Demo constantly crashes

[Snake Bitey]

I don't know if this problem has been discussed a lot here, but every time i try to play the Combat Mission demo, it crashes frequently. Once I'm into the actual game, it always crashes to the desktop after a few seconds or minutes. Can anyone help? Thanks. My specs:

K6-2 333 mhz

192 MB RAM

Voodoo3 2000 AGP

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"We live in a world of tradition, and the military is full of it."

[Schrullenhaft]

You may want to update your video drivers if you haven't already. Though this is no guarantee that it will fix your crashing problem, a good number of problems on here often have to do with the video drivers.

3dfx Voodoo3 2000 drivers WHQL (1.05.00):

http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo3/voodoo3_win9x_new.stm

Latest BETA driver (1.05.01):

http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo3/voodoo3_win9x_beta.stm

What audio card are you running ? Do you know if you are sharing any IRQs between your devices ? Go to Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > double click on the "Computer" icon. Here you'll be presented with a dialog box defaulted to the listing of IRQs, look down the list to see if more than one device is using an IRQ ("IRQ Holders for PCI Steering" can be ignored).

What OS are you running, Windows 95 (A or B,etc.), 98 (1st or 2nd edition) or something else ? Do you see any error dialog boxes when you crash to the desktop or does CM just disappear and nothing else appears wrong ?

Some players have had success in adjusting their "AGP Aperture" in the BIOS/CMOS setup. Reducing this value (which is usually set to a default of 64Mb) has helped a few people, but some motherboards either don't allow for the adjustment or don't go down far enough to make a difference.

[Snake Bitey]

I used to be running those newest V3 drivers, even the beta, but the problem was present then, too.

I'm on Win98 (1st edition I assume).

Don't seem to be any IRQ problems, except some shared ones at the end of the list concerning IDE controllers.

My big concern is the sound card. It's the same one that came with the original computer in '96---just a standard SB 16. I read that CM uses 3d sound, and there's no option to turn that off in the demo. If 3d sound was enabled, would my card (that doesn't do 3d sound) have problems, or just not work altogether?

P.S. Thanks a lot for your time.

[Guest Big Time Software]

The sound card could be a problem. Have you updated its drivers? You can also turn off sound by pressing SHIFT-S once or twice from within CM.

Charles

[Schrullenhaft]

You should have some of the latest drivers for your SB 16 with DirectX 7.0A. I'm not sure of the SB 16's support of 3D sound. I'd assume it would work (just two channels).

If you believe your sound card may be a problem then you can tinker around with DirectX's control of it by launching the DirectX Diagnostic/Setup: C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIRECTX\SETUP\DXDIAG.EXE. Go to the Sound tab and adjust the "Hardware Acceleration" slider to the left.

[Snake Bitey]

Well, okay.

The drivers are fully updated.

I tried playing with the sound hardware acceleration and turning the game sound off.

No change in stability.

So if 3d sound is not a problem for my hardware, my sound card is not the problem.

I guess it's just one of those vague, unclassifiable problems specific to a certain system setup (namely mine). I'm so tired of getting games to work that I'll just pass on this one. A shame, too, because this looked like a really cool, deep game. Anyway, thanks for all your advice; this is one of the most helpful bb's I've encountered.

[Schrullenhaft]

Before you give up completely you may want to adjust another setting. Go to Control panel > System control panel > Performance tab > Graphics button. Adjust the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. This affects your display driver's handing-off of DirectX instructions to the video card. By moving the slider to the left you will slow down your video card (and consequently force the CPU to do more of the video work). This sometimes helps with certain situations.

Delete your CM prefs file. This should force you to go through the resolution selection again. Select a 640 x 480 resolution and see if CM will work now.

[Cardinal Fang]

Howdy Snake Bitey,

I feel your pain. I too was having a lot of problem getting CM to work. I was getting lockups and the occasional Blue Screen Of Death though. My system is a K62-500 w/ 64 MB, a Voodoo3 2000 PCI, and an Aopen AW724 sound card. At first I thought it was just my sound card but the game would hang even with the sound card disabled. What finally seems to have worked for me (keeping fingers crossed!) was to turn of 3D sound, turn off the weather, and turn off ambient sound. It's possible that I could turn the ambient sound back on but after all I went through trying to get it to work I'm hesitant to change anything. I'm debating using the Voodoo3 BETA drivers but so far I haven't worked myself up to it. I hope this helps. Even if what works for me doesn't work for you I thought I'd let you know that the game was definately worth the hassle of getting it to work.

Cardinal Fang

Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition!