quite a while there after?)

My system: K6-2 350, Epox MVP3G rev .4, G200 w/8megs, 128megs of good PC100 ram, PD 5.25, bios 2.3, DirectX 6.1

I don't think this is a system issue, but more a setup of the game issue. And I checked in the .ini files, and they all say StartupFullscreen=True !!!!

thoughts? or should I do a registry search, and really clean it off the system? (I hope not), or does it really require DX 7.0? cuz that was making my system even more screwy....

[This message has been edited by fiddlerboy (edited 03 November 1999).]

[Scytale]

1. The link on Phil's home page is messed up, ask him to correct it. The file you're looking for is xgl200_0.04a.zip
2. You need DirecX 7
3. Hmm... no 3?

[fiddlerboy]

So then. If I need DirectX 7.0, what are people's thoughts on it? I installed it earlier, and it just made my system more unstable in general. Has there been a newer/bug-fixed version, or have other people not been having trouble with it?

[Scytale]

Hmm, it works pretty well for me. No problems really. I haven't heard many complaints/horror stories about it either, so I guess it's relatively solid.

What were your problems, and what are your hardware specs?

[fiddlerboy]

Ok: HW specs mostly posteded above, plus running win95 OSR2 with most relevent upgrades (y2k, USB, a couple TCP security patches, K6 update)
latest system bios (3.41 or something like that)
Diamond MonsterSound MX300, but using Aureal's 2040 drivers
3Com 3C509B
Maxtor 6.4GB HDD
Some generic 40x CD-ROM
4 in 1 drivers from VIA version 4.14
Busmastering is enabled on both the HDD and CD-ROM, but that doesn't seem to be a problem currently.

ok, now that that is done with (and you know way more about my system then you ever wanted), what happened after I installed DX 7.0 was just generally greater instability (Netscape blew up about twice as often, or there abouts, the system had trouble shutting down sometimes, and startup was much slower.)

Mostly the problems were more insubstantial (aka, the system just seemed to crash more often than it did before, or than now, because it is pretty solid.) I removed DX 7 with the DirectX uninstaller which was posted here earlier, so I suppose I could try it again, but I'd like to hear if anyone else has had trouble with it. I thought there were some posts here about DX 7 trouble a while ago, but that might have been with the beta (so of course there would have been problems).

anyway, thanks for all help, it is much appreciated.

[This message has been edited by fiddlerboy (edited 03 November 1999).]

[Scytale]

Thanks. From what you have posted, I only notice the 3c905B as a potential cause of your problem. Make sure you get the latest drivers, there's a known issue with these NICs and some video cards. For your reference: http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/005311.html

[fiddlerboy]

Well, excepting that it is a 3C509B, not 3C905 which is the PCI 100 mbit version (this one is only 10mbit and ISA). I have the latest drivers (and there is only one version: the 6.1 etherdisk, which is what I am using. Is there some setting in the diagnostics that I should try?

This could be why I haven't been able to play HL online. Whenever I try to it crashes the system within a minute or so. It hasn't been at the top of my priority list, cuz I don't have time to really play much team fortress, but I'd like to get it working.

So is the 509B ok, or should I do something special to it?

thanx

[Scytale]

I was hoping you made a typo. I had my share of problems with the 3c509x ISA cards, but that was long long ago. ISA is something to avoid these days, especially early PnP ISA cards (like the 3c509B).

You may want to try to remove the NIC to see if this will resolve your problems. And -obviously- make sure that you have no resource (IRQ/IO/memory/DMA) conflicts.

[fiddlerboy]

Ok, so you think that just getting a PCI NIC woudl fix my troubles? If so, what do you recommend? Another 3Com, or something else? (and please noone say Zircom, this network makes them grumpy.)

No IRQ/IO/memory/DMA conflicts that I can find. Well, the G200 is sharing memory with the CPU to AGP controller, which makes sense, and several devices are sharing with the IRQ holder for PCI steering, which they have to do. But there are no actual conflicts.

The NIC is on IRQ 5, both the hardware setting, and Plug 'n Pray. If there really isn't anything to do but go get a new card, I just might have to do that then. phooey... 'n me so poor...

[Scytale]

Don't waste money on a NIC yet, it may be something completely different.
The sort of instability you're describing can be caused by many things. Here are some things to check:

• driver settings - AGP1X, busmastering
• BIOS and driver upgrades
• heat - run w/o case lid
• seating of cards/dimms/cpu/connectors
• hidden conflicts - remove cards/drivers
• memory - remove/swap dimms
• bogus software setup - fresh W95 install, add patches and upgrades one by one
• power supply - try another one

The NIC is just something that caught my attention. So if you still encounter instability after having installed DX7 final, you may want to try removing it.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about Netscape crashing, that's quite normal...

[This message has been edited by Scytale (edited 06 November 1999).]