CMBB is "freezing" on me

[Thomas Goetz]

Before I begin my problem description, here are some specs on my system:

PIII 400 Mhz

GeForce 2MX400 3D card, driver 4.13.01.2890

256 megs of RAM

Direct X 8.1b

OK, some background. Been playing CMBO for about 2 years on my system (minus some of the hardware listed above, more on that later). Always worked fine, never had any technical problems, except that I couldn't get any of the cool weather graphics, like fog. I originally had an SiS chipset for my graphics.

Downloaded the CMBB demo. It would load, getting as far as the "Loading 3D graphics" prompt. Then the status bar and sound would come up, but the 3D window remained black. After some consultation with this forum, I decided to get a 3D card, and orderd the GeForce.

Card eventually showed up, and after a routine install (somewhat complicated by a loose cable, which temporarily caused me to wonder if the new card had destroyed my hard drive) and a rather more frustrating time loading the drivers, I finally got the sucker in and running, as well as adding some extra RAM for good measure. Bliss! CMBB now shows up on the screen!

Now a new and more insidious problem arises. I can select and load any scenario, both in the demo and the full version, which arrived a couple of days ago. I can bring up the scenario, and even play it. But at a random time, the entire game will simply freeze or lock up. No warning, no funny graphics, the thing just stops responding. I've had it happen in the setup phase, or during the regular turns. Only certainty is that it will happen at some point. I have not been able to complete a full game without it happening at least once.

If the game has gone a couple of turns, I can always reload from the autosave, and keep playing, and have managed to complete some small games that way. But its annoying as hell, and very unpredicatable. Couple of things seem to be constant, though. I have never had it lock up during an orders phase, except for once during the set-up. It has frozen during the "Computer Player Thinking" element, or during the actual turn execution. I have not yet seen it lock up during a video replay after a turn. Not sure if that is relevent, but it seems to have held so far.

As I mentioned before, there are no warnings or any visual clues that something is about to happen. It just does. The sounds continue, at least the ambient background noises do, and I can move the mouse cursor (if it locked up during an execution phase). Cannot input anything after it freezes, though, either with the mouse or through the keyboard. With the demo, even Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't do anything, but with the full version, that at least seems to enable me to shut down the program without rebooting the whole system, which I had to do with the demo.

In the course of trying to fix this, I have downloaded the latest version of Direct X, and the drivers for my new video card are only a couple of months old, according to my system information. So I can't think of any new drivers that might help me.

Any help that can be directed my way would be greatly appreciated. The game is such an awesome one, even compared to CMBO, that it is driving me nuts to have it keep freezing on me like this. It is getting so that I am more worried about when the game is going to freeze than what my opponent might do to me - a sad state indeed!

Thanks in advance, for the great product and the great support!

[Schrullenhaft]

What sound card do you have and is it sharing an IRQ with the video card ? Most likely I assume you have built-in audio too (probably a CMedia chipset) and you basically won't be able to change the IRQ that gets assigned to it and the GeForce AGP video card.

If you are sharing an IRQ between the two devices, then you could attempt to 'disable' the audio and see how CMBB plays. However no audio may cause a problem with CMBB starting up.

Updating the audio drivers may help, but again may also do very little for your problem. You could possibly adjust the 'acceleration' of the audio driver in the DirectX Diagnostic's (for Win9x it is at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DXDIAG) Sound tab. Adjusting the slider to the left may be worth trying out.

Is this the motherboard with the built-in SiS video ? Did you uninstall the SiS drivers ? With some of the SiS intergrated video chipsets I've found it best to probably uninstall the video drivers if there is no way to disable the built-in video. The SiS video should be identified as 'Standard PCI SVGA' with a black exclamation mark in a yellow circle next to it. However there is no guarantee that removing the SiS drivers will really do much for you.

There may also be compatibility issues with your SiS chipset and the GeForce line. I've run into this on a SiS 630 chipset (though it may be the motherboard BIOS, but I'm not sure). Some motherboards may not be engineered very well to support AGP video cards and it is possible that the GeForce is drawing a bit too much current which ends up locking up the CPU (though I would have suspected that the sound would have stopped most of the time in this situation).

[Thomas Goetz]

Here are some of the answers for your questions.

The sound is from a AWE64 SoundBlaster card. I will check the IRQ, make sure the sound and video are not conflicting.

The SiS video chipset was a separate card, which I removed before installing the new card.

I will also try tweaking the sound and video settings in DirectX, see if that makes any difference.

The GeForce card is a PCI, not AGP, my motherboard doesn't have AGP - too old.

I've not had any problems running any other game software with the new card. I've played a few games, including a very video intensive Diablo2. With that game, the sound gets a little fuzzy if you set the video resolution too high for some of the special effects, but otherwise the game runs fine. That may be an IRQ issue again.

Audio drivers were updated in an effort to get the Diablo sound to clear up. Not had any sound or video issues with any other game that I know of, but haven't played too many of them - too busy with CMBB!

I haven't taken out the SiS drivers, will do that as well.

I'll try some of these fixes and get back to you. If you have any other ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks again for the prompt reply.

[Thomas Goetz]

Nuts, thought I had it there for a bit. Removed the SiS drivers, which reset my monitor to an almost monochrome and low res. Reinstalled the new card drivers, went in easily, unlike the first time around. Aha! I thought - driver conflict. No question the response graphically was much faster, both on the system in general and the game.

Unfortunately, that didn't actually resolve the freezing problem. Now the game runs much faster and smoother before it locks up altogether. Aarrgghh!

What, exactly, am I looking for with the IRQs? All the addresses on my system seem to occupied, but I am not sure. Not enough time digging around in the guts of my system, I guess. I'm also going to play around with the acceleration of sound/video, see if that helps.

[Thomas Goetz]

Here's some additional information. Been playing around with the various accelerator settings, trying to get some results. Was initially encouraged, because I'd finally been able to fix a problem with another program. After I'd installed the new video card, I was checking out some other games, to see how it affected them. One, a role playing game, played an opening animated movie much more smoothly, but with very crackly sound. By tweaking the various sound and video accelerator levels, I was able to eliminate this. Thought it might do the same for CMBB.

Only problem is, when I try to run CMBB at the lower graphics accelerator levels, I get a message telling me to accept a 480x640 resolution, regardless of what my monitor is set at. If I accept this, I get a message saying the game cannot run on those graphics. If I don't accept this, I get punted right back to the desktop.

So I seem to be stymied. Slow down the acceleration enough to keep the game from freezing, and it won't even start. Speed it up, and the game locks - often during the "Computer Thinking" phase.

By the way, I also get kind of odd sound - some sort of background crackle - when trying to play CMBB on the higher settings. Doesn't interfere with or block the regular sounds, but is sort of an undertone that is hard to hear. I'm sure this means some kind of conflict between the video and sound systems, but still can't figure out how to resolve it

[Schrullenhaft]

If you reduce the 'graphic acceleration' slider too much it turns off the 3D hardware rendering. This forces CM to reselect a 'software mode' resolution, which is limited to 640x480. However this resolution isn't enough to run CMBB.

The AWE64 is usually an ISA sound card. It shouldn't really be sharing an IRQ with any PCI devices (to my knowledge). Do you know if you have 'PCI Delay Transaction' enabled in your CMOS/BIOS setup. This setting helps PCI devices avoid some potential problems with ISA devices.

To check your IRQ usuage go to Control Panels > System control panel > Device Manager tab > double-click on the Computer icon in the device listing. This should bring up the resource allocations starting with IRQs. You can ignore any entries with 'IRQ Holder for PCI Steering'. However pay attention if more than one device has the same IRQ. Sharing IRQs is actually allowed, but it can be problematic for some drivers.

As for the 'crackling sound' I've heard of this with PCI SoundBlasters on VIA (and some other) chipsets, but in this case that probably isn't the cause. It could just be the sound card's on-board amplifier, which can sometimes be a 'noisy' amplifier.

Do you know which motherboard you have and if you have an up-to-date BIOS for it ?

[ October 03, 2002, 02:01 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Thomas Goetz]

Further updates on my situation. The sound card is using IRQ 05, while the video card is using IRQ 10. There are also two of the "PCI Steering" uses listed for IRQ 10.

I cannot find a "PCI Transaction Delay" anywhere in my CMOS or BIOS settings, so I have no idea if it is enabled or not.

According to the dealer from whom I bought the machine, the motherboard is either a ASUS P5AB, P2B98, or an Abit BH6. In the spot where I was told to look for the motherboard id during start up, I get the following information: 11/26/98 VP3-586B-8669-2A5LES2AC-00. I have not done anything to upgrade the BIOS on this system that I am aware of.

The game is still jamming on me, usually on the first turn "Computer Thinking" phase. I tried loweing all the in-game graphics to their lowest settgings, to see if that would help, but no good.

This is driving me nuts.

[Schrullenhaft]

That BIOS string is WRONG. It is for a Socket 7 motherboard from Soyo (SY-5EHM family) that is based on the VIA MVP3 chipset. It WOULD NOT support a Pentium III, The Abit BH6 or the ASUS P2B98 are the only valid choices if you actually have a Pentium III (actually if it is 400MHz it is a Pentium II more likley). The ASUS P5AB is a Super Socket 7 motherboard based on the ALI chipset that supports AMD K6-2/3 CPUs.

The Soyo and the ASUS P5AB are both AT motherboards, while the ASUS P2B98 and the Abit BH6 are ATX motherboards.

As I suspected, the ISA and PCI devices won't be sharing IRQs.

Depending on which motherboard you actually have, the GeForce card may be too much for it. This is especially true of the two AT motherboards.

Can you play CMBO at all with this setup ? Are you using only the default textures with CMBO or are you using some graphical mods with it ?

[Thomas Goetz]

I'll take your word for the motherboard/BIOS situation. I can play CMBO just fine with this machine. Could play it fine before getting the new card, only limit was I couldn't get some graphics, like fog. Plays the same way, only faster, with the new video card - and now I can get fog graphics, and better smoke, etc. in CMBO. Haven't used any mods at all with CMBO, all default textures.

Not had any problems with any other software I currently have installed on the system, other than some sound 'crackle' on certain games - and that can be dealt with by altering video acceleration, etc.

Not sure what to do about the BIOS. Would upgrading it help?

[George-III]

Thomas,

I am having the same problem you are. Random lockups. I also have a Geforce and Soundblaster type card. If I use a different video card I dont have a problem so I suspect its the Geforce.

I have come up with a very unusual solution that has worked very well for me and might help you. It seems that my system is very heat sensitive. The lockups only occurred during the day when it was hot. If I took the case off and turned on the A.C. the lockups stopped.

Try cooling your system down and see if it helps.

[Thomas Goetz]

George - thanks for the tip. I will try it out - maybe remove the case and stick a small fan down by the tower, see if that helps. I'm still hoping to be able square away the hardware issues, too. Now I really want to find out what the issues are with my BIOS/motherboard. That could be a real issue. Thanks again.

[arax3]

Ian: Can I upgrade my computer chip from PIII to PIV without buying another MB? Thanks! L3 :confused:

[Thomas Goetz]

Well, dip me in brown sugar and call me for breakfast! George, I owe you one! Your fix worked just fine. Kind of a temporary solution, perhaps, but I've been able to play two 25 turn games, start to finish, without a single problem or freeze. Never managed to go even 10 without a lockup before.

I just took off the tower cover, and put a small fan under the table. Worked like a charm. Of course, I still want to find a more permanent fix, as leaving the cover off is not really something I'm wild about doing. I still want to see if there are any issues with the BIOS too.

Schrullenhaft, George, thanks loads for the help. If there are any other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

[Schrullenhaft]

arax3 - unfortunately you can't upgrade your CPU from a PIII to a P4. Completely different sockets, chipsets, memory, etc. It will require a motherboard replacement to upgrade to a P4.

Thomas Goetz - Are the fans on your CPU and video card spinning and at full-speed ? Maybe a case mounted fan (8cm) might help. Generally I find fans blowing in to be best way of mounting them, but I'm not sure how bad your overheating problem is and if it is only the CPU or the video card that is your problem. I'd suggest mounting a fan blowing inside on the back of your case (close to the CPU hopefully).

[ October 06, 2002, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]