I upgraded my machine last week to a Dell XPS notebook computer - P4HT @ 3.4G, 1 G RAM, 128M ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 graphics card w/ a 15.4 "letterbox" screen.

The FIRST thing I did was load TT and played a dozen games or so on it. No problems at all. After a little bit of experimentation, I decided to leave the resolution settings at 1600x800, primarily due to the fact that at higher resolution the radar was about the size of a quarter.

The next thing I did was load McAfee VirusScan & firewall.

Since then, TT will sporadically freeze during games. Sometimes after 3 hours, sometimes within seconds of the game starting. The machine completely locks up and I have to cut the power off to restart. I have experimented with resolution settings to no avail. I have also ensured that every hardware driver on the system is up-to-date. I have also uninstalled McAfee (was actually the first thing I did).

Anyone have any ideas? My email's in my profile.

Last edited: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 at 1:18:07 PM

Hmm.. No idea. Are you running the latest video drivers? Have you tired reinstalling the game? If you are running into problems, it would be better to email support@bravetree.com so that we don't miss it (sometimes posts here get a little buried and it is too easy to hit 'mark all as read' and never see it)

@ PokeMalo

Thanks for the response. Will do that now. I will also re-install the game this evening and let you know if that fixes it.

Do you have the antivirus software scheduled to do anything (Virus scans, ect)? Does the game freeze up at set times during the day/week/month?

Okay - this is definitely a video driver issue. More to the point - it has something to do with the screen resolutions changing back and forth. Re-installing TT seems to fix it temporarily, but after I run TT once, close it, then open it again the video is all "liney" and funky. Re-installing and rebooting fixes it, and then the cycle repeats.

@ Nathan

No - I never got a chance to. All of this happened within 10-15 minutes. Am still experimenting and am going to try re-installing McAfee to see what happens once this is "completely" fixed.

Does it do it with every resolution u set in TT or just 1??

If your using nview disable it

B

@B

So far it does. I think it has something to do with the 16:9 aspect.

I have disabled all of the "background" programs - Dell really loads new machines up with them.

Cheif do a search of 16:9 aspect ratio and opengl games. See what problems turn up...also search the tribes forums

Do a search on all of your open processes and make sure that each one is legit. I have a couple of development services that completely hose TT if I leave them running.

B

@ Bolo

Am still having to un and re install TT each time I want to play.

Is it okay to delete open processes that show as "loaded by...." me? Not system loads, correct?

Also - apparently there is a BIOS update - but what's so friggin funny is that it is suppossed to be run from a floppy - which ain't available on this model. I think I should still be able to run it from CD though.

Engineers - gotta luv 'em.

Will let you know if this BIOS update does anything.

Download another opengl game demo and see if the same problem arises. Better yet download an opengl TORQUE game and see whats up.

FYI most newer bios updates can be run from any bios supported drive.

If possible try swapping another card to see if TT behaves...

B

UPDATE

Finally figured this one out. Once I disabled "Full Screen Mode" it has been performaing flawlessly.

@ All - thanks for the tips and help.