doctahg Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 HI, I'm awaiting the full version, but am having lockups in the demo. It works OK at first then seems to lock up when I right click on a unit to move,etc, it...everytime. My system is: P933 512ram Via chipset, TYAN 1254 W98 SOunblaster live Geforce DDR I'm using the latest drivers by the company, not the Beta's. I've cleared out the system before playing and such....any ideas? Thanks 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 How far do you usually get in the scenario before you have this problem ? Does this happen in both scenarios or just one ? I don't know if it would help much, but have you installed the VIA drivers for your motherboard ? VIA 4-in-1 Drivers: http://www.via.com.tw/drivers/index.htm The AGP driver here is probably the only appicable piece of software in regards to your problem. What kind of options to you have set for your GeForce ? Depending on your control panel or applet you may want to adjust some of the settings to see if this affects your lockups. Adjust things like FSAA, overclocking (especially memory clock) and possibly play with the hardware acceleration slider in the System control panel. Do you know what version of the Reference drivers your manufacturer's drivers are based on ? I believe the Reference drivers are up to Detonator 5.32. What mouse are you using ? Do you have unique drivers installed for it or are you using the Windows98 default drivers ? You may want to check out any updates to your mouse software if you're using non-default drivers. Also, as a last resort, you may want to tinker with the "AGP Aperture" setting in your CMOS/BIOS setup. 64Mb is usually the default setting. People who've had success with changing this setting have usually had to "decrease" the size of the aperture. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-30-2000).] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted July 31, 2000 Author Share Posted July 31, 2000 HI, The lockups happen almost instantaneously. I can look around, look all over the map, but when I got to move it locks, usually soon as I try to move and place the path...just now it happened when I right clicked on a unit. I have the VIA agp drivers, my Geforce drivers are the 5.22 whihc are official, 5.32 are beta's. I'm using a USB Razor boomslang mouse with the most recent drivers...so I'm at a loss. DOn't have this problem too often which is why it's bothering me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 Are you running the latest DirectX (version 7.0a)? Charles 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 Is there any way you can borrow a PS/2 mouse and try it out ? There may be an issue with the USB Mouse's drivers and it would be nice to use some default Windows drivers. Other things to check: Turn OFF any themes you may have enabled. Use the default mouse pointers - enhanced/custom ones may cause some graphical problems (but probably wouldn't result in lockups). Do you know if your USB port is sharing an IRQ with anything else ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 1, 2000 Author Share Posted August 1, 2000 Hi, Yes I'm running 7.0a... It's not the mouse....just installed Nvidia 5.32, reinstalle my AGP driver and my SOunblaster files. Went to play, and it locked up again after mving a guy, but the mouse continues to work, and the music contiues to play. As a matter of fact, before I did this it locked up after not even touching the mouse once the game started. I tried all the bios changes as well as the sound/graphics accelerator sliders. Very frustrating. My system isn't exactly simple, but it's pretty generic.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 1, 2000 Author Share Posted August 1, 2000 also..I do have some shared IRQ'd but W98 willnot allow them to be changed, and says there is no conflicts, so I guess they're shared correctly... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 What items are sharing IRQs ? CM may push your system hard enough that a shared IRQ isn't going to cut it - and subsequently you may get a hang. As for you mouse drivers, they may be interacting with the video driver to prevent something being displayed correctly. Your mouse is a USB device and if the USB port is sharing an IRQ with something else, this may be a problem. Though your mouse may move fine, it has possibly interfered with the video driver and caused CM to hang. That's why if you have a PS/2 mouse or if your USB mouse can be used on a PS/2 port, then I suggest that you try it. When you do this you may want to remove your special mouse software and install the generic PS/2 mouse drivers from Windows98. Windows often won't let you change the IRQ of a PCI device since the PNP BIOS will be allocating IRQs for the PCI bus. In order to change this you will either have to have a BIOS/CMOS that is capable of assigning IRQs to specific slots or you may need to physically move around your PCI cards in order to have them take a different IRQ. Reducing your hardware acceleration via the sliders usually should be able to pin point a video/sound driver problem. By reducing them all the way the CPU ends up taking a large share of the chore of processing the data rather than the individual devices. Since this didn't fix your problem (temporarily) then it seems that there is a lot of work ahead of you to get CM running properly. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-01-2000).] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 2, 2000 Author Share Posted August 2, 2000 Hi, IRQ 10 has my EThernet card and the PCI to USB IRQ 11 Has the Geforce and the SBLIVE I do have a free IRQ at 12. I also have quite a few very demanding games and have no problem with them. It's frustrating when 1 game causes a problem as it isn't really that game, but it is if you know what I mean! Just got the full version maybe that'll work! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 2, 2000 Author Share Posted August 2, 2000 Well, just played around with the tutorial, diddled for awhile, then when I hit the + key to check out somemore units it froze...great...thought it was OK for a bit there... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 2, 2000 Share Posted August 2, 2000 Have you tried reducing your "AGP aperture" in BIOS to the lowest setting allowed, as Shrullenhaft mentioned? That has helped some people. Charles 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 2, 2000 Author Share Posted August 2, 2000 Yes, I've tried everything but a regular mouse, and moving IRQ;s qhich I'm not sure how to do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 2, 2000 Author Share Posted August 2, 2000 Well it's not the USB or the mouse. I got rid of the mouse/all USB, put onb the regular intellimouse and still a lockup. Only shared IRQ if the Geforce/SBlive on 11 as it has been since the dawn of time. Nothing but the minimum in system to play so I'm lost. ANyone else with any ideas let me know...this is very frustrating as the game appears to be alot of fun. Paul 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 2, 2000 Share Posted August 2, 2000 Do you have any free PCI slots in your system that you could move the SB Live to ? With your video and sound sharing the same IRQ that could be causing a problem. Both devices are going to get some heavy, concurrent usage from CM and the shared IRQ may just be too much. The PCI slot next to the AGP slot (and sometimes the second slot next to the AGP also) share the same IRQ with the AGP slot. I would suggest moving the SB Live at least a slot or two away from the AGP card. If you need to you may want to swap slots with your Ethernet card (though this may force you to reinstall any network client software and protocols possibly). Your PCI slots furthest away from the AGP card are probably going to share IRQs with the USB, so they may not be a good bet. Another combo would be to move the NIC to the last set of PCI slots (so it would share an IRQ with the USB) and move the SB Live to the slot formerly occupied by the NIC. You may have to play around with your BIOS/CMOS settings and disable "PNP OS" (or some other similiarly named setting that allows the OS to adjust the PNP settings) just after you change PCI slots on your devices. This should hopefully force Win98 to take the IRQs that the BIOS assigns to your PCI devices, otherwise you may get the same IRQs for each device as you had before. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 3, 2000 Author Share Posted August 3, 2000 Hi, No go on that front. My SB was in the second overfrom the AGP, I moved it one overmore and then I got AGP/sound AND ethernet on IRQ 11, plus 3 pci steerings! Now I'm back to just the AGP/sound and a steering on 11. I tried configuration reset in the bios, although I'm not sure what it does, it didn't let me play in W98 though. Playing with the manual PNP in the bios just gives me the choice of PNP/isa or a legacy ISA...have no idea what to do with these. I'd love to move the soundcard but cannot apparently. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted August 3, 2000 Share Posted August 3, 2000 Are you using your serial ports ? You may want to disable one and make the IRQ available for PNP/PCI. Also make sure that IRQ 5 & 12 are available to PNP/PCI (you probably won't have an option for 12, but if you aren't using a PS/2 mouse it may become available). In your Advanced CMOS setup make sure that the "PS/2 Mouse Function Control" is disabled (if that is offered as an option). This should free IRQ 12. Is your motherboard a Tyan S1854 instead of a S1284 ? Do you have on-board audio or is that feature not included on your board (if it is make sure that it is disabled). Do you have 6 PCI slots ? What cards are in which slots ? The PCI slot nearest the AGP slot will usually share the IRQ with the AGP slot. Sometimes the 2nd PCI slot will also share this IRQ. The last PCI slot will often share an IRQ with the USB. If you have over 4 PCI slots then slots 4 - x will share the same IRQ. Other IRQ sharing schemes involve slots 2 & 5 sharing an IRQ, etc. If you manual is very good it may explain which slots share IRQs. The ASUS P3V4X has Slot 1/AGP, Slot 2, Slot 3/6 and Slot 4/5 sharing IRQs. It's possible the Tyan board is using the same sharing sequence (but maybe not since your SB Live was sharing the IRQ on Slot 2 with the AGP). Maybe try putting the NIC in Slot 1 and the SB Live in Slot 3 (or later). Make sure you turn off "Plug & Play OS" if it is an available option. This will force the computer to use the BIOS settings rather than have Windows configure your IRQs (which is not optimal on many occasions). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctahg Posted August 4, 2000 Author Share Posted August 4, 2000 Hi, I may have found/solved the problem...I tried the serial port thing but couldn't get the bios to use them...yes 1854tyan...I downloaded Norton 2000 for the hell of it. It found some avtivex errors which were fixed, but it also found a memory problem. My memory failed once, rebooted, was OK. When it's OK the game works! Then a rebooted for another problem...where I moved my sound card screwed up my ethernet...and started another scenarion, and bam! game froze, after changing the memory...and viola! another memory problem...rebooted...game works. So I sem to have zeroed in on it. I find it hard to believe that 2 high quality banks of 256K133mhz ECC ram both have errors...but now I can test before I play and it's OK...but why no other problem with anything? Very strange indeed but the game is awesome! Thanks for all your help...now you can move on to the strategy forum and answer my questions!<g> Paul 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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